bad cars

hitcher

worst car you ever driven? name it?

JHMEG

VW Golf CL and Renault Fuego 1.6 Turbo.

mike65

In totality Mk 3 Escort 1.3 CVH engined horror, the auto choke was a continual frustration for my dad until he ripped it out! The ride and handling were sh-i-te, in top it turned over 1000 revs per 16 mph so it was noisy too.

Mike.

colm_mcm

Tata Safari, this one is brand new, but has been sitting in Dublin for years waiting for some sod to buy it.
In a last ditch attempt to sell it, it's being converted to a commercial. spotted it recently outside a conversion company!

bazz26

1999 Opel Vectra. Pile of crap.

CJhaughey

Austin Maestro.
Dog ugly, gutless and bad brakes.

KidCapree

Fiat Ritmo, had it brand new, by the time we were finished with it, had to push it to start, back doors with tied together to keep them from opening and it overheated... often!

Guy:Incognito

KidCapree wrote: »

Fiat Ritmo, had it brand new, by the time we were finished with it, had to push it to start, back doors with tied together to keep them from opening and it overheated... often!

That all just sounds like you really didnt look after it.:)

Ours was grand.

JHMEG

KidCapree wrote: »

Fiat Ritmo, had it brand new, by the time we were finished with it, had to push it to start, back doors with tied together to keep them from opening and it overheated... often!

I believe rust got them all in the end anyway.

colm_mcm

An abarth model like that has retro cool, and novelty value!

JoeA3

I don't think there are many or even any truely horrendous cars on sale here anymore. Even the stuff from Korea seems ok-ish for what they are, not that I'd be queuing up to buy one.
On a recent visit to the States, I experienced a couple of awful contraptions, both of which seemed very popular with the locals! One was a Chrysler PT Cruiser. Over-sized steering wheel, banging off your knees, no height adjustment for seat, the turning circle of a 747, gutless. Felt like it was built down to a price.

The second was a Pontiac "Grand Prix". Up there with Mitsubishi Charisma on inappropriately named cars! Mostly the same irritants as the Chrysler, and an unforgivably cheap crappola squeaky dashboard.

mike65

Seeing that image once was bad enough.

Mike.

colm_mcm

The Hyundai Atoz is pretty dire. forgot about that!
They brought it out in the late 90's, pulled it cos it wasnt selling, then last year they reintroduced it, with virtually no updates! not even a passenger airbag!

Captain Slow IRL

JoeA3

lots of mid-range hatches / saloons were rubbish in the early to mid '90's! E.g. the Escort / Orion from early '90's. Ford got their act together in a big way since then!

jayok

land9 wrote: »

Seconded. Though the one I drove was a convertable... and even bigger piece of sh1te

Cosmo K

Worst car I've ever driven? Thats easy

A lot of people still say...or there are sooooo cute, a piece of history and so on.....but there were just rubbish:cool:

junkyard

Fiat 127 and a Renault Megane, truly HORRIBLE cars! Each and every one of them.

vectra

1981 Alfa Sud. :mad:
Bought it with 21k on the clock in 1986
I wondered why there was only 21k on it after 5 years.
It didnt take long to find out
Bloody thing kept breaking down
Had it from February to November
Full brake overhaul
3 engines
3 gearboxes
and to top it off
a full respray to cover up the rust that broke out on it
Paid £2600
Spent a fortune to try keep it running
Got £700 for it

Niall1234

An old 1.3 Ford Orion.

It used to go 50 mpg. Appauling down on power.

Pherekydes

First car I had was an '81 Austin Metro.

I learned to drive in that car. I also learned to drive without a clutch, without brakes. The final drive even went (the splined shaft that delivers engine power to the roadwheels), so every time I went over a bump or a hump it would lose all power). The alternator failed soon after I bought it and the battery died as a consequence. Then the clutch began to slip badly. What a heap of sh1te. It was a hideous looking car, too.



