Your most reliable wreck?

[RustyNuts]

So... we've all had them... the old rusting wrecks that you dread being seen in.... usually dropping to bits, catalytic converter sounding like a tin of nails, engine making unhealthy squeeling sounds etc....

 

Ours is a red honda civic 1.4 T reg. There is simply nothing good about it - everything is shot and frankly i'm surprised the doors still open. But here's the thing... the pesky thing refuses to die. The autobox has been loosing fluid for years (without a topup) and it STILL goes anywhere i need it to (though it sounds like some part of the chasis is flexing when i go over little bumps so it may not for much longer).

 

Anyway.. thats our reliable pain in the grass of a wreck... i can't wait to be shot of it... lol

 

So.. what about you? - What is your best autoshite and just how bad is it?

[twosmoke300]

Starlet loan car - just never goes wrong 

Every panel has a ding or mark of some sort and the paint is as flat as a witches tit . Interior isnt v nice either tbh .

138k on the clock too .

[Jim Bell]

Pics of the honda.

[Ghosty]

Pics of the honda.

 

I think I'd die out of pure boredom if I ever lay eyes on another late '90s Civic.

[2MB]

Never (touch wood) had an FTP in any of my shitters apart from a handful in a mk2 Golf GTD, so they've all been the most reliable apart from that one

[Dave_Q]

The most surprisingly reliable wreck I had was a 220k ish mile Citroen Berlingo.

 

Driving it was not a pleasant experience but it only let me down in ways I caused myself by running on biodiesel (Lucas pump).

 

The cambelt looked pretty shocking but I decided I couldn't be arsed to change it.

 

I later bodged in some rear seats from a multispace and went on a 1600 mile road trip with 3 mates, the van ate it up.

 

Only got rid as I needed something to carry children in.

[dollywobbler]

I think generally, all of my wrecks have been reliable. The free Volvo conked out due to alternator failure, and that was the first time I'd called the AA out since the 300k-mile BX estate blew a major hydraulic pipe in 2013 (still got home, and then over a mile away - just needed the car recovering to a specialist). 

 

A year before that, the 2CV needed a tow after the fan pulley sheared about 10 miles from home. I wasn't happy at the thought of climbing over a mountain with a non-working fan. That was 2012 I think, and the previous breakdown call out was in 2007, when a Citroen H van's windscreen exploded in Germany. 

[Lukas]

The most reliable wreck I had was this:

 

 

A 1980 Subaru 1800 4WD GLF Sedan. I bought it for almost nothing (100 Euro) in January 2008 from an old lady.

The car stood almost 3 years in the garage, untouched. I had it welded a bit to pass the austrian-MOT and drove it

until June 2008 without any problems as a daily driver. I even sacked the air-filter because more ROOOAAARRR from

the boxer-engine. The oil was black and very old, I did not do anything to it. Not even a service. 

 

As you can see, the paint was kaputt, different shades of brown and red all over the car. stone-chip sprayed on the rusty

doors. It looked horrible. 

 

After a few thousand kilometres, I sold it for 800 Euro. 

[R9UKE]

Mine would have to be this 1992 Clio RT Auto.

 

 

 

I bought it with a years test but slightly slippy auto box back in 2010 for £100.

 

It was fine when cold, once it warmed up you did need a kind of pulsing technique with the throttle to get it to change up - once in third and fourth it was absolutely fine. Not a problem once you'd gotten used to it and it was the perfect companion for my side line of delivering Chinese every weekend while at uni.

 

Anyway, it did a good few months without event. Then it started playing silly bugger when going to start it. The starter was sticking, and I refused to spend any money on it so.... 1 out of 5 starts (which is quite a lot when delivering food), I'd pop the bonnet, give the starter a good whack with a 10 mil and voilà.

 

Then came that Friday night when some homeless guy decided Clio RT velour was the place to sleep for the night.

