the worst car

[powerglide]

What's the worst car you have owned or driven.  Here are some of mine:

Morris minor
Wolseley 15/60
Morris Marina
Morris 8/40
Morris Oxford (side valve motor and all).

Best?  Streets ahead of all the world, an Iso Rivolta.  Next has to be the W140.  I liked the Fiat 124a coupe also. Peugeot 504 was nice, too. 1939 Mercury, 1948 Plymouth were fun. Not forgetting the '69 Monaro with the 350 Corvette motor and 4-speed box. See the pattern? - everything in the world seems better than a Morris, and no wonder they're decades out of business. Except a Trabant that I never drove,  and that British Trojan thing that I never drove either.  There was a comedy film about the Trabant called 'Go Trabby, go', or something like that.  A lot of takes in clouds of blue smoke. Quite funny. This film is about as rare and hard to get as 'The Swissmakers' - also funny and 'cult'. Time for a cup of tea.

PG.

[13B]

1972 VW Beetle

[robertd]

worst car 1982 Toyota corona with the 4 cylinder holden starfire "misfire" motor

best old car back when I was 18 was a good old 1955 Vauxhall Velox with 6 cylinder motor and 3 on the tree, went  like a cut cat, bought it for $50

[gf]

W116 is all ive ever owned but worst ive driven-

1984 datsun sunny
1988 nissan pulsar-

best ive driven mercedes w126, mercedes w116, bmw 318IS

[entresz]

Worst car I've driven would be 2012 Holden Cruze. It had a 6 spd auto and even a slight gust of wind would cause it to downshift. The place where I work has a few of them. It literally felt like a billy-cart to drive.

Best car I've ever driven so far would be the 450SE I had.

[KenM]

PG I'm having a bit of a laugh looking at your list there, so you had a crap Morris and you still thought you would try four more of them?? Nobody can accuse you of giving up easily.

My worst would be my first, a '66 beetle, fabulously reliable but oh god so slow, top speed on the flat, WITH a tailwind, 60 MPH, up a hill - just a mobile chicane waiting to be arse ended. Brakes were simply appalling and quite deadly, I could stomp on the pedal and hit the floor whilst watching the scenery slide on by. Handling was just awful, positive camber on the rear end meant it rolled around from side to side like a ship in a force 9 gale. You could put it hard into a corner and the back end would almost beat you out of the apex, lots of fun. My dog used to hate it, she would sit on one side of the back seat and when she saw a corner coming up, swap over to the other side and claw the seat trying to keep on the high side of the car, me laughing like a drain watching her. Which is probably how I eventually put it into a tree and ended that adventure.

[karmann_20v]

I have 3 cars that will never be topped when it comes to bad experiences:

Lada 2102 - Not terribly unreliable but it was as basic as they come. On top of that it was super slow, steering was atrociously heavy and ate oil at an alarming rate
Renault 14 - This gem shouldn't have been made. Renault should have paid the car buyers to drive this garbage vehicle.
Mazda RX7 - very rewarding driving experience - when it ran. When it didn't, I was busy finding a mechanic willing to touch this heap. This one pretty much made me hate Mazda with a passion.

Honorable mention goes to a Nissan Sentra 1.8 rental I once drove. The definition of a penalty box on wheels.

[powerglide]

PG I'm having a bit of a laugh looking at your list there, so you had a crap Morris and you still thought you would try four more of them?? Nobody can accuse you of giving up easily.

My worst would be my first, a '66 beetle, fabulously reliable but oh god so slow, top speed on the flat, WITH a tailwind, 60 MPH, up a hill - just a mobile chicane waiting to be arse ended. Brakes were simply appalling and quite deadly, I could stomp on the pedal and hit the floor whilst watching the scenery slide on by. Handling was just awful, positive camber on the rear end meant it rolled around from side to side like a ship in a force 9 gale. You could put it hard into a corner and the back end would almost beat you out of the apex, lots of fun. My dog used to hate it, she would sit on one side of the back seat and when she saw a corner coming up, swap over to the other side and claw the seat trying to keep on the high side of the car, me laughing like a drain watching her. Which is probably how I eventually put it into a tree and ended that adventure.

