Mine was a ruby red '89 Nissan Sentra I bought from my Mom to teach my ex-wife how to drive stick. Car ran great, slow as **** but leaked out 3 quarts every 2 days. Junked it after basic training. :blast:
1998 GMC Jimmy 4dr 4x4 - leased new. Spent more time in the shop than in our driveway. They finally let us turn it in 12 months early on a 36 month lease without a penalty. And to keep from losing our business, they sold us a new 2001 Grand Prix GTP (SC3800) for cost. That was a great, trouble-free car. And fast, too, thanks to Buick power!
Some days, I would have said that my '69 GS was my worst car, because it was jinxed with gremlins, but now that most of the bugs have been fixed, I am glad I hung onto this car. I used to own a 1969 Charger that had weird electrical problems--if you'd honk the horn or use the turn signal, the lights would go on or off, that kind of thing. I hate trying to fix car electrical problems, so I never fixed the Charger, just drove it until I sold it. When I sold it, I gave the buyer an extra engine--a 354 hemi that I was thinking of someday putting in to replace the 383.
1993 Pontiac Grand Am with a 3.3 V6. The "mechanic" I bought it from said it had a rebuilt motor and tranny. Within a week or two of driving it the tranny started locking up. Checked the dipstick and the tranny fluid was all burnt up. 50/50 chance of saving it. So I decided to drive it as long as it could. It had computer problems and needed a new one. Of course I was 16 and it would do 120 MPH so I did it as often as possible. The funny part is it didn't throw a rod until I gunned it to 50 going to the grocery store for my job. I salvage the car for 200 bucks and bought my neighbors 1991 Pontiac Grand Prix with the 3.1 multiparty V6. That car was bight and day compared to the grand am. I was mean to the car all the time. Just punched it when I saw red and blues a few times, drove it down trails to the lake some trucks had trouble with and drove it to 265,000 thousand miles. I replaced parts here and there but that thing never would pop no matter how hard I tried. Eventually one of the 3 cogs for the serpentine belt assembly literally wore down and fell off and the car still ran. I ended up selling the car after getting back from training in the army to a guy behind me for 400 bucks. He was about to get his 1997 chevy lumina repoed. So he took all the accessories of it and put them on the grand prix since they had the same engine. The last time I saw that guy was about 5 years ago at a gas station. Still the original motor and Trans and he had just broke 400,000 miles. I though gosh that car was ugly but maybe I should have kept it.
The biggest POS I have ever owned was a 95 f150 4x4. It drank more oil than Gas and it was a pig on gas. One day after getting home from work I noticed smoke from under the hood. I drank the rest of My beer and opened another before I called the FD:TU:
I've been really fortunate with vehicles in that I've never had just a straight up piece of crap (hear that sound? It's me knocking on wood...), but if I had to say "the worst" was an 87 S-10 Blazer. I was 17 and bought it for $350 bucks because the lady who had it bought it for her son, put an engine it (had 130k on the clock, 30k on the engine) and he never paid her back so she wanted her money back out of it. Put brakes on it and drove if for a while (and mudded the heck out of it). The only reason I can knock it is 1) the 2.8l v-6 was so weak on power it wouldnt get out of its own way and I had to be heavy on the skinny pedal just to keep up at highway speeds and 2) the heater was always blowing a fuse. In the winter I got fed up, wedged a couple pennies in the fuse block and went on my way! But I cant complain. It kept me from driving my buick daily and I ended up selling it after about a year for double what I had in it.:TU:
For me it was a worn out 1975 VW van with the infamous "Black Box" computer that would shut the engine down at random times then restart after an hour or so. It also had a mystery second gear. It was a mystery as to where I could find it. I would shift out of first, make a couple of figure eight motions with the stick shift and try and dump it into second, most times I was successful, sometimes I had to skip-shift from first to third. It also had a rotted out heater tube so I stocked up on wool socks in the winter.
1. 1990 SAAB 9000 Turbo What a problematic vehicle. This car was i the dealer for repairs more than it was in my driveway. I replaced all 14 on board computers. Then it was time to start replacing again. The crank pulley shot off the engine right on thru the radiator. The turbo would never boost. My repair bills averaged $879.00 per month of ownership. 2. 2000 VOLVO S70 GLT SE GARBAGE. ELECTRICAL NIGHTMARE !!! Constantly in for computer problems. 3. 2004 DODGE GRAND CARAVAN SE ELECTRICAL DISASTER. The check engine light was on from the day i took delivery til the day i traded it in. 4.2008 BUICK ENCLAVE TOTAL CRAP !!! THis car broke down constantly. After taking it to 4 different dealers, nobody could fix it. BUICK told me to "just buy a new one". Never again.
1990 Chevrolet Beretta GTZ. One shop day for every 746 miles. Bought it new; it was garbage from day one. But what was worse you ask? The poor treatment of a customer by a garbage company.
