Whats the WORST car you've ever owned, and why?

[Architex_mA8tey]

Ok following on from recent talk of Austin Ambassadors / Princesses what is the single WORST car you've ever had the "pleasure" of owning / driving, and why?

I think mine was probably a car I only had for a few weeks and it was passed to me by my parents as a "cast off" - it was a yellow Austin Allegro 1300L. . . so I guess that also explains why it was the worst car lol the BRIGHT yellow colour combined with static from the brown velour interior was a combo from hell

It looked like this . . . .





I should have done to it what Andy Saunders did to his . . . .

[Goran]

the convertible looks excellent
I have only owned 2 car cars so far, Volvo S40 2.0 and Audi S8, so I guess that makes the S40 the worst car I have owned by default.
It wast really a bad car at all, but it compares badly to the S8. S40 is very wallowy by comparison, has surprising got a harsher ride, less comfortable seats.
In the end it developed a weird check engine light problem that two mechanics couldnt resolve. I dont really miss it but it was a decent beginners car.

[47p2]

The worst car I ever bought for my wife was an immaculate Clubman estate with a genuine 19k on the clock. At the time it would be around 3 or 4 years old and was bought new by my mates mother. When she passed away my mate inherited it and ran it for a year. I bought it from him as he preferred his Datsun 120y.


The 2 good points
The only good thing about this Mini was I almost trebled my money after suffering it for 2 years.

It looked great once I spent some time valeting it with its red exterior and gold coachline, tinted windows and special wheel trims.


Some of the bad points.
Every now and then it would stick in reverse gear, not a problem though, just switch the engine off and put it into neutral and it was fine for another couple of weeks.

One day when trying to start it I thought the battery was flat as it was turning over very slow. Once started I let my foot off the clutch pedal and it almost stopped, I asked my wife to dip the clutch while I watched at the engine bay, the crankshaft could be seen moving back and forth.
I stripped the block from the gearbox and when I lifted the block away leaving the gearbox in situ I looked in to the top of the gearbox and saw the centre main bearing cap sitting on top of the gears and thrust washers chewed up in beside the gears.
Odd I thought, never knew they made them like that. It turned out that the engine must have been a Monday build and not torqed up when built. Over the years it had worked loose, the gearbox sticking in reverse was a case of one of the main bearing bolts lodged at the reverse gear and every now and then it would coggle over and jam.
The problem now was getting hold of a main bearing cap that would fit, they are all unique to each engine so I had to make do with the closest fit and do a bit of doctoring. New main bearings and thrust washers and rebuilt it and everything worked fine.

On another occassion my wife was driving it when she hit a pothole during bad weather and it shoved the engine back 6 inches and cracked the sump. A 14lb hammer was given the job of bashing out the bulkhead and making everything line up again, while some liquid metal was applied to the hole in the aluminium sump.

Next saga was when a slate fell off a roof and through the bonnet, the same day a van with a towbar reversed into one of the back doors and buggled of without letting us know. My coackwork skills were put to the test with Davids Isopon and aerosol cans.

This all sounds rather like a horror story but it wasn't all bad, I paid £450.00 for the car, we had it for about 2 years and when I went to a car showroom and asked for a trade-in price against the Renault 25 I was offered £1500.00. Of course I snatched the salesman's hand off and done the deal.

[IT]

Hmmm.... Well, heres the chronological list - You choose:

1989 Subaru Justy - First love of quattro
1986 Vauxhall Carlton 2.0 GL
1985 Vauxhall Carlton 2.2 CDi (Met with a tree, and won, just)
1988 Vauxhall Senator 3.0 Cdi (MOT right off, rust)
1986 Vauxhall Senator 3.0 Cdi
1989 Ford Fiesta 1.1 - Project car
1989 Ford Fiesta 1.1 - Project car, er, the other half of the project
1987 Ford Sierra XR4x4 - First love of quattro with a V6
1996 Fiat Punto (Company loan car waiting for company car)
1996 Vw Polo Saloon 1.6 Cl (First company car)
1991 Subaru Justy
1996 Peugeot 306 1.9 XRDT
1998 Mitsubishi Charisma (lack of)(second company car)(Written off... Broke a BMW in the process, result)
1998 Vauxhall Vectra 2.0 ('Temp' loan car - 3 months)
1999 Toyota Corolla - (replacement company car) Unbreakable, really it was
1996 Rover 620 Si (Temp company car at new job)
2000 Subaru Impreza Sport 2.0 (company car)
1999 Subaru Impreza Rb5 Wrsport (toy)
1994 Classic Range Rover 4.2 LSE (company car opt out lol)
2000 Subaru Impreza turbo sportswagon
2003 Skoda Superb Elegance 1.9 Tdi
2001 Audi A8 4.2 Quattro Sport - The love starts here
2005 Volkswagen Bora highline - My first and only privately bought brand new car.....
1998 Audi S8 - Mike now owns this engine....
2003 VW Passat V6 4 Motion LPG - Incredible spec, Company opt out
2000 Audi A8 4.2 Quattro (Frank, now owned by Oli)
1996 Audi A8 4.2 Quattro sport - (John - First car ever broken for parts)
2002 Audi S8 Dolphin Gray - (Gordon, now owned by Richard)
2003 Audi RS6 - Very high spec, sold to a guy who 'just wanted a blue one'
1998 Audi S8 PF, Facelift clocks/RNSE/Quad pipes - Broken for parts
2000 Audi A8 Quattro Sport - Tranformed to ultimate spec (now owned by Goglawrie)
1999 Range Rover P38 4.0 LPG - Died, sold for spares
2003 Audi A8 4.2 D3 - ACC, Sunroof.
2005 Audi S4 - Quick, very quick.
2006 Audi A8 D3 3.0 Tdi high spec. For sale
2000 Audi A8 4.2 QS LPG - Not sure what I'm gonna do with this yet...

Wow, thats longer than I thought. Anyway, my choice, the Mitsubishi Charisma. It was dull, it was slow, it was uncool, it was a company car that was forced upon me and it saved my life by not bending in half when I got T boned by the beemer, but thats not enough to redeem it from being so utterly, utterly dull and awful......

[47p2]

Vauxhall Senator...the car I should never have sold

[HPsauce]

The worst I had was nearly 20 years ago, a Nissan Primera.
It was a company car that I "inherited" when I changed jobs; luckily only until the car I ordered turned up - a nice new Pulsar Silver (pale gold) Rover 820SE hatchback.

The 2 main things I had against it was that the HR manager told me before I joined that I would inherit a "little Lexus" - he lied, big time!
And the fact that whenever I went through a puddle it died due to water entering the electrics.

Been surprisingly happy with all the other cars I've had.

[PsYcHe]

OK... Trying to remember them all..

1982 Astra 1.3LS in pine green, with GTE door cards and rear seat, front seats in original baby-poo brown
1986 Austin Montego 2.0 L in White.. Ended up with MG boot & black foam spoiler

On to Company cars for a bit
1994 Mondeo 1.8TD LX - White.. Rhymes with
1992 Sierra 2.0GLX - Swapped ends faster than an end swapping thing (only had it 2 weeks)
1991 Cav SRi Hatch (8v) - White
1993 Astra Diamond Estate 1.6 16v - Blue - Decent baby wagon
1994 Passat 2.0 8v - White... Rhymes with.. I think this is the worst.. poverty spec, horrid seats that killed my back
1994 Rover 620Ti - Only had it a couple of months, but what a hoot, deadly in the wet though
1999 Astra something - Temp Car
1997 Laguna 2.0 Exec - Well specced, tail happy, ended on its side in a field (there's a fun story with that, but needs beer)
2000 Astra again, and I think a Vectra for a few weeks
1998 Passat 1.8T Sport - Black, liked that one
2001 Astra (again... temp car), and a detestable focus for a few weeks too
2001 Passat 1.8T Sport - Green, liked that one too
2004 Astra 2.0T SRi 200 - Black - Like a wee go-kart

