What was your worse car you ever had?

[bruce1]

The worst was a 2001 Hyundai Accent. This thing was good for a $1000 repair bill after every five or six thousand miles. 1986 VW Jetta Diesel was a close second. I love my 98 explorer except for fuel economy and my 2005 Buick 3800.

 

[rescueme]

Reading all these posts, I wonder if any of us wish we had these cars, today.

In most cases they are classics (if not antiques) and worth a bit, even if they were not running.

I know I wished I still had that '55 Chevy 2-dr hardtop that I drove (parents bought it for $200 - I had to return it to them when I left home) and they later sold it for $150. Even though it would have required restoration, what would it be worth today?

Heck, I still would like to have my '69 Dodge Dart GT, the first car I ever owned (purchased when I returned from Nam, and two weeks before I was married) even though it had problems over time. Than again, I ran it for 10 years and it was just under 100k when I traded it.

BTW, no longer have the car, but still have the wife after 40+ years.

 

[FinanceDude]

My neighbor in the 90s had a Jaguar. He said that really the mechanic had it more than he did!

It is tough to love such a car!

I think either 88 or 89 was the last year the Brits made the car in England. My british neighbor, Dennis has a Jag, and loves it. When I say that Jags need a lot of expensive "love", he always says: "So, now you're calling my surrey a ladie of the night? That's poppycock!!!"

 

[rescueme]

"So, now you're calling my surrey a ladie of the night? That's poppycock!!!"

DW (along with other females of an earlier age) categorized Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck (both Brit "imports") in the following manner:

Engelbert is love.
Tom is sex.

Using that same analogy today as applied to cars:

Jap/Korean cars are love.
A Jag (especially an XKE of the mid-60's era) is sex.

I'll let you guess what my preference is (regardless of the overhead )...

 

[Texas Proud]

Great stories. Keep 'em coming. My 16 year old Honda looks better with every post.

OK... here is a gem....

My sister had a car stolen from her house.... it was a major POS ( 70s Dodge or Plymouth something or other)... three days later they brought it back


My sister was MAD that BIL had not gotten a settlement from the insurance company quicker.... they had to keep the POS...

They also had owned a Chevy Vega and had major problems with that... it was the first time I had ever heard of 'shaving the engine'...

It was strange that they kept buying Chrysler products with the problems they had with all of them... now she has a Lexus.... loves it...

 

[cj]

LOL, this is a great thread!!! My worrst is a tie: a 1968 (I think) VW Beetle that had an "automatic stick shift" - you shifted it like a regular stick shift car, but there was no clutch. That thing never worked right. That was followed by a 1970's Gremlin that got 10 miles to the gallon. POS. But after that, I had not one, but two Pintos. Ha! I loved my Pintos! Had the first one for 3 years and some drunk smashed it up when it was parked in front of my apartment. So I ran out and bought another brand spankin' new red Pinto hatchback. Geez, I loved that car. Had it for 8 years, not a single problem.

A few years later DH & I got into our short-lived overspending phase and bought a Mercedes 190E. That thing was a dog. Lousy in the snow, the paint went bad after a couple of years, and we spent thousands maintaining it and fixing stuff after it went out of warranty. What a hunk of junk!

Nothing but Hondas for us now, and we couldn't be happier!!

 

[hakuna matata]

OK... here is a gem....

My sister had a car stolen from her house.... it was a major POS ( 70s Dodge or Plymouth something or other)... three days later they brought it back


My sister was MAD that BIL had not gotten a settlement from the insurance company quicker.... they had to keep the POS...

Ha! That made me laugh out loud. That has to be a POS to have a thief bring it back! Wow. thanks for the laugh.

 

[kcowan]

The worst car I have ever owned was a 1972 Chrysler Newport with a 400 C.I. engine. Had to refill both gas and oil every 200 miles. We bought that car new. We traded in a 1965 Chrysler Newport with a 383 C.I. engine. This was one of the best cars we have owned. We have not owned a Chrysler product since we got rid of the '72 Newport.

My inlaws traded the other way: a 72 for a 65. Beautiful car in powder blue. Best car they ever owned...

 

[bssc]

I can't contribute to this thread, I have only owned five vehicles and enjoyed everyone one of them. But your stories are great so keep them up.

 

[lets-retire]

Reading all these posts, I wonder if any of us wish we had these cars, today.

To me the fun is driving the cars. Obviously since I owned three of them I liked the Monte Carlo SS style and power. I rounded the edges of the spoiler from speed in the three years I owned my first one. I didn't fit in the seats right with my last ones. Either they changed the seats or I got bigger. I think they changed the seats. Now I am bigger so it would be even more uncomfortable. So to answer your question, there is not way under the sun I would own another one.

 

[Meadbh]

One after one, the other women succumbed to the new car smell, but not you. And you even went to some car dealers, as I remember, and were able to walk away. You are my heroine!

Thanks for the compliment NWB! I went last weekend too, and looked at the Infiniti EX35 (definitely not LBYM, but gorgeous, if a bit small in the behind), as well as my other favourites. God, that Accord Crosstour is butt ugly. I am stayin' the course......one more year.....

 

[steelyman]

These stories are all funny but this one is flat out hilarious.

Gosh, I couldn't agree more. This one actually made me laugh so hard and long it brought tears to my eyes!

 

[Purron]

Chevy NOVA circa 1979. No Va means "it does not go" in Spanish. Nuff said.

 

[steelyman]

It's a toss up!

• VW 411 that burned on the side of the road (PA Turnpike) with everything I owned inside
• Renault Le Car that stalled every time you stepped on the brakes hard (turned out they neglected to install the bolts that hold the engine in place). Wipers only worked in second gear, speedo was intermittent and very wrong (would read 110 kph in first gear), rubber roof blew off one day covering the windshield of the semi following, etc

Those Le Cars used to have the letters "LeCar" placed on the side. A friend of mine once told me he was driving somewhere in California and came across one of them driving by on which the owner had added two additional letters, announcing it to be "Le Carap".

 

[April Fool]

I had to laugh when I saw this post. Mine, too, was a Pinto. A little red Pinto with a bad paint job. It looked like a child had painted it with a paint brush. I think that was about twenty-five years ago. What a pile of junk. it was breaking down all over town and after four months just quit.

Though we have had a lot of junkers, but none like that. My husband is so cheap he has never bought a new car and he says he never will.

April

 

[NW-Bound]

I have owned a few cars, but none gave me the trouble like people describe here.

Meadbh's post made me look up the EX35 to see what it looks like. But her comment about a LBYM car made me think. How high a price can I buy and still consider it LBYM? I know Meadbh could pay for the new EX35 with small changes, but she is frugal.

My experience is that what I want to spend for a car, inflation adjusted of course, has not changed over the years although our net worth has increased significantly compared to when I was in my 30s. Even now, it is only 1% of net worth I would spend. That should get me a decent car, but not extravagant. Am I too cheap or what?

 

[kcowan]

...Am I too cheap or what?

Yup and you should be proud of it! Cars are just an expense to be minimized (unless a collector).

 

[Sarah in SC]

I've got a good one about that 1981 Rabbit convertible. I had it parked in front of my first "grown-up" apartment with the top down and the keys in the floorboards. The top was broken, so getting it back up was a two grumbling person job and most of the time it was easier to just leave it down. But that night, it started raining into the car. No matter, though, because with all the rust in the floor of it, it wouldn't hold water anyway.

Apparently some enterprising thief happened upon it, saw the keys in the floorboards, and thought it would make a good ride for the night. However, he first had to get the top back up (this is how I knew there was an accomplice). The first thing I'm sure they noticed once they got going was that the passenger seat back was broken and propped up with an igloo cooler at an awkward angle so you couldn't really 'sit' in that seat but you really didn't want to anyway, because one of the roof leaks was right over about where your shoulder would be.

When I got up in the morning and saw it was gone, I called the cops, incredulous that anyone would actually steal such a POS. The cop got there about 20 minutes later, heard my description of the car and said "I've seen it, hop in my car and I'll take you to it." I clocked it later, the car had been abandoned 3/10ths of a mile away, with the keys again in the floorboards, the top up, and nothing else touched.

Forevermore that car was known as the car too crappy to steal.

 

[Keim]

My former employer provided me with a 1993 Taurus. I think they sent it south to die...

Not long after I got it the power steering went out. No problem, right? The company will fix it. I called my boss and said "I need permission to fix it." His response "Got any mechanical ability-fix it yourself." I made it clear that wasn't going to happen.

A few months later the motor started smoking out of the manifold. One day I'm sitting in a lobby waiting for a meeting. A lady comes in absolutely frantic and says to the receptionist "There's a car on fire in the parking lot!" I look up and say "Red Taurus, right? Don't worry. Does it all the time."

About 2 years pass, with numerous small problems...

I get a new boss, and he requests a tour of the area. "You bet, boss, I'll drive!"

As we're driving down the road over the course of the next hour "Hey, Keim, can you turn on the radio?" "No, sir, it's out." "Can you turn up the heat, I'm cold?" "No sir, heat and air are both out." "Whats that rattling coming from the engine?" "Thats the power steering pump, sir. Don't worry, mechanic says it will probably be fine." "Where's all that dust coming from?" "Seal around the rear hatch is ripped, sir." "Next time I'll drive, Keim."

About two weeks later the office manager calls me. "Clean out your car, Keim. We're getting you a new one."

Now for the best part of the story. They decided to sell it. On the way to the auction the transmission went out.

 

[Meadbh]

This is the best thread!

 

[hakuna matata]

This wasn't my car but a good friend of mine in college. I actually don't even recall what kind of car it was to be honest, just a junker. He was from out of state and had driven this clunker across the country already. So he is driving to school one day and the engine starts on fire, so he pulls into a parking lot of a restaurant that hadn't opened yet, and just