 

 

This was before or after trying to steal it, when the sticky starter obviously acted as a golden anti theft device and is probably the reason it survived that night. (This one was too early to have an immobiliser)

 

 

I thought it was dead. Patched everything together and still the little thing wouldn't show any life. Called the scrap man. Went out to try it one last time and the bugger started. I just laughed.

 

Patched the quarter light up with a very well trimmed bit of Perspex and she was back in service.

 

A few months later I got out to shut the gates and left it in Reverse. She got very well acquainted with the hedge and a ditch. Pulled out by a tractor, bumper drilled back on and that was her good again.

 

 

A few weeks later the battery light came on joining the motorway with a Chinese. The alternator belt had disintegrated. I limped back to base with dim headlights, an even more bizarrely behaving auto box and let her rest for the night. The next day she started and drove to my auto store to get a new belt. Unbelievable.

 

Then the day came - I pushed it just a little too hard and all forward drive started to become a bit dodgy. It would reached about 20 mph then start to slip very badly. It went downhill very quickly after that and she was forced into retirement from delivering North Belfast its food. I wanted to keep the old girl over at my yard and ended up giving up about 2 miles from the destination and reversing the rest of the way (Reverse was 100%!).

 

At this point the test was up and she became a shed. Still started with a whack on the starter and reversed around all day long. Sat for about a year then sadly had to be cleared to create a bit of space.

 

What a car, tough as old boots these Clios.

[Junkman]

I never had a particularly unreliable wreck - or even car, except two Citroen CXes and the Possessed Rover©.

But the most outstandingly reliable wreck I ever had was a Peugeot 304 Break, which was my WBoD during the record cold Winter of 1986.

There were several weeks of sub -25°. Pretty much anything had stopped working, since everything in Germany is designed for two weeks of -18° as the maximum anticipated cold spell.

There was no public transport, teleheating systems stopped working, and most private cars only started up, when the owner was wealthy enough to have a heated garage.

The Peugeot never failed to start on first try and served as a shuttle bus throughout most of the period, doing all sorts of school runs, bringing people from the hood to and from work,

gathering supplies for old people unable to leave their homes, etc etc.

When temperatures became more ambient again, we went on a ski trip with it and left it in a car park at Spitzing for almost two weeks. We had to dig it out of the snow when we returned,

and again, it started up on first attempt.

Sadly it was so rotten, that there was no chance for it to pass another TÃœV, hence it ended in a Rodeo race.

[dave21478]

My daily just now is the 200 Euro Escort estate. Bought with a dead engine, I fitted a lump from a field car some chavs had been thrashing around the vinyards until they killed the suspension and its been perfect ever since.

Rot holes in the sills big enough to fit my fist into, but thats of no concern for the CT here, it runs and runs, is smooth, comfortable and quiet. Even has working AirCon.

 

[derskine]

 

It's now a bit knackered due to snapped timing belt but that's entirely my fault.

It gave me 20k relatively trouble free miles (a few issues) prior to this.

Total wreck though, back box fell off on a roundabout and nearly cunted a Zafira.

It also leaked coolant for several months, requiring me to carry about 8 litres of water everywhere I went.

Drivers sill was extremely knackered, basically not attached all the way along.

 

It'll go again, when I get round to welding it.

[Cleon-Fonte]

So far the Swedish and Japanese cars I've had have (unsurprisingly) proved the most reliable. The Volvo 340 I had as my first car never went wrong, never needed anything more than routine maintenance (and probably would have been good for 3million miles without even that, in fairness), nothing ever broke or stopped working. I imagine it would have made a perfect nuclear fallout car had not an unfortunate incident with a BMW 3-series drastically shortened its life.

 

The Daihatsu's much the same, although the bombproof mechanicals are unfortunately wrapped up in a shell that likes to rust, and rust fast (which hopefully I've curbed with the two tonnes of waxoyl that have been used to coat it).

 

The Peugeot 307 was also mechanically bombproof but was lumbered with electrics that were sometimes hit and miss, so on a few occasions it failed to proceed because the ECUs forgot what the fuel injectors or the gearbox were supposed to do. That and the time the radio decided to randomly change the volume by itself every few minutes.

