What's the slowest car you've owned?

[pandamonium]

  On 27/11/2018 at 21:37, Lacquer Peel said:

They were fitted with diesels at the factory.

 

The Primera 2.0D with the same engine was mentioned up thread, I had one too and that was a slog to drive, I got so sick of losing speed on corners I gave up slowing down much for corners, Primeras handle well but are tail happy in extremis, accidental drift y0 going under a railway bridge is quite scary.

 

My Xantia 1.9D was just as underpowered but the XUD is more refined and willing than that dour forklift engine in the Nissan.

 

It was on the logbook as petrol, that's how I knew. It was horrid. 

[lanciamatt]

I almost forgot about my fiat regata 85s, for a 1.6 it was shit, I can remember me and lads on M1 from Barnsley to meadowhall which is nearly all down hill and it wouldn't do 100mph. Also front passenger couldn't put there feet on floor as it was vibrating that bad. Those were the days lol

[Squirrel2]

In my younger days it was a Renault 4, with an 845cc engine, that was borrowed occasionally from mother Squirrel. It was slow at the best of times but owing to the lack of a carburettor accelerator pump any need for a burst of power was met by stumble and misfire from its tiny engine. I cannot remember ever overtaking anything in it....

 

More recently it was a Xsara 1.9D; its gutless N/A DW8 engine made about 68hp on a good day - old giffers in Yarises burnt me off at the lights. I cannot believe it now but I tolerated a quarter of a million miles in that Xsara before its rear suspension tried to kill us.

 

My mate bought a 2002 ex Postman Pat LDV (Sherpa) and to my horror we discovered that it had been saddled with the same PSA motor - the French must have had a good laugh when they signed that deal with Leyland Vehicles...! With a dreadfully mis-matched set of five gears it literally was quicker to walk.

 

Squirrel2

[Liggle]

My Polo 'Fox' breadvan was achingly slow above 30. 1043cc and 45bhp of misery. To make it worse they don't come fitted with a stereo.

 

I also had a 1.3 version which despite only 10bhp more was completely different.

[Vince70]

I think for me it must of been my 105e anglia which would just about get over 70 with a strong wind behind it and going round bends would make some impressive wheel squeal on its 20 year old cross ply tyres.

 

But my favourite slow car was my non turbo 1.9 xantia as it was a car you didn’t want to drive fast in anyway with that lovely soft suspension you just wanted to waft and take in the scenery and sit back in those lovely comfy seats achieving 40 plus to the gallon.

 

For some reason everyone in my family wanted borrow that car for family holidays etc as it was just perfect at everything it did apart from 0-60

[rainagain]

I had my OH's old 206 with a 1.9 DW8. Pushing down the accelerator just resulted in more noise rather than a gain in speed. Motorways were a struggle you'd have it wound up to 70 and you'd come up behind a car in the fast lane doing 60ish, you would slow down and they would move over, then you just had to sit there and very very slowly start to accelerate past them. Sometimes if the motorway started going up a hill you had to give up and drop in behind them. It was also pretty crap on fuel if you pushed it. On the plus side it made it to over 200,000 miles with no engine work and it still used no oil between changes, whilst my colleague's TDCis were all crapping DMFs and injectors.

[Junkman]

Did I ever own a slower car than a Renault 4L?

If yes, I can't remember it.

[SierraMikeHotel]

 

 

  On 27/11/2018 at 19:20, Zelandeth said:

I think the big definition of "too slow" is whether you are regularly causing the general flow of traffic to back up behind you.

 

I expected that to be the case in my Merc camper (2.something tonnes, 78bhp N/A diesel and the aerodynamic properties of a shed) to be in that camp...until I'd spent a few days driving it and discovered that nope...I still invariably seem to wind up stuck behind something. Usually a Prius taxi with the driver's eyes glued to the MPG readout around here, doing about 40mph on a nice open road.

 

It *really* surprised them when a 28 year old camper van overtakes them.

I've moaned about this in the driving standards thread, but a lot of people do just drive really slowly. I often use the A26 which has a lot of straight stretches where it's perfectly safe to do the 60 limit, but there's always someone wombling along at 40.

[dollywobbler]

  On 28/11/2018 at 08:40, Junkman said:

Did I ever own a slower car than a Renault 4L?

If yes, I can't remember it.

 

My Renault 5 with the 845cc engine never felt slow, it just felt like the engine was going to shake itself to pieces at anything above about 55mph. 

[HMC]

1964 2cv AZAM, 425cc 18bhp if memory serves. The conservation of momentum was the key, or put another way chucking it into corners as fast as I’d dare. On paper it’s the slowest vehicle but the whole chucking it into corners malarkey was FUN.