Back to owning cars again:
1998 A8 4.2QS - Silver - Sold and never seen again
2003 A8 4.2 - Silver - ACC and everything, proving to be tricky to sell
2006 A8 4.2 TDi - Blue/Grey - ACC and other stuff

And a raft of cars for the missus too

Definitely the worst was the Passat estate, the last before the round shape, seats were designed for someone about 4-5" shorter than me and as a result, my back had no support, it handled like a barge (was that size too), was slow as sh!t and poverty spec.

[Adrian E]

List of cars I've owned is probably nowhere near as long as many on here - although I may hold the record for number owned at once! Think at one stage I was up to 8 cars all registered in my name at one stage.....

Worst car I ever owned, without a shadow of a doubt, has to be the 1982 Golf GTI I bought with my graduate loan to get me to work and back! It was bought from a bodyshop I used to use for my classics and I remembered it being a stonking car when I was loaned it in the past. Unfortunately by the time I got around to buying it (unseen for 2 years) it'd taken a serious turn for the worse. Didn't fill me with confidence when I picked it up in Bristol and drove it to Reading and the oil warning light came on half way down the M4 and found there wasn't any in it.....

Some of the trim inside had previously been bodged badly by a gorilla in the attempt to remove a stereo long since departed. Spent a lot of time sorting out little niggles, put a silly Peco exhaust on it which rubbed everywhere, put some new tyres on it and loved the steering feel etc.

Was my 1st car with a 5 speed box and if I hadn't had to use 3rd or 4th gear all the time to coax/thrash it into running on 4 cylinders on inclines it would probably have been nice to drive.

It broke down a lot - mainly due to wiring or dodgy fuel pump and cost me more money than I possessed at the time to keep it running.

When I started digging about under the car while doing the cambelt I found what could best be described as a half finished patchwork quilt on the sills which should never have passed an MOT - and probably never did!

Ended up buying a Scirocco Storm that'd been crashed to donate a 1.8 and new box to it, but couldn't afford to refresh the engine so ended up selling it as a resto project after about 2 years ownership.

Did I mention I was owner number 14 or 15!?

It even ranks as worse than the '88 Micra 1.0 I was forced to drive when I first passed my test, although it's quite a close call....

[The_Laird]

I had an Allegro too - but quickly passed it it onto the then new wife when my company car arrived. It looked awful - gold paint and the same brown static-filled velour seats- but it never let me down whilst I was 'courting' between Leicester and Dundee, which is more than can be said about my Spitfire which dropped a big end in the fast lane of the M6 with no warning at all!

I always had a hat and false 'tash to wear so i wouldn't be recognised!

But the 'best' car i had in terms of making money was an A35 saloon that I bought for spares for £30 (I ran a concours winning A35 van at the time). Towed it home and gave it a look over and decided it might make a runner. Freed the clutch with a bit of brute force and ignorance and replaced a few parts that were sitting in the boot, then had a look at the brakes. New seals all round and they seemed fine. Went straight through an MOT, so I taxed it and let my girlfriend use it. The first day she used it, someone left a note on the screen wanting to buy the registration number so, a few bits of paperwork later, I was £600 better off!

Sold it 3 years later for another £600!

I'll post later and tell you about the Ford Scorpio (pre-wide mouthed frog!). Now that really was c**p!

[David's8]

Probably a Renault Floride - a rag top version of the Dauphine which was rated by Time mag as one the top 50 worst cars of all time!!
The most ineffective bit of French engineering since the Maginot Line, the Renault Dauphine was originally to be named the Corvette. It was, in fact, a rickety, paper-thin scandal of a car that, if you stood beside it, you could actually hear rusting. Its most salient feature was its slowness, a rate of acceleration you could measure with a calendar.

845cc of french petulance, it was a lot of fun but a bit of a comedown after the MG Midget I had to get rid of a few months previously.