 

Least reliable? The Rover SD1, which once needed AA assistance three times in one day, followed by the VW Polo I bought new in 2012, which did amusing things like lock itself in first gear (needless to say it was gone by the time it was six months old).

[cros]

Simca 1100. A left hand drive 4 year old one bought around 1979, poverty spec and sounded (as they all did) as if the valve clearances were about 1/2 inch- sorry, 12.7mm. I know very little about these cars, I just drove it and serviced it for 2 years but can't remember doing any repairs at all. I remember it had an unusual (to me) type of distributor which allowed you to set the dwell by sticking a hex key into the side- were the points some kind of pre-gapped on those things? Anyway just a means of transport that gave no grief. If the points were anything to go by the cars were designed for a longer service interval than UK cars, though when the Metro came along I think they followed suit.

  Will try to dig out a photo.

[captain_70s]

 

I suppose my 1850HL was more reliable overall but it was arguably less of a wreck to being with.

 

The 1300's engine is knackered, it was drinking 5L of oil a week, some of it leaking out off the join twixt the block and cylinder head, some getting out of the rocker cover seal and even some venting out of the oil filler cap, most of it escaped via the exhaust. It wouldn't idle consistently, it was way down on power, the clutch hydraulics leaked and the rear shocks were dead. It also leaked oil from the sump plug and coolant from various places, having too many electrical bits on at once ran the battery flat even when the car was running, it ate two starter motors and two alternators, the exhaust fell off twice, the headlights were held in place with cardboard and bathroom sealant, all dash instruments and lights would die on a regular basis due to dodgy wiring, top speed was 55mph, water leaked into the cabin and boot, the rear arches had massive holes in them as did the rear edge of the sills. Starting the car on a cold morning invoked cranking it for a good couple of minutes with the choke out and praying it'd eventually splutter and cough into life, which it always did. Eventually.

 

The number of times it failed to get me to my destination in the 10,000ish miles I drove in it was in low single figures (three times, perhaps?), it's never been on a recovery truck or needed a tow! Surely better than the average BL car when it was brand new?!

I only took it off the road as the starter motor dying (covered in oil from the engine leaks) in combination with the duff exhaust and corroded sills meant an affordable MOT was unlikely...

[xtriple]

Many, many years ago I took in part ex an old Datsun estate. I honestly cannot recall what it was model wise, but it was 2 litre, manual and yellow. It was also rusty as fuck and clinging to life by the skin of its little Japanese finger nails.

 

Nothing could kill that car!

 

Everyone used it for horsey shit, moving houses, towing other cars, fetching parts, nipping to the scrap yard for bits (but never parked too close!) anything and everything. It never received a wash, no one checked the oil, no one did anything to it except put petrol in it when it started coughing and the gauge read under empty and the light had been on so long that bit of the dial was melting.

 

In the end, it got sold to a mate who used it for years, MOTing it yearly by luck and bribery and never, ever spending a penny on it. In the years that car was knocking about, it never had an oil change and the oil looked like crude fresh from the donkey, never had brake pads or any welding and all the rust seemed to cling on more tenaciously as the years passed. I swear it was more solid after five years of neglect and mud encrustation than it was when first acquired.

 

It is probably STILL plying its trade around Plymouth now....

[artdjones]

WTD435T.A Princess 2.0HL Automatic which suited the car well.Bought for £250 around the end of 1986.That was cheap for a 7 year old even then.Ran it for a year without an oil change.It seriously overheated going over the Severn Bridge.When I got to the other side I jammed the stat open and continued about seven miles till I found a garage with a tap.I poured about a gallon of cold water down the filler cap(to the accompaniment of a terrible roaring noise as the cold water met the red hot block)and then just drove on to Bristol. I put a new stat in during the week and next Saturday night used it to go on honeymoon. It seemed to run just fine after that but I scrapped it a couple of months later because a gearbox band was slipping and I couldn't find a new one cheap enough.Replaced with a £30 mini which was as horrible as that sounds.