Same colour. Documentation said silver; I say grey.

itarumaa

Ford Escort van, year maybe 88?

Lot of noise, no grip, afwul rear suspension etc

and second on is Toyota Lite-Ace, year 1985,

1.3l petrol, 18 mpg / 13/100km in the city:)

Handling was really interesting:)

Well at least it did never seem to broke down.

Cookie_Monster

Had one in the household, always something breaking in it, engine, windows, seals, lights, bits falling off. POS

EDIT: Fiat Marea

PaddyFagan

Got one of these as rental in Portugal two years ago - it was brand new (5k km on the clock) - awful.... The gear box was utter ****e, vague and soft - impossible to tell if you where in gear at all - my wife made one attempt to drive it spent 5 minutes trying to find first and gave up - (she's been driving 10 years and this is the only time I've seen her give up on a car.)



Paddy

PS My parents owned a long line of Fiats - I've driven several of them, nothing as bad as that rubbish....

Fizman

KidCapree wrote: »

Fiat Ritmo, had it brand new, by the time we were finished with it, had to push it to start, back doors with tied together to keep them from opening and it overheated... often!

Wow, those back doors are tied together so well that it looks like you had no back doors at all.

vectra

itarumaa wrote: »

Ford Escort van, year maybe 88?

Lot of noise, no grip, afwul rear suspension etc

Handling was really interesting:)

Well at least it did never seem to broke down.

I had one of those that literally robbed me on petrol.13mpg driving the $hit3 out of it
Dropped a 2 litre OHC engine out of a Capri into it along with auto box.
made some job of it.. Then the Handling became very interesting

cjt156

Daewoo Lanos Automatic hire car in Israel; must have been all of 20bhp at the roadwheel.

Me and another engineer (30stone combined) 2 suitcases, 2 laptop bags & 2 rollalong toolboxes; up hill wasn't feasible.

Hyundai Accent; another hire car in NI - the steering felt like it utilised a chewing-gum coupling. The brakes and accelerator seemed not to be on speaking terms with the wheels. The only car simultaneously too slow to drive while being too fast to stop. And why are the wipers and indicators swapped over!!!???

SuperGrover

1981 Ford Fiesta...



Weighed a ton, took forever to warm up, drove like a bag of snots.

will1977

cjt156 wrote: »

Daewoo Lanos Automatic hire car in Israel; must have been all of 20bhp at the roadwheel.

Me and another engineer (30stone combined) 2 suitcases, 2 laptop bags & 2 rollalong toolboxes; up hill wasn't feasible.

Hyundai Accent; another hire car in NI - the steering felt like it utilised a chewing-gum coupling. The brakes and accelerator seemed not to be on speaking terms with the wheels. The only car simultaneously too slow to drive while being too fast to stop. And why are the wipers and indicators swapped over!!!???

Without a shadow of a boubt !

Biro

Stekelly wrote: »

That all just sounds like you really didnt look after it.:)

Ours was grand.

True, I know a few people who had more than one of them, never a problem in many, many miles!
I'm always intrigued at the amount of people who judge a car solely on it's reliability. I don't consider anyone who does that to be a car enthusiast. It's kind of like saying "Angelina Jolie is always late for everything, sometimes she doesn't even show up... therefore she's obviously no good in the sack!".
The worst car I drove based on dynamic ability, or lack thereof, is the Chrysler Neon. (Surprise surprise - an American car!). The dullest car was probably a 96-ish Astra saloon, 1.4.

Biro

cjt156 wrote: »

And why are the wipers and indicators swapped over!!!???

They are that way on all Jap/Korean cars. Jap swapped over for the European market in around 96 (with Mitsubishi about 3 years later).
In actual fact, the indicator was always supposed to be the opposite side to the gear stick, so that you could change gear with one hand and indicate while manovering with the other. It's the European car manufacturers who wouldn't change theirs around for right hand drive models! I remember VW's with the wiper blades on the opposite way around on a RHD model back in the 80's!