Worst Cars you have ever owned

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

I figured I'd share my horror story cars with you all. Feel free to post the worst cars/bikes/planes/armored tanks you have owned.

1. 1980 Volkswagen Rabbit Diesel. No acceleration, a crappy AM-only radio with one speaker, the thing spewed diesel soot and routinely had to have the fuel system purged of water. Eventually was turned into a cabriolet my me and my axe-wielding buddies.

2. 1987 Ford Aerostar, technically my mom's car, however i spent so much time fixing it I think of it as mine. TWO heater cores just exploded on this POS. Why is it that the power steering unit on all these cars is louder than the engine? Thank god my mom wised up and got rid of it.

3. 1983 Plymouth K-car. Owned very briefly, enough to have fun driving it into walls, over curbs, off-road. Hey when you get five of your friends to chip in on a $200 barely running car, think of the afternoon fun! Had holes in the floorboards, blew plumes of white smoke, and even had a rag for a gas cap. The car now currently resides in a canyon. We left it there, don't ask.

[Sarah]

Old neon green chevette piece of ****. It was purchased in desperation so I did not have to get a ride from my sister to college anymore. Paid $500 but put in over $2000 to keep it running for a year before I could get rid of it. That is what I get for buying the first car I looked at!

[Z-man]

1. 1981 Plymouth Turismos TC-3: had it during my first 1.5 years of college. The following items 'went' on me during ownership: clutch, steering column, H2O pump, turn signal unit, wiper unit, stereo/speakers, alternator, and a few other items that I can't think of right now.
2. 1973 VW Fastback: rusty, slow, sometimes didn't even start (distributor cap location and rain...) My friend put his fist through the rusted out fendor. The drivers seat's rake mechanism would pop out when I'd hit a bump, causing the whole back of the seat to recline flat.
I did manage to get it up to 90mph once...

-Z-man.

[Hockey fan]

Fiat X19. Terrible car. Ran about three days for the year I had it. Best thing was on day 3 of running it had an engine fire. I watched it go for about 15 minutes to make sure it would keep burning and then called the fire dept.

Jeff

[tabs]

A 1962 Corvair.....family owned.....how I could ever do a spin out while starting to make a left turn from a dead stop is beyond me???

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

Tabs, my grandpa had a Corvair too. I'll never understand why they decided it was a good design. The thing had RUBBER rod bearings. No joke.

[RickC]

1974 Fiat 124 Spyder - had a healthy appetite for alternators, and lost all its brake fluid on the way down I-70 (eastbound) into Denver. No amount of work could keep it going, and when you hopped in you never knew if it would start or how far it would go.

1980's Omni that a friend gave me when I didn't have any wheels and he was going overseas. An accident made the driver's door inoperable, so you had to go in the passenger side and scramble over the stick shift. Window didn't go down all the way so you couldn't Bo & Luke Duke it. The day I traded it in on a used VW the choke broke. The dealer was nice enough to give me the guaranteed $500 anyway.

[tabs]

Oh the Corvair was way ahead of it's time..it's the precursor to the Porsche 911........The Huns at Porsche said, "Actzo.......sechs cylinders oposed is wunderbar.....Chevy haben ein gutes idea."

Do U boyz know how much fun I could have with this one.....I could torment every 911 owner from now till doomsday with Corvair and 911 comparisons..... The ultimate goal of every R Gruppe member is to convert their 911 into a Corvair......

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

Tabs, I have heard that a copule of Chevy engineers acually met with Porsche way back to dicuss the Corvair and get some insight. It' pretty amazing when you look at just how similar the Corvair and the 911 are.

[tabs]

Considering the Corvair came out in the fall of 1959.....and later they even had a turbocharged or was it super charged model?

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

It was a very basic turbo setup. I think the motor only put out like 160 hp or so. I dont know if I'd want to drive one though. Corvair don't really feel all that stable when you drive them.

[tabs]

100 lb bag of cement in the trunk did wonders for weigh distribution....the later cars had the suspension problems fixed.....but there are a couple of times I am surprised I didn't kill myself.

[SidVicious]

I don't have any bad car stories, but I'm full of bad tank stories. I had one blow a gasket during one gunnery cycle. No major harm, except my gunner wasn't excited about the FRH shower he got. (That's Fire Retardent Hydraulic fluid). We had to hose him down pretty fast after that, it was beginning to burn his skin. The best(worst) part was when my driver and I went down to the boneyard to pick it up after we were told it was fixed. We fired it up, and I grabbed the commander's override to swing the turret around. When I did we experienced a catastrophic failure of our new gasket. Turns out the mechanics didn't have the correct part, but they had one that LOOKED like it, so they had just plugged that one in and never performed a functions check.