[fred]

My Faithful Subaru Fozzer - had it nearly 5 years now , starts go's stops, best car I have ever ever had. Everything still works, heated seats, aircon blah blah blah

 

and it still can lift her bloomers up and give it some Wellington

[tinribs]

Navy blue Austin Metro 1.3L. F308 RFS. Engine never let me down once. The hydragas rear displacers decided to have some fun, first the left side, then 6 weeks later, the right. Pop! And down it went. Arse scraping along the road trying to get home, etc. It got me home, limping along under its own steam. Bouncing along on the bump-stops. But it got me home!

Engine ran like a dream, never a problem. Seizing clutch cable, seizing handbrake cable..never a problem to replace nor caused major annoyance beforehand.

The gearbox getting stiff and eventually splitting down the middle and pissing its engine oil everywhere is what killed it. I just didn't have the £350 for a whole unit swap or the lust for it any more.

My current car, 2006 Suzuki Swift I refer to it as my rattlebox. it runs fine, never fails to start. But every year the bearings, bushes, balljoints all need replacing thanks muchly to Edinburgh's assault-course styled roads. And it rattles. A lot. I have a crisp packet (20p beef space invaders) stuffed between window and dash to stop that fucker rattling all the time.

Other crisp packets are available.

And I approve of this message.

[Kiltox]

Has to be my current shed of choice - a 1998 Skoda Felicia 1.3 estate

 

Bought for £160 in May with a year's test - steering lock smashed off because it jammed, ignition switch hanging on its wires out of the dash

 

Radiator fan switch is knackered so a previous owner bypassed it and fitted a switch on the dash - works great if you remember to turn it on! (Two people I've lent it to didn't leading to overheating - topping up the water and using it properly again and it's fine!!)

 

Rattles, creaks, airbag light is on, sunroof leaks, CV joint is knackered, brake pads squeal like hell (but are plentiful)

 

Just goes and goes and goes, dependable as anything!

[Bobthebeard]

I bought a 1996 Seat Ibiza in 2006 for £200 to use as a second car/runaround and dog transporter for beach walks. It had over 100,000 miles and tatty green paint but never failed to proceed in the three years or so that I had it. Did nothing to it apart from a couple of oil and filter changes. It got traded in around 2009 for £185. A great little car really. No rust or MOT fails.

[ShiteRider]

This mechanical arsehole for me, had two years/40,000 needed nothing major bar a rear wheel bearing and front discs+pads. Gets hammered everywhere, interior is oil stained from carrying engines and boxes (with the front passenger seat removed an atlas axle fits) and still it plods on.

I think my own boredom will be it's downfall......

[outlaw118]

My Mark 2 Astra 1300 merit estate. In red, which fairly rapidy turned Pogweasel pink.

 

I formed absolutely no emotional bond with it in the 4 years and 75000 miles i had it, and apart from a middle exhaust section and some tyres i spent absolutely jack shit on it. The oil renewed itself through a weeping rocker cover gasket, so i never actually did an oil change.

 

Not one FTP, despite horrendous abuse on a daily basis, including a terrible round-the-M25 commute to Uxbridge for 4 months, then Croydon for 6 months after that. Weekends used as a ba**er racing "Team Support Vehicle" carrying wheels, generators, paddys bikes, you name it. Performed its greatest feat one Sunday night, towing my brother's Dodge Ram with trailer avec Sierra most of the way back to the yard (7-8 miles) and still having some clutch left.

 

I rewarded it with a wash and vacuum.

 

Couple of months later someone decided they wanted it more than me and nicked it.

[RustyNuts]

 

I formed absolutely no emotional bond with it in the 4 years and 75000 miles i had it, and apart from a middle exhaust section and some tyres i spent absolutely jack shit on it. The oil renewed itself through a weeping rocker cover gasket, so i never actually did an oil change.

