I have many bad memories of my '87 Ford Escort. It had the 1.9L TBI with the 4-speed manual trans. Should have sprung for the 5-speed. The gear ratios were spaced widely and it was OK on level ground, but incapable of accelerating up hill. Not good in Pittsburgh. One long hill near my house required buzzing along at 3,500 RPM to maintain 35 MPH. Upshift into the next gear and it would immediately bog down. Ate tie rod ends and ignition modules like they were Hershey Kisses.
Two awful cars for me - bought a new '81 Renault 18i sold in America by AMC. They came off the boat from France with parts missing to be added by the dealer later.
The other loser was a one year old '70 Jeep “Jeepster” which came with a V6 motor apparently bought from Buick by Jeep for use in the Jeepster. Could not keep the motor running in a rain storm. Stranded many times, worst in a major storm on the Ohio Turnpike on a bridge with almost no shoulder. Got home finally and put a “For Sale” sign on it. Other problems with the Jeepster were too many to detail here.
My worst car was a 1955 Pontiac that I purchased in 1962 to replace my 1947 Pontiac. The Rambler dealer from whom I bought the car had overhauled the engine, so I thought I would be getting a car with a an engine that might give me a couple of years of service. However, I had an ongoing problem with the rocker arm studs plugging up and the rocker arms would then chirp. Part of the problem was a factory fault. Even though the car was an overhead valve V-8 with hydraulic valve lifters, an oil filter was an option and my car didn’t have that option. I did install an oil filter and had the rocker arm mounting studs pulled out and cleaned several times, I never completely got away from the problem. The shift linkage for the manual transmission was also poorly designed and the car was always difficult to shift. Furthermore, I did have to replace the front and rear main bearings in the transmission because they became noisy. A Pontiac mechanic told me that the manual transmission was not common on the Pontiacs in 1955 and were troublesome–in fact when Pontiac introduced the Hydramatic transmission on its 1948 models, 75% of the 1948 Pontiacs sold for the model year were automatic transmissions. By 1955, the percentage was probably 95%. I do know that other owners of 1955 Pontiacs that I talked to thought their cars were good, but they did have the automatic transmission and an engine oil filter.
1985 Audi 5000, bought in 1995 for about $2500 with most of the ‘luxury’ features (A/C, sunroof, power mirrors, rear power windows) already not working. I figured everything that could break already had. Then I discovered that the heat didn’t work, either! Soon after, the power locks stopped working and the transmission started slipping. I felt happy (and very lucky) to sell it for $1500 a year later.
@ok4450 : Thanks for the correction; I have a good memory, but sometimes it’s short! The '57 Chrysler products were as close as you could come to being “biodegradable”. I bought mine when it was 6 years old and had only 55,000 miles on it, and rusted out beneath my feet.
These cars also had the emergency brake on the driveshaft, right behind the transmission. Using the emergency brake with the car at moderate speed often snapped the front universal, making the car polevault as the shaft dug itself ito the road surface. These cars nearly bankrupted Chrysler.
Worse is kind of relative isn’t it? My worse should be my 1962 Fiat Cabriolet. It was a sports car that resembled an MGB. In a year and a half, I only got to put 7000 miles on it, but I eventually got to the point that I could change a head gasket in 90 minutes from hood open to hood close, or in 90 minutes I could have the engine out of the car with the head and flywheel off, and thats without using any kind of engine hoist. I averaged 600 miles between one of those jobs.
But those 7000 miles I put on it were the best 7000 miles I ever drove. That car was a blast to drive. I have never found another car that was as much fun.
The 64 Rambler would have to be my worse in a way. I only had to rebuild the engine once, at 90k miles, (bought it with 88 k miles) but the car had no redeeming qualities for driving.
I had a 1970 Austin America. It needed a top end job at about 7000 miles. It turns out that all British Leyland cars were so poorly put together that it was routine to shave the heads at 5000 miles because head warping was so prevalent.
I knew somebody who had the misfortune to buy an Austin Marina, circa 1976.
Within a few months, the crankshaft broke, which I had never before heard of with a modern car.
It was repaired under warranty, after waiting…a very long time…for a new crankshaft to be delivered to the dealership.
Less than a year later, the replacement crankshaft broke, which leads me to believe that British Leyland’s quality control in their foundaries must have been REALLY poor. The dealership–which was a mega-dealership–actually gave him a very generous trade-in value for the non-functioning Austin, and he then bought a…Dodge Aspen!
While the Aspen was nowhere near as bad as the Marina, it had the nasty habit of stalling when they tried to accelerate onto the local expressway, nearly killing them several times. However, the dilemma about what to do with the Aspen was resolved when it essentially dissolved into a few piles of rust after 3 Wisconsin winters.
1988 Dodge 15000 van. Went through 3 differentials in 3 years!
My worst car was a 1971 Volkswagen Scirocco. It blew a piston on the freeway (in truth, it never ever ran reliably) and I had to canal for help. My dad gave me an I-told-you-so sigh.
