What was your biggest POS car ever?

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by jorian

72' Ford Pinto. Piss yellow. Bought for $150. I drove it approximately 50 miles before the dash caught fire. I stripped the plates off and abandoned it at the side of the road. 6 months later the police knocked on my door and presented me with a $500 towing and storage bill.

Hoot! Doubt anybody can top that. Some are bound to try though..

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by jorian

72' Ford Pinto. Piss yellow. Bought for $150. I drove it approximately 50 miles before the dash caught fire. I stripped the plates off and abandoned it at the side of the road. 6 months later the police knocked on my door and presented me with a $500 towing and storage bill.

Anything but a Pinto and you could have just reported it as stolen .

[sammyg2]

1988 furd ranger.
It was "kill it with fire" bad.
But as bad as it was, the furd dealers who were supposed to fix the POS were worse.

[Nostril Cheese]

Inherited a Jeep Grand Cherokee from my mother. Only good thing about it was the 4.0L six. Everything else was a problem. That car had some sort of issue with grounding Ive never seen on any other car. Adding additional grounds from everything to the frame and battery fixed all sorts of problems.

[Jeff Higgins]

"Our" first "family car" when we got married - a Mercury Lynx (Ford Escort) station wagon. Thank God we bought the extended warranty... I think my wife put more miles on "free loaners" in the years we owned that car than she ever put on it. What was very maddening about the whole ordeal was that she often had our first baby, then later our second baby and now toddler in the car with her when it broke down. We were a young couple, with her pausing her nursing career to stay home with the kids, so really wanted to pay it off before getting rid of it. We never made it that far with that thing and took quite a loss on it. Washington enacted a pretty robust "lemon law" shortly after that, under which we would have had no trouble making the dealer take it back, had it been in affect.

[Hugh R]

Originally Posted by motorracer

My brother had a yugo what a junk and it was new

I think they promised, not guaranteed, it would go from zero to 60, eventually.

[dafischer]

Originally Posted by Eric Coffey

Yeah, I remember that. I also remember the "expose" on Suzuki too, which was prudent...

My very first car (wholly purchased/owned by me) was a Suzuki Samurai. Great little rig, and dead-nuts reliable.
But yeah, I did roll it on it's side once. A friend bought one soon after I got mine, and did the same.

We rented a Samurai on St. Martin on our honeymoon in 88. It was the only car I've ever rented that had pavement rash on the passenger side door handle, windshield frame, and fender tops.

[dafischer]

Originally Posted by Hugh R

I think they promised, not guaranteed, it would go from zero to 60, eventually.

Just think of the name, Yugo 55.

[A930Rocket]

‘99 Dodge Ram 1500. Ran perfect until 35k mikes, then was in the shop every month and fixed under the extended warranty. Left me stranded multiple times. Turned it in when the lease was up.

My first and last lease and last Dodge.

[Nostril Cheese]

Originally Posted by Eric Coffey

My very first car (wholly purchased/owned by me) was a Suzuki Samurai. Great little rig, and dead-nuts reliable.
But yeah, I did roll it on it's side once. A friend bought one soon after I got mine, and did the same.

Those Samurais were really fun little jeeps. Not too bad offroad once you put bigger tires on them.

[Nostril Cheese]

Originally Posted by A930Rocket

‘99 Dodge Ram 1500. Ran perfect until 35k mikes, then was in the shop every month and fixed under the extended warranty. Left me stranded multiple times. Turned it in when the lease was up.

My first and last lease and last Dodge.

Bad lifters? My father had a '99 Ram 1500. They all collapsed around the same mileage. He got a new engine under warranty.

[dw1]

Oh jeez.....

As one who owned several British sports cars (Triumph TR3A, TR6, TR8) as well as some VERY used 70's US cars, it is difficult to choose. It is also difficult because they all had some redeeming values.

The '73 Ford Gran Torino Sport probably is the POS winner. Well geared for the highway (2.73 rear) but lousy on gas around town, EGR and other pollution controls strangling the carb, rusty, shot rear suspension, and the ponies it once had went over the hill long before I owned it. Oh, and the electrical problems were... interesting (Ford assembled it with wires passing through sheet metal holes and no grommets, with predictable results).

The '67 Camaro that blew oil smoke like a PT boat laying down a smoke screen would be runner up. People would joke that we didn't need to spray for mosquotos when the Camaro was around. People look at late 60s muscle cars through rose-colored glasses, but many of them had issues, e.g. the '67 had a rear suspension designed to encourage wheel hop.

[petrolhead611]

I bought a brand new Vauxhall Astra station wagon; my first new car . I ran it in carefully, serviced it by the book, garaged it nightly, never revved it hard until up to temperature; yet by 50,000 miles it needed a new engine, both front struts had been replaced, driveshaft had pulled out of the transmission.Never will I buy another Vauxhall.

[jshape]

1967 Fiat 850 Spyder. If it could break, it did. Last straw was when the axle splines wore out and spun freely stranding me on a railroad crossing.

[red-beard]

Saturn SC2. They had a money back guarantee and I exercised it. Salesman looked like I shot his puppy.

I had a 110 mile daily commute. I had been driving a Honda Prelude. The SC2 was very rough on the interstates, loud road noise and all around poor handling.

I didn't get a chance to figure out more issues. I ended up buying a Honda Accord and that was a great car for 7 years and 230,000 miles

[monoflo]

86 Grand Am. Like siting in a bucket - strictly awful as i remember.

[Steve F]

1989 Jag XJ6 that wife inherited.....MAJOR POS....$$$$$

[vonsmog]

76' Chevy Nova, biggest piece of ***** I ever owned, having owned over 150 cars. Got it in college when my 74' chevy impala died with 160k miles on it. Had it for all of a month, as it was too much of a pain to keep it running to get to class. Traded it in for s International Scout II. Which was also a money pit, but I which I still had one!

[BReif61]

This. It's great when it works, but good Lord if it can fail, it has. The N52 engine is a sweetheart when it works, but I've had to replace nearly every sensor. The manual transmission makes it fun to drive, when it works. The transfer case is haunted, which defaults it to RWD-only (fun!) at the expense of ABS and SRS (not so fun!).

It is now thoroughly redundant with the E91 (fun) and 4Runner (utility), but it lingers because I can't bring myself to take the bath.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by monoflo

86 Grand Am. Like siting in a bucket - strictly awful as i remember.

One of my girlfriends had the later Grand-Am that was the FWD and they shoved a V6 in it. To change the belts required removing an engine mount. And the belt adjustment was basically impossible.

It also had a leak in the evaporator water drain and the car was a mold farm.