 

Funny you say that, our Honda gets the same treatment - none and the fucking thing still goes 2 years later. It was drip loosing oil the day we got it... it's still doing it now LOL

[17-Coffees]

My old Mk2 Phase 1 Clio. 

 

Poverty spec gloss white(which had became matte in places) with unpainted bumpers, damage along the passengers side door and sill as well as the underside of the bonnet being rotten( Especially around the catch) , cloth seats that'd be considered too harsh for Guantanamo bay, two tone plastic door cards and had't had a service in some time. Leaked oil so much so it made BP look good. Bought from one of Aberdeen's most dodgy areas and thought I was going to get mugged for the cash rather than get a car. Did come with wheel trims though! 

 

Never serviced it, this thing got treated as a van for a few months carrying all sorts from dishwashers, gardening waste, furniture...anything really. Even thrashed it on some of the local B-Roads up Cairngorm & Deeside way.

Then after a around 3,000 - 4,000 miles & a few months of abuse, added a set of rear tyres on (old ones beyond legal limit) and having fitted a new bonnet. Stripped the rear of it out fully and took it for my first trackday. Even fitted the correct period RenaultSport stickers. 

Note the lack of wheel trims? Removed as weight saving.

 

Weather was a down pour and some clot has drove round half the track spilling oil before I was due out. In my group was a Nova saloon (that was no way original) and one of the V10 M5's. Oh by this 50-oddHP when new was going to be a thrill. Nerves, track conditions and the fact it's a shite car led to a few off track moments and spins. Knackered the front bearings from it.

Still, between me using it and letting the family use it when they needed. (Turns out that was alot) managed to clock another 7,000 miles on it before she was sold off to may way from the Suzuki Cappuccino. 

 

Still never got round to getting serviced....

[Lord Sterling]

Seemingly, my current KV6 Sterling of head gasket explodingness and crumblyness of radiator is currently only reliable wreck.

 

 

Crumbly rad, leaking water, crumbly sills, autobox desperately clinging onto existence. I really wish I could sort this out and breath some new life into it.

[cms206]

The Council Estate. Bruised, battered, completely gutless, odd coloured panel, no headlining, accident damage and patched up with whatever bits I have. I drove it through a wall a while back too. It has oil retention issues, bangs into every gear and yet it's taken me to three of the four Shitefests, been the one "go to" car when everything else has broken and the sodding thing just laps it up. I have literally no idea whatsoever how it even still runs.

 

Whoever says cars have no soul is a liar. That old brick is a living, breathing entity if ever there was one.

[Felly Magic]

My old 957 Mk2 Fester (F30OVH). Wasn't cheap when I got it, was used and abused, was used as a van to do markets in/toyfairs. Did 30k in it one year, with just one very minor FTP, which i bodged in 2 mins with cable ties, survived an argument with an Astra and British Gas Sherpa, was as complex as a knife & fork. Bought with just 60k on, part ex'd 3 yrs later with 130k on, and it lived for another year. 

[doobietoo]

That will be this .....

 

 

Bought off a m8 who was a salesman at the local VW dealership as a stop gap for a couple of hundred quid.... refused to die... went through 3 mot's while having nothing spent on it. filled it with tiles, drove it through floods that swamped 4x4s and even lent it to a lady friend who had killed her last 2 cars ....it just took everything that was thrown at it and came back for more.....

[Rusty Pelican]

Has to be this.

Bought from a scrapyard for 50 notes in 91 - i cobbled it together with a load of S/H bits including an engine from a 63 Imp which somehow still ran - S/H clutch - gearbox- seats etc etc .I got it MOTed somehow and drove 13,000 miles in the first year alone - it continues to run although its been written off and rebuilt since . In fact it was written off in 74 having totalled an Austin 1100 according to a previous owner . Another previous owner recalls it grenading the transaxle on the M5 and them selling it to the tow in garage for the train fair home.

 

Currently looks  like this taken in 2014 having done 600 miles touring Wales , the 63 engine is no more but the 74 engine now fitted runs fine.