[D Spares & Tyres]

Model TT Ford. (Truck version with two gearboxes)

 

Slowest 'modern' though was probably a Daewoo Musso. Bought it on eBay from Brighton. I drove a Xantia down there with my empty trailer and swapped the trailer onto the Musso when I got there and towed the Xantia back.

 

Probably one one the most depressing journeys I have ever done. Made worse by the fact that the Xantia was superior to the Musso in every way.

[iainrcz]

Toss up between saxo derv or 957cc fiesta 2.

 

Sent from my VFD 710 using Tapatalk

[EoGS]

I’ve got a VW T2 with a 1600 engine - it’s never going to be quick, but there is enough torque to get you down the road.

 

The slowest thing I’ve owned was probably a 90s Fiat Panda 750. I would routinely take detours to avoid hills. God it was miserable and I really want another one.

[chrisjvm]

It was a Lhd K reg Citroen Dyane 435cc..Though I think it was older than '71/'72 as it'd been imported.

 

Owned from 1982-84... Fond memories of going up to the old Saffron Lane cycle track in Leicester from Brum to compete in the national track champs..It carried 4 track bikes,3 young blokes,all our kit and spare wheels with one of our mates following behind on his Honda 50... We had to leave the back seat behind in Brum and the roof was peeled back to accommodate everything...Happy days!

[davehedgehog31]

Being relatively young, I've never owned anything too tragically slow. 

 

My 1.0 K11 Micra was fine until you had anyone in it. My dad coerced me into giving four of his pished pals a lift home to various points around the countryside at 2am, it involved a particularly steep hill and I thought I was going to have to turn round and reverse up it, or turf a few of the middle aged fatties out. 

 

A few NA diesels, but I found them fine, if slow to pick away but in real driving they've always been perfectly adequate. 

 

Not the slowest, but most disappointing. A FIAT 500 1.2 "S", looked like it should have been a nippy little thing. It couldn't have pulled your foreskin back. 

[captain_70s]

The mighty Doloshite.

 

58bhp when new, certainly doesn't generate that now. It's not insulting sluggish but acceleration is hampered by a long third gear unless you want to thrash it. High speed cruising is not recommended as it's a 4 speed so 60mph in top is already well north of 3,500rpm and it feels far happier at 45-50mph.

 

I think the 0-60 with my usual driving style is about 25 seconds or so, it'll do an indicated 84mph on a downhill but that isn't recommended as at that point it drinks oil faster than petrol.

[Noel Tidybeard]

  On 28/11/2018 at 11:33, captain_70s said:

The mighty Doloshite.

 

58bhp when new, certainly doesn't generate that now. It's not insulting sluggish but acceleration is hampered by a long third gear unless you want to thrash it. High speed cruising is not recommended as it's a 4 speed so 60mph in top is already well north of 3,500rpm and it feels far happier at 45-50mph.

 

I think the 0-60 with my usual driving style is about 25 seconds or so, it'll do an indicated 84mph on a downhill but that isn't recommended as at that point it drinks oil faster than petrol.

 

there is nothing mighty about this car!

[iainrcz]

Having slagged my Saxo and fiesta off, my GT 86 isn't exactly a ball of fire. Mainly due to the complete lack of torque. It really does need it's balls kicking, but I knew that when I bought it.

 

Despite the fact it spends a lot of time getting it's head revved off it still does acceptable fuel economy too. Every tank has been 35 mpg after using the fill up till the click technique.

 

Sent from my VFD 710 using Tapatalk

[Shirley Knott]

The two SDI's I've got at the minute are pretty slow.

 

The 1.7 Lupo SDI isn't that bad but the 1.9 Golf is positively glacial. 0-60 was 16.8 seconds when new IIRC, a few of the 68 original ponies have probably escaped now too I'd imagine making it even more 'relaxing'

 

TBH I'm used to them now and they're ok if you keep them on the boil. They also make the Volvo seem like a race car giving a nice juxtaposition between cars in the 'fleet'.

[Cardinal Wolseley]

Having read the thread my candidate is something of a sports car by comparison to many, but my PUG 205 1.9D felt very sluggish indeed. Bought nearly new but I always felt something was not quite right with it, seemed very sluggish and the lack of PAS didn't help matters.

[big_al_granvia]

Not owned but a shitroen berlingo, 1.4 diesel, no turbo and auto. Used for transporting disabled clients and their heavy electric wheelchairs. It was painfully slow

[wuvvum]

  On 28/11/2018 at 09:08, HMC said:

1964 2cv AZAM, 425cc 18bhp if memory serves. The conservation of momentum was the key, or put another way chucking it into corners as fast as I’d dare. On paper it’s the slowest vehicle but the whole chucking it into corners malarkey was FUN.

