I had lots of crappy cars when a poor student but the worst two in the last 15 years:
Rover 800:
windows/exhaust/engine head gasket/clutch /rattles/more rattles all in 60k miles: but company owned. No more Rover cars..
Audi A4TDI :
Catalyst/aircon/both front wishbones/cambelt idlers went -(after being allegedly replaced 20k miles before), All in 30k miles. Lovely interior : carp rest . No more VAG. Self owned:-(
madf
|
First car was a 1936 Austin 10: cable brakes and oval drums, so no telling which way it would swerve if you braked firmly; jumped out of first gear when accelerating unless you held the gear lever in, jumped out of second on the overrun, clutch slipped on steep uphill gradients.
A challenge for a learner driver as I was at the time, but taught anticipation and how to do hill starts while holding in gear and releasing handbrake at the same time.
Since that one, most of them have seemed pretty good.
|
I dont think ive ever owned a really awful car, maybe I chose carefully. Ive had unreliable ones - Renault 21 - but I loved the car so its hard to say it was the worst...
Possibly my Daewoo Nubira which had an uncanny ability to work its way through droplinks within a few thousand miles and it had a seemingly incurable cluth judder. Aside from that, I liked it though as it was a good estate.
Worst car ive ever come across is most likely the Fiat Cinquecento. What an awful way to travel.
|
|
|
1979 Rover 3500:
Wherever you parked there would be a pools of oil, from the engine, gearbox and diff. Coolant and PAS leaks as well. Dealer rectified some of the leaks after several attempts. Electric windows had minds of their own, sometimes worked sometimes not - usually in a car park when you wanted to leave the car! When it rained all the warnng systems lights would illuminate and a replacement windscreen revealed that the leading edge of the roof had rusted away and it was only four years old! Rear wheel arches and bottom of doors rusted through when three years old. Severe clutch drag from cold start. and throttle could stick on fast idle. But, I liked the shape, it would do 28/29 mpg on the motorway and 2400 rpm at 70 mph was nice. Dealer rectified some of the leaks after several attempts but everytime I was in the Rover reception I heard of worse experiences of other customers SD1s so it had to go. The SD1 was a clever idea, poorly executed. If only the Germans could have built it!
|
|
|
As i buy only old vehicles a breakdown is expected and most of the teething problems have been ironed out by the time i get hold of it.
But i will try and rescue the besmirched name of Rover SD1.
I have had two ,one w reg 2300s and a B reg Vandenplas.
The first we had ages and was a great car with a sweet straight six,the only grumble was the brakes which could have been better.
The Vandenplas was a monster and was obscenely fast,this was the only car i have ever bought after seeing it on tv.
There was a film called something like Me and Sue and Rita too,which ended as the title predicted,had the chap driving what was probably a Vitesse but was definately a V8,and i was in love ,a later appearance on the video Dont you want me baby by Human League sealed the knot .
But my contender for worst car was the car my wife owned when i first met her and that was a Yugo,It went like the clappers only because it had so much stuff that fell off of it it would get lighter as moved along so its weight/torque ratio would improve per mile driven.
|
|
I also had a terrible 1985 Polo C. Wonder if it wa the same one described above as the faults sound familiar.
|
My 1988 Polo was fantastic, still see it around now as I gave it to a local lad. The great thing with these old Polos was that if something did go wrong, it cost peanuts to fix. Fuel pump was £30 for example.
My worst car - er, not had a bad car really. Didn't really like my Kettcar as a child though, bit too slow although I perfected the odd handbrake turn on our polished wooden sitting room floor ;-)
|
|
|
|
"But i will try and rescue the besmirched name of Rover SD1."
Me too. I was so proud to come home from school to find Dad's brand new 2.3 SD1 on the drive (not the original SD1 - it had the rear wiper). In Moonraker Blue it looked gorgeous. It was two agonising years before I was old enough and Dad was brave enough to let me slap L plates on it. What a fantastic car it was after learning to drive in a 1.0 Metro! 0-60 in about 13 seconds according to the on board stopwatch, and it felt soooo wide. I had my first heartstopping motoring moment in it too after being allowed to borrow the car to take some mates and accompanying fillies to a party. Hit some ice at about 30 in a residential area in the early hours and got a bit Colin McRae. Drove at 10mph all the way afterwards and was glad to get undressed!
Ok, so the car was off the road for about a month while the rear end was replaced due to a cracked weld. It took the dealer 18 months to admt that "All Rovers DIDN'T do that..." The first loan car was a brand new BMW 520i. You can imagine how my teenage eyes lit up when Dad came home in that... It did get royally burnt off by a Capri at the lights though, after which I thought it was a piece of ****. The head honcho of the local BL dealership then lent Dad his bright red 3500SE. Woof - did that car look and sound good. I was sorry to see it go.
|
|
|
|
Seventies Lotus Elan. Only had the thing a week but in that time the back wheel came off at about 50 mph,the dynamo (remember those?) packed up leaving me with no headlamps three miles from home.Final straw was when gearbox siezed and car had to be towed to supplying garage.
Oh,and the radio reception was rubbish. Luckily,managed to get garage to take it back. Consumer protection did not amount to much in those days.
|
Worst car has to be my first car. A 1979 Mini Clubman Estate in a very fetching bright orange. I bought the car from some shyster in Clacton as I was at college there at the time. My mum was seriously ill back home in Southport so I needed transport. In hindsight, this was probably not the wisest choice. Still, youth begets folly so I parted with £350 of much needed beer tokens and took delivery of this (and I hesitate to use the term) car. I was first alerted to a potential problem when I approached a, mercifuly empty, crossroads and pressed the brake pedal. Slightly less than naff all happened, and I sailed across the crossroads with my sphincter fully clenched. On pulling up about fifty yards into the road I had absolutely no intention of driving down in the first place, I pulled over and, having ascertained that I had no new and perilously liquid stains about my clothing, contacted my local garage at the earliest opportunity.
