Whats the worst car you have bought???

[Charlie Croker]

Mine was a 02 plate new shape vectra. I got in 2003 at 9 months old. I paid 8 grand and what a nightmare. Had it 3 months then the engine sounded like a diesel. Went back to the dealer 7 times and they never got it sorted. The nearside door hinge worked loose twice so the door had to be slamed before i would even think of closing. The final straw came when a mechanic (thats what they called him anyway....i called him a cockend.). They exchanged it eventuly...never again would i get a newish motor. Worse thing was i traded in a 274000 mile mondeo that haddent missed a beat in two years.

[dollywobbler]

I s'pose the Bond is the worst car I've ever bought in many ways. Paid a lot for it, but got the warm glow of the scrappage save, but it needed an awful lot work, so I ended up trading for a Saab 900.

 

Not every really had an utter disaster though. Even my Skoda Estelle, which was a really shonky bit of kit, only cost me £150 and made some attempt at working.

 

I've not owned many new cars though - some of the foibles on my shonky shit heaps would cause much agony if I'd forked out thousands of pounds, but when a car's cheap, it's all part of the fun, so therefore forgivable.

[CreepingJesus]

N-plate Astra, I bought in a hurry in '02. Had to get it on finance, 'cos I was skint, and my previous F-plate Cav's rear brakes failed at speed on the A92. The dealer I bought it from (no longer a Vauxhall dealer ) didn't really want much to do with it.

The engine refused to pass 3500rpm, it annihilated front tyres, the central locking was utterly random...I could go on, there was a list of faults a mile long. I didn't care in the end, because a) it never actually let me down, and it got repo'd anyway.

My other half always answers 'Panda' to that question. I think it's unfair, I mean, how many other £100 cars can go to the moon on a thimble of petrol, and keep up with Subaru Imprezas round roundabouts? Bloody brilliant car.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

1992 Uno. Utter scrap.

[wuvvum]

1967 Reliant Regal 3/25. Absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever.

[barrett]

1967 Reliant Regal 3/25. Absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever.

Except that it is COOL AS FUCK. My dream car. I'll have one one day.

[Charlie Croker]

I agree with dollywobbler. Although id never really thought of it that way....dont know why.lol. I had a xr3 very early W plater. Not a great car but it was only 500 notes at the time it was cheap so you cant expect as much can you?

[Rusty Pelican]

87 Uno 60S , words cannot discribe how uttery shite this thing was , even at £180 I felt wallet raped

[scooters]

the worst one I ever bought was a classic Saab 900 Turbo - paid too much for it (£1400) and it had some serious overheating issues and somone had fitted a nasty turbo dump valve on it that caused the engine to stall on lifting the throttle - not much fun at 80mph!

[aled]

mk 1 ford scrote, deffo the worst car i have ever had, owned it for a grand total of 3 weeks.total heap of shit.

never bought another ford since, and not likely to either.

my mother had some crud in her life as well.

lada riva 1.3 gls- and a ford povo spec orion.

[trigger]

My 2004 Focus TDCi, I never gelled to it, It went back to the garage which was 40 miles ago about 5 times in the year i owned it and it started to rust, Was only 3 1/2 years old at the time, Lost a grand on it as well, I'd never have another.

[Milford Cubicle]

I haven't bought a car for more than £500 for years, so they've all been terrible.

 

Most haven't been that bad actually, I've only had a few break down terminally and that was only because of my neglect/ignorance.

[Station]

The final straw came when a mechanic (thats what they called him anyway....i called him a cockend.).

The final straw was what?

 

Haven't really had a worst car yet! Lucky!

[Charlie Croker]

Ooops missed a bit.lol. It was in for a bit of work again. The guy reversed into my motor while it was on their car park. Drove it around with two badly dented doors till they exchanged it.

[HillmanImp]

Astra G. Drove and handled nice when it was going, which unfortunately was not very often. Utter pile of poop.

[Cavcraft]

There's been a few but I think the worse was probably a Marina. Absolute and utter heap of shit, every single thing fell off/broke/packed up/only worked when it felt like it.

 

Piss poor car, piss poorly made.