Surely the Austin 7 was slower still?

[JimH]

We did a fair few miles in a Fowler T3B roller. Full out and on good coal you could keep up a decent walking pace. Did 36 miles in it once. Averaged 3mph for the day.

 

Slowest "car" I have driven was a 55 plate diesel Megavan which was in poor health. A genuinely terrifying thing to drive in busy town traffic.

[sutty2006]

My old 1.7 diesel cavalier

 

Now in heaven. RIP

[motorpunk]

Can I mention another?

 

Pool car, many years ago, MK3 Ford Escort 1.6 diesel estate. These have 54bhp. I could either call the transport department to shift some parts to another site, or borrow the pool car and take them myself, in an excuse to escape the tedium of office life. I loaded just under 300Kg of steel plates into the Escort, seats down. I stalled it trying to pull out of a junction from the yard and was nearly t-boned by a bus. No 0-60 time was recorded but the thing was fucked before the end of the street. 

[Schaefft]

This beautiful Mazda 626 wagon in a rather racey looking red. Unfortunately it was anything but fast, with its miserable 1.9l 90hp engine sucking all joy out of it. It simply does not computer that Mazda actually offered junk like this at one point, in car thats only purpose was hauling stuff and people, even less that people spent actual money on this heap when buying them new. In comparison, Mitsubishi's 2.0 4g63 in the Eclipse made around 140hp (my brother owned one at the time, surprisingly its wheels had the same bolt pattern lol).

 

I only bought it because my first car ('97 Civic) was so rotten that it started to piss fuel all over the place. I sold The Mazda a few months later and bought my first Lincoln Mark VIII. 280hp was quite a step up from 90...

 

[Captain Furious]

Slowest I've owned was probably my first car.  A 1986 1.1 Fiesta Popular Plus.  I have a suspicion it was only actually a 950 though.  I made matters much worse by fitting 15inch alloys and a 5-speed gearbox from an XR2, which meant it was so highly geared you couldn't use 5th anyway, but it would do 40 in 1st if you waited long enough for it to wind up.  Things did improve when that gearbox grenaded and I managed to get a 5 speed from a 1.1.

 

When I sold it and put the standard wheels back on I wondered why the hell i'd suffered all those years with the stupid alloys, it was like driving a totally different car.

 

Cars with glacial performance I have driven but not owned (although interesting they were all owned by the same mate) a Mk5 Escort 1.8D non-turbo, a Peugeot 106 1.4D, a Passat whose vintage I cannot remember, 89-90 maybe, 1.6TD..I know it definitely had a turbo, I had seen it, but its contribution was completely undetectable whilst driving.

 

Even my Mk2 Granada can be challenging in modern day traffic, its not a lack of power as such (although 130bhp in a car that size isn't going to set the world on fire) its more a lack of gears.  3-speed auto means you often find yourself in situations where 3rd is too high and 2nd too low.

[RobT]

1.7 n/a Astra dizzler was impressively slow. 

 

 

60bhp apparently, and from a standing start on a road near Lickey Hills country park it struggled to move enough to engage second.  It was chucking out so much clag under load the bloke behind me was flashing his lights.  I did a trip to The Netherlands in it, and travelling through the flat Benelux countries wasn't a problem overall.  Overtaking trucks required planning though, especially on busy but fast sections of motorway through Belgium.

 

The Metro is also slow being the wheezy 998cc.

 

 

I bet Tuk has a quicker 0-30 time.

[Jazoli]

I had an escort 55 1.8d base estate as my first company car, it was utter shit, what fun I had carrying 4 passengers in it, 55bhp, in 1998

 

When I went for the interview the carpark was full of newly released Focus's so I assumed that is what I'd be getting, how wrong I was, I ended up with an engineer's hand me down, I blew it up on purpose, they repaired it so I got T Boned and wrote it off, they gave me a 1.8TD LX Escort as a replacement, at least it had power steering and electric windows, I never did get the focus

[Cord Fourteener]

I had a 1988 Polo Twist - that edition meant it had pearl dark indigo paint and matching hub caps.

 

It was the 45bhp (I think) 1043cc. It was tough and I loved it. I remember having 5 passengers and being over taken by the service bus, escaping from gigs with my then band with so much stuff crammed in and with one front passenger sharing the seat with kit, one guy lying on top of the stuff in the back, having to lie up against the roof...

 

I would never do that and be that stupid now of course, but the car was a good 'un.