A late uncle of mine was a die hard Chrysler man from the time he left the service after WWII and would own nothing but Chryslers.
He had told me about trading a 53 I think it was Chrysler in on a brand new 56 model in a 2 DR HT. At the time he lived in south Texas and he said the headliner just dripped water from condensation all of the time even when it had not rained.
The car was taken back to the dealer numerous times and they went over it with fine tooth comb while finding no obvious leaks and replacing the headliner several times. For some reason the car just sweated like a steam bath and he ended up selling it and replacing it with a used 54 model.
No one could ever figure that oddball problem out and I certainly had no explanation for it.
It’s definitely plenty humid in that neck of the woods but other cars were not suffering this problem.
1981 Pontiac TransAm with a 301 V8 and “metric 200” transmission. Admittedly it was bought used and being young, I didn’t treat it that well, but it had problems I never expected:
-Rear leaf springs sagged and needed to be replaced.
-Rusted prematurely.
-Driver’s door sagged and had to be lifted to shut. both outside and inside door handles broke too.
-Weird electrical gremlins where the instruments would ‘boogie’ to the music. Eventually added a ground wire and fixed it.
-Turn signal stalk just ‘fell off’ one day.
-A tail light would burn out every month or so for no apparent reason.
-Water leaked into the trunk.
-Headliner sagged.
-Could get stuck in snow on a level street (worse than any other RWD car I’ve had)
-Slow.
-Door locks would freeze up easily in winter.
The positives:
-It pretty much always started.
-Good A/C
-Handled fairly well.
-Didn’t actually break down much, just annoyed you to distraction with all the minor problems.
I’ve never had a particularly bad car, but the one that comes to mind now is an '02 Grand Cherokee. Nice car, but had issues with the anti-theft immobilizer (dealer add-on that would have been removed had I kept the car), transmission (cost around $200 for me to replace the line pressure transducer myself to get it out of limp mode), and could not keep that thing in (expensive!) window regulators. It broke three of them in less than a year! My ownership of that vehicle ended when the ex wife took it in the divorce. She had her choice of that car or my '95 Windstar, which is probably the best car I have owned in terms of reliability and ease of living with it on a daily basis. She chose the WJ because it was newer and more luxurious than my Windstar, and it has broken yet another window regulator, and has apparently not been fixed since the passenger front window has not been up for several months. Serves her right.
By far, my worst car was a 1975 Honda Civic CVCC wagon. The carburetor was the single most evil contraption ever conceived by mankind! When I bought (okay, used in 1980) it seemed to run fine. But when I checked gas mileage, it was less than 20 mpg. Brought it into a dealer (second mistake; first was buying it), they adjusted the carburetor, but it ran even worse. They tried rebuilding it, but to no available. I then installed multiple rebuilt carbs over the 2 years it took to pay off my loan. Finally, the loan was paid, but within a month of that, the whole engine seized. Ended up selling it for parts.
At the same time, my wife had a 1978 Honda Civic 1200. Different carb, but the same problems. Neither would even start when it was cold and damp out. Thirty years later, we still refer days like that as “Honda Days.” I’m amazed the company stayed in business.
@phil11764 ; Those early Civics were fun to drive (when they ran) but were true rust buckets. I lived around the Great Lakes at that time, and a colleague bought one for his wife. Although she washed it regualarly, the body rusted so badly that the metal holding the door hinges let go and the doors fell off!
He later traded it for a Nissan which was a little better, but not much.
Absolutely gorgeous 93 Jaguar Sedan…British Green…every time I drove it…warning lights…4 times 1000 dollar repairs…only got to drive it 400 miles…asked car dealer what to do with it…told me best thing to do was drive it into the river.
@Doctordan ; I used to golf with a dentist who had an E Type Jaguar (XKE). The local BMC dealer was clueless even with Austins and my friend bought all the tools to tune and fix it himself. He compared owning a Jag to being married to Liz Taylor (THE glamor queen then); moments of exitement mixed with very expensive upkeep and fickle bahavior.
1976 Audi 100LS great road car but always broke down electrical issues, oil leaks, head gaskets exhaust constanly leaked, cv joints, when you would make a hairpin turn the fusebox would flex and the electric fuelpump would shut off
My worst car a 1976 Honda Civic.
It would spontaneously excellerate on highways where I would take my foot off the gas pedal and the car would race 20-30mph faster until the fuel burned off and the car would die and I would coast it to the shoulder.
Very chronic rust problems.
Once in the winter the doors and windows were frozen solid shut. The only way into the vehicle was through the back hatch. I climbed through the hatch and closed it. I was now sealed inside the car - unable to get out through the frozen doors or windows. My trip home from college took about an hour - by then the ice had thawed and I was able to exit the car at my destination. Good thing that I did not need to stop enroute !
My Mom’s worst car was the 1973 Oldsmobile 98 LS, our 1st new car since 1966 buick leSabre the cruise control did not work on the way home from the dealearship, everyday she came home something else was wrong with that car needless to say we only had it for 6months…