[ashmicro]

Rover 214SEi (R8/Wedge) - 1994, Brand new, £11105, utter shit.

 

Day 1 - rear seatback burst with no-one in it.

Day 3 - power steering pump PHAIL

 

Over the 4 years I had it the alternator failed, the brakes failed spectacularly, it boiled up at zero notice (never fully fixed), ate rotor arms and dizzy caps, driver's windows motor failed, glass fell inside door, central locking failed, mental instruments, lying fuel gauge, rear silencer fell off @ 13 months old (rot), clock failed, bonkers immobiliser/alarm, radio went on fire, heater resistor pack fail, rear wheel bearing fail....

 

The only thing that didn't fail I think was the HG!

 

Chopped it in @ 4 years old/33k. Got £1500 against a 92 190E 2.0 manual @ £9500. Merc was pure class, though.

[GJR 11L]

'68 MK2 Cortina 1300 Deluxe! Deluxe my arse. The thing was so slow that entering roundabouts was only marginally safer than playing Russian roulette with Kenny out of "South Park" would have been.

 

The body and underneath were in tremendous shape, which were my main reasons for buying it, in 1990, for £495 from a trader in an area that used to be home to loads of good, old-fashioned shite merchants selling such things from their waste ground portakabins.

 

It used to open its bonnet unprompted and for no reason that I ever found, so a padlock and hasp were soon acquired from B&Q and installed, and the upper frame of the driver's door got bent one night when I caught some bastard in the process of breaking in to the car. He had just opened the door and had his left hand on the b-post, I kicked the door shut and it latched with his fingers trapped in there, never closed properly after that either.

 

Eventually, it was nicked by residents from the local travellers' site and I saw it a couple of weeks later, wearing different plates and sitting a couple of cars ahead of me in traffic.

I followed it for a while, though I was in a Dolomite and looked, frankly, rather suspicious trying not to keep up with the world's slowest car, observed where it was left and found a phone box to call a mate who came out and helped me to nick it back.

 

Not only was that thing dangerously slow, it also managed, on average, around 18mpg in a pattern of use that would have either of my automatic Dollies doing mid '30s to the gallon. I swapped it (at the place I'd bought it) for a very nice, Pageant Blue Wedge Princess that was to last three more years and would cause me no real trouble until it burst a bottle one night, skidded in a pool of its own suspension fluid, t-boned a passing Granada and burst into flames in a most amusing way.

 

[Guest]

.... until it burst a bottle one night, skidded in a pool of its own suspension fluid, t-boned a passing Granada and burst into flames in a most amusing way.

 

 

When you say 'burst a bottle', do mean one of the cones \ spheres (unsure of correct Hydragas term) burst on its own, or that you hit a bottle that burst the suspension bag?

 

Terrifying either way.

[wuvvum]

1967 Reliant Regal 3/25. Absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever.

Except that it is COOL AS FUCK. My dream car. I'll have one one day.

I thought that until I drove it. Utterly gutless, highly unstable, deafeningly noisy, crap seats, rock hard suspension, hopeless turning circle, impossibly cramped pedals, scary brakes. I do like the look of them, to be fair, but they're really not useable on modern roads unless you have serious masochistic tendencies or a death wish.

 

If you're desperate to own a late '60s three-wheeler, I'd try a Bond 875 - completely different kettle of fish. If you're really desperate to own a Regal, at least go for a 3/30 - might not be as dangerously underpowered as the 25, although everything else will still apply.

[rover420]

1986 Montego Vanden Plas. Was 3 years old when I bought it & it was a complete heap of shit. Spent most of the first 12 months I had it in the garage having various faults put right.

 

Kept it for 3 years & it didnt have much left of its rear wheel arches when I sold it for £400

[AnthonyG]

1992 Montego 1.6 LX from the legendary Empress Car Sales in South Wales, 99k on the clock and looked smart enough from a distance.

 

Didn't actually break down , but just felt absolutley shagged out, if it had been a Cavalier, Sierra or 405 it would have been a little careworn at nearly 100k but still with plenty of life, this felt like it was on its last legs.

 

A 15 year old Mk4 Cortina I had at around the same time had less rust on it than the Montego. I strongly suspect it was actually built in about 1989, and had sat in a airfield in Oxfordshire for 3 years.

[Slaighty]

V Reg Talbot Horizon

awful grabby brakes, hideous gearbox that jumped out of gear, vile clutch.

Minging white "respray"

Yeuch

[GJR 11L]

....When you say 'burst a bottle', do mean one of the cones \ spheres (unsure of correct Hydragas term) burst on its own, or that you hit a bottle that burst the suspension bag?

 

Terrifying either way.

Yes, a displacer, to give it its Sunday name. Failure of one of those things isn't, in itself, likely to make the car as unstable as, say, a front end puncture on many cars would do, but the facts that it was sudden, happened on a bend and that my speed through said bend at the time led to the rear tyre on the kerbside of the car losing its grip as a result of the torrent of fluid coming out of the thing, well those factors combined to make the next few seconds, errrrr, "interesting". In fairness to the breed, even when one side goes down rapidly, they don't usually burst into flames. That was a result of the brake fluid reservoir bursting and its contents finding their way all over the road, to be ignited by the tab end that I, still a smoker back then, threw down when I got out to check for life in the other car, both of whose occupants were, thank goodness, absolutely fine, but maybe a little annoyed.....

 

& don't forget; that was the good car that replaced the bad one!

[pogweasel]

I have had loads of cars all of which have been rubbish in one way or another. Picking a 'worst' is very difficult, however, as rubbish as they have been, they have all been dirt cheap. Most I have ever paid out to purchase a car [for myself] is £1100, so you can't really complain.

 

I suppose in real terms the 'worst' was the VW Polo I bought that managed only 4 miles from the vendors home before expiring. Then again it was only just over £20.

[maxpower]

my worst car was a p reg mk3 cortina... more fecking holes than a golf course

[Slaighty]

. Then again it was only just over £20.

£20.50 ?

 

[pogweasel]

£21 actually!

[Pete-M]

Mk1 Astra 1.2E. I ended up with it in a p/x deal. It had been fitted with everything from a GTE except for the engine, which was a wheezing ohv lump of shit.

 

Normally if I buy something that has a load of tax and test on, and it's cheap, I'll run it as daily wheels for a few weeks just to try it out. I had this Astra for about 3 months and did around 40 miles in it. It was awful, and not very reliable.

 

Eventually, I took all the GTE bits off it, sold 'em, then raided a scrappy one for standard giffer-spec bits (The whole lot came to £20 or summat) and flogged it through the auctions.

 

Shame really, as a proper Mk1 GTE isn't that bad and this thing looked just like one, but trying to get that thing to even start was a challenge more often than not. Then there's the whole thing of driving something with Recaros, alloys, stiff suspension, a 45 bhp (at best) ohv lump and an intergalactic ratio 4 sp box.

 

 

Next worst buy was that fucking Sherpa GT.

[Negative Creep]

mk.2 Golf GTi. Seemed like a great buy until I drove it away, realising it had been resprayed one side, the water pump was leaking, handbrake didn't work and the gearchange bushes were fucked so it was pretty random which gear you'd get. Spent most of it's time broken down and even when it did go was nothing special. Had to call the AA 3 times in 4 days for 3 different faults. Never found the VW scene any help either, presumably as I didn't put a maltese cross on the side or paint the bonnet light blue.

 

Also went to a car club meet where I had to swerve as I thought some twat in a TVR was about to sideswipe me and cracked the alloy on a rock. Due to the crappy handbrake it fell off the jack when I was trying to change the wheel. This became a massive online argument and the driver, who was apparently a copper, saying he would be out to get me. Never came to anything though, he left the site soon after. You can't blame the car for this but it was almost the final straw.

 

 

Bought for 800, cost 300 to get through the MOT and eventually sold it for 400. This excludes all the work that was done in the 2 or so months I did own it. I actually got to the stage where I considered allowing someone I know to "permanently borrow" it for a small fee. Hit my finances really hard and put me off owning anything interesting for the next 6 or so months.