As I recall, when repairs and parking tickets were taken into account, I sold the damned thing for a loss of £575 pounds. Ouch.
|
Vauxhall Vectra (R reg). 2.0 SRi.
My mate drove it once and reckoned that the only way it could possibly handle like that would be to connect the anti roll bars diagonally !!
It was the only car that made me feel car sick as the driver, largely because the front and rear suspension seemed to act out of phase,. This induced a horrendous, whiplash inducing, fore-aft pitching on the motorways and A-roads. I had to apologise to my passengers whenever it did this. The Vauxhall dealer assured me it was OK...I begged to differ.
.....and it shared its deadly handling traits with its sister model, the Tigra.....terminal understeer, snapping into violent oversteer....
...the seats were uncomfortable, the steering was wooden, and the ABS didn't reset unless you took your foot off the brake pedal (so even if the slippy bit had passed, the ABS would resolutely prevent the brakes from applying...not good when you are sailing towards a give way junction !!!).
Clarkson, bless him, was right. A truly awful car which I was glad to see the back of.
(P.S. - it was a company car, so I didn't have a choice).
|
Worst one i had was a mk 2 Fiesta on a F plate as a company car. Complete shed, rusty at 4 years old and the wonderful uneven driveshafts which made cornering interesting.
Worst car i drove was my Dad's C reg Escort, a mk 4 / facelifted one, a 1.6GL. Despite apparently being a semi luxury model, it had no central locking, and the rear locks were impossible to reach normally from the front, no FM on the radio, petrol tank fell out, gearbox disintergrated at 3 years old, no exhaust every two years, and it was horrible to drive as well. No power steering, so it was really heavy and had hardly any feel, engine had a flatspot.
yuk in every way. Put me off Fords for a long time, until i drove a Mk 1 Mondeo. Couldn't belive the car came from the same company.
Also drove some company Vectras and Cavaliers in the mid 1990's. The Cavaliers were great cars, easy and willing to drive, the SRI fantastic, but the Vectras were just awful. How do car companies do that? One step forward and three back.
|
Hillman Californian Imp, 1967.
After 3 replacement gearboxes in 3 months I sold it before the gearbox failed again. After the third box was fitted I daren't drive it anymore, except to take people out for test-drives, in case this one failed as well!
Had many of the other faults common to this model, too, but, compared to the gearbox problems, these were really quite insignificant.
|
|
|
|
Clarkson, bless him, was right.
No he wasn't. Had Ford produced the Vectra instead of Vauxhall, he would have been singing it's praises.
And please, no smart alec comments that if Ford had made it they would have got it right. If the Vectra was as bad as Clarkson had made out, then how come so many were sold by Vauxhall to people? And by that, I'm talking about the average man on the street, not the hire car and company car drivers.
|
|
Well said DD, but the Vectra was a step back from the Cavalier by any measure (beyond the glitzy bits) Ask yourself this would you rather run a 10 yea old Cav or a nine year old Vectra - er pass the Cavalier keys !
|
Pug,
I have to agree with you in some respects of the Vectra being a backward step to the Cavalier. Changing the clutch for example - ¾ of an hour on a Cavalier (including a tea break), but 6 or 7 hours on a Vectra.
Overall though, I still prefered my Vectra-B to both my previous mk3 Cavaliers that I owned. Mind you my Vectra-B was the facelift one, which by all accounts was an improvement over the earlier Vectra-B; but it wasn't bad enough to warrant the slagging off that it gets from some people.
|
|
|
|
then how come so many were sold by Vauxhall to people? And by that, I'm talking about the average man on the street, not the hire car and company car drivers
But they wern't. The vectras were almost exclusively sold to fleets.
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
|
|
|
If the Vectra was as bad as Clarkson had made out, then how come so many were sold by Vauxhall to people? And by that, I'm talking about the average man on the street, not the hire car and company car drivers.
That's a problem with "average man on the street" they will buy just about anything if it's in their fleet - Ford Escort - arguably one of the worst cars to drive in almost every aspect - and yet "average man on the street" in Britain would buy them like fish and chips. Everyone had one, those who hadn't knew at least one person that had two. Even now the amount of Escorts changing hands every year is higher than any of the best selling new cars.
Vecra has a long standing affair with British public. Considering Vauxhall Cavalier was in fact first Vectra, the story is even longer. It doesn't however make it a good car.
--------------------
[Nissan 2.2 dCi are NOT Renault engines. Grrr...]
|
|
|
If the Vectra was as bad as Clarkson had made out, then how come so many were sold by Vauxhall to people? And by that, I'm talking about the average man on the street, not the hire car and company car drivers.
For the same reason Vauxhall specced 20k service intervals before a lot of other manufacturers (AFAIK) - money, pure and simple. They are cardboard cars.
|
|
Grrrr, premature posting. My point was, the 20k was there to attract fleet managers. There is simply no way that 20k on the same oil for NON fleet users can be a good thing. (You know why - cold starts, stop/start non-motorway driving)
|
My point was, the 20k was there to attract fleet managers.
Couldn't have been that bad, otherwise others wouldn't have copied the idea.
There is simply no way that 20k on the same oil for NON fleet users can be a good thing.
As I've previously mentioned a few times, oil technology has moved along in leaps and bounds. One day people's opinions may also catch up and not rely on the advice their father handed down to them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