OK, looks like it's time for true confressions.  Yes, I too had a 1959 beetle.  But bad tho' it was, it couldn't touch the British offerings when it comes to doing nothing at all right. Of those the only one I owned was the MM, the others belonged to other poor sots.  Best car I actually owned? - the W140, no competition - that's gone now due only to supply of critical spare parts drying up. Next best? - a Bathurst Monaro: now that really was a rush! I've driven a modern one that was really quite a good car with the manual tranny, but it had none of the wild, vintage muscle-car experience of the 'real thing' from the sixties.

C'mon, guys, any other horror rides?

PG

[robertd]

My first real car was a 1969 ford cortina 440GT had a 1600cc cross flow motor twin carbs and 4 on the floor, metalic mid blue with white GT stripe down each side.  It could do a 100mph and handled brilliantly.
I blew the motor racing a mate in his mini cooper.
Rob

[samuli]

VW Transporter/Caravelle Van/Bus T3. We had plenty of those among my friends and boy there were problems. Mainly on the transmission and engine department. In Europe they were equipped usually with a 1.6L flat four diesel, water cooled. And it was slow and unreliable as the engine was so small for the car. The turbocharged version was bit quicker, but not much.

To my eyes it was not so handsome van. Also the rear engine ate quite significant space from the back compartment and made the loading from back inconvenient. Good side was that as a rwd and rear engine, the rear weight increased traction and made it actually practical on snow. Also the engine cover provided a good temporary seat in a van version.

In the army I was driving a sligthly more interesting 4WD flat four 2.1L petrol engined version as an ambulance.

[ZCarFan]

Worst: 1968 Chevy Chevelle 300 Series (absolute base model).  230 6-cylinder, rubber floormats, no rear armrests, powerglide trans, 4 10.5" manual drum brakes, manual steering.  Engine was so worn out that it froze to the grass one day and would not pull away.  It had been run out of oil to the point of knocking bearings a dozen times or so by the p.o. Might have had 60 psi compression at best.  Smoked like a two-stroke.  Once it got above 2,000 rpm, it would move along somewhat well and could cruise at 70.  brakes were suicidal and the chassis so worn that cornering was an exciting event.  but for $65 USD, it was great.  Still wish I'd kept it, as the 300 series cars were the lightest of the GM A body cars and much rarer than a Malibu.

Best:  My 2013 Mustang of course!

Too many in between to list.

[powerglide]

From another post topic, it is looking like we can add the PT Cruiser to the worst cars list.  And why hasn't anyone volunteered experiences with Saabs and Jags? - too ashamed to admit? C'mon, I confessed to a Marina, and it doesn't get much more embarrassing than that.

PG

[TJ 450]

I've never had any bad cars as such, but my SAAB 900i wasn't the best.

Tim

[Beastie]

I would basically say the same as TJ, except I would replace 900i with 99. Is it me or is there a disproportionately large number of SAAB owners here, compared to the general, non-W116-owning public?

[beagle2022]

I have really chewed this question over as I have watched the post evolve.

I have to say that the worst car I ever owned was a 2004 Renault Scenic 2 litre manual.  I bought it as a new car because of its clever, flexible design. The reason for this nomination is that the car was made out of crap materials, poorly assembled and destined to fail.

Two sets of front seat upholstery needed replacing before the car was two years old with less than 20,000kms.  They just fell apart. Replaced under warranty.

The radio / trip computer died and was replaced under warranty.

The power steering unit failed.  Replaced under warranty.

The steering rack failed and was replaced under warranty.

The gear linkages failed and were replaced under warranty.

Every plastic bit of trim fell off whenever you used it for its intended purpose.

The two litre engine had pathetic torque, ran on premium unleaded, was noisy and uninspiring. At five years the motor needed the rubber camshaft belt replacing at a cost of $1100.

This (as Monty Python would say) was a car to be avoided.  I sold it off before the 4 year warranty ran out.  It had less than 40,000kms on it and sold it for less than half its new price.

Don't ever buy a Renault!