[widebody911]

Worst car? 1976 MG Midget (oh, and I'm 6'2"). Lasted me less than 48 hours before it put threw a rod. I'd had my eye on it for months. When I got my tax refund, I rode my skateboard down and bought it. The next day, it threw the rod. I called the lot and *****ed, they said "sorry, no warranty." I did some grousing around and investigating, found that I couldn't take title until it had been smogged - it hadn't yet, I was supposed to take it in on that Monday. I called the lot with this new bit of info, they *****ed a little, then sent a truck to pick up the car, "It's probably just a battery" (no, really, he said that!) After their wrench looked at it and gave it it's last rites, they offered to pay 1/2 of a new motor. I insisted on a new motor or my money back; the cash was in my hands in a matter of minutes.

The strangest handling vehicle I ever drove was when I was in the US Forest Service. We got this funky prototype engine; it was an International S-cab, with a turbo, but a really short wheelbase, and 4-wheel disk brakes, which were really cool! It only had a 400g tank, but some rocket scientist built the tank with NO BAFFLES! It was a treat to drive that up and down mountain roads with 1/2 tank of water; after every turn you could count off one second, then the slosh would hit, and the rear would chirp slightly as the weight shifted and it broke traction. I learned to brake in a straight line years before I ever got a 911. It also had a split rear-end, which I hated (and why, on a truck that small?) I could up-shift it fine, but many times found myself coasting into a turn trying to get the ass-end re-engaged again.

[RANDY P]

Never really owned an outright roach (I can resto a car fairly well), but judging on reliability it would have to be my 1990 corvette. 51K miles 3 years, I've driven, went through 2 sets of injectors, Passcode key failures, "SYS" light always coming on, 2 ECU failures, leaks, interior pieces that curled up and shriveled due to heat, HVAC failure 2x, and that's all I can remember, I'm sure there's more though.

rjp

[tabs]

I had a 1976 LWB Silver Shadow that I coulda claimed as a dependent.....15K in maintainence in 5 years...and that was considered to be cheap....Rolls figures 7 to 8K a year is normal and the minimum for a vistit to a dealer was 2k...that was back when I owned the thing.....I didn't consider it to be the worst car simply because it was a nice ride....just think of driving down the road sitting in your living room easy chair at 80 mph..... The smell of the leather, smell of the wool carpets and wood.....ahhhhh U just had to touch the automatic trans shifter to shift it and steering was light as a feather and smooth you coulda put a quarter on the Radiator grill and it wouldn't have moved....

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

How well do those Rolls' move? I heard they are quite heavy.

[thamlin000]

My first car, an 82 Honda Prelude with rust. Lots of rust. Both doors broke away from the rusted frame leaving one hinge per door to do all of the work. Yes, the door sagged: to close, lift and slam shut.

It leaked too.

[JavaBrewer]

The cars of my life (in order of appearance and after #4 includes wife's cars):

1. 1978 Datsun King Cab truck (orange, "rest in peace my friend")
2. 1973 Pontiac Trans Am SD-455 (white w/blue stripe, "didn't lose too many stop light enounters")
3. 1980 VW Scirocco (white w/black stripes, "first rally car")
4. 1985 Ford Mustang GT (5.0/5 spd, maroon, "many many tires")
5. 1987 Mazda 323 (4 spd (don't ask), white, "dead reliable commuter")
6. 1994 VW Jetta (black, automatic, "POS")
7. 1990 Jeep Cherokee Limited (red, automatic, "why did I buy this?")
8. 1997 Nissan Altima (automatic, black, "yawn")
9. 1997 Land Rover Discovery (green, loaded, "totalled by wife")
10. 1994 Chevy S-10 (4cyl, 5spd, white, "ah another trusty friend")
11. 1999 Land Rover Discovery II (white, "nice truck...but get the extended warranty")
12. 1986 Porsche Carrera (V6 , black, 5 spd, "nothing but net!")

My guess for worst car was the 94 Jetta. Bought it new and parts literally fell from the car. Full brakes every 15K miles (warped rotors), slow as Heinz and bad mpg, bad starter, bad transmission, leaky sunroof. I was thankfull the day we traded that POS in.

[Rob McKibbon]

1966 Epic Envoy at 15 yrs.old (It had fuzz on the dash!)

Worst car I never owned....... my Dad's beautiful stock 1966 red Beaumont Convertible....... He sold it when I was one month from getting my license. I've never forgotten that!