69 VW. Bought it in France, new and suffered with it for 2 years. Terrible brakes, worse heater, can you say none. Leaked oil like crazy Trans at 22,000 miles. Hated the thing, I'd be going up a hill, foot on the floor and a Renault would smoke me like it was tied to a tree. And did you ever try to make love in a VW bug? Came home and bought a 442.
A friend's daughter bought a Pontiac Fiero that didn't make it home from the dealer on it's initial trip. GM finally wound up buying it back under Massachusetts' lemon law. This was topped by a local contractor who bought a new GMC pickup with the infamous 350 Diesel. It blew a headgasket on the way home from the dealer.
1979 mustang giha notch back. Went to thew store on the way home and could not stand a bag up in the trunk. No power V6. Just a POS all around
I've never had a really bad one-have an '86 FieroGT for over 25 years now and the ignition module crapped out last month and I needed a tow to my garage for a fairly quick diagnosis and part R+R. Even my '72 VegaGT was a good car-never had any of the pattern failure issues with it. Both of those cars were brought to market a bit too early, but later versions got most bugs out and were better. Some research, good maintenance and luck
1981 Buick Regal :ball: that darn thing would sometimes just die if you were making a turn and starting from a dead stop Almost killed us so many times it made no sense to keep it when starting a family. The old lean burn 3.8 was such a POS. Wife still won't look at a new Buick.
easy- 2004 ford freestar- wife blew up 4 transmissions less than 100k. no factory support for any of them . researched the problem and turns out the transmission design was for the Taurus a 1000 pound lighter car. no aftermarket options to beef up. heats up and burns up clutches every 30k also vent design allows water draining off cowl to get in trans and drown it. computer located under same cowl waterfall . excellent ideas terrible engineering. Ill never buy another ford. only car I ever had to give up on.
X 2 but my hate affair dragged on for 7.5 years because, as some once told me, "You can give a van away, but you can't sell one". That is especially true if the brand is kaput like GM announced for Olds right after we bought the farm. The perp was a 2000 Oldsmobile Silhouette purchased as a demo in fall of 2000 for around 30k and had all these issues: 3.4L-Dexcool enhanced-intake manifold gasket failure the next year it was head gaskets & the machine shop destroyed one of the heads resurfacing it famous negative terminal falling off, acid everywhere Delco battery failure front end clunk they took a week to figure out rear a/c failed the same weekend I had company in town found out the onboard air compressor never worked the first time I went to use it instrument cluster shattered on its own radio would pick stations for you trim falling off constantly total a/c failure x2 on rear suspension sensor jacking the van up like something in a cartoon standing water in taillights fogged over headlights cooling fans intermittent due to wiring and setting codes constant codes for EGR the final straw was the hard shifting tranny that was also setting codes In 2008 we took it to the Toyota dealer and traded it in on our basically problem free Highlander. The lemon devil was burgundy in color just like this:
I really sucks that, with all the available technology, the automakers (especially here in the U.S.) refuse to use it to the best of their ability. Vehicles are rushed to production without enough research/testing. Is it arrogance on the engineers part, thinking they are infallible and their ideas will never fail? Or is it stupidity on the upper managements part thinking that we, as consumers, are their test dummies? Greed and the need to be the first one to market the "latest and greatest"? I think it's all of the aforementioned. I have never purchase a new foreign vehicle (and very few used ones). The poor customer service (especially Ford) from U.S. automakers is driving people to them. The main problem with most imports, especially Korean, is parts are very expensive and often a bitch to find. I have many friends who either own shops or are techs and echo this statement. Just my observations. Rant over. Now back to our normal programming.
Before 1994 I considered an 1970 Opel Kadette that a friend gave me for free to be my worst car ever. With the help of a sawzall, a set of snow tires and some creative welding it became a dune buggy until the battery bounced out of the battery tray and landed upside down on the exhaust and started an unfortunate electrical fire. But then in 1994 I purchased a brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee. It had various electrical issues, brake light switch failure, dash display module failed, and no less than seven oxygen sensor issues but the coupe de grace was when the transmission failed 3000 miles after the warranty expired and neither the dealer nor the Chrysler regional rep would help me out on it. Spent $3800 to replace the trans and within a year the camshaft failed and wiped out the engine. I will NEVER.... NEVER.... EVER buy another Chrysler vehicle NEVER....EVER...... but if someone wants to give me another Opal , I'll take it :laugh:
Jerry, I think a lot of it was what was being said in the media of the day. GM was putting constant cost pressure on all of its suppliers and you usually get what you pay for. That's not to say my van was well engineered, because it clearly wasn't. I'd add the word ignorance to the word greed. Top heavy corporations can often put numbers and quarterly results ahead of quality and long term customer commitment. There was no excuse for our van, and I will not give GM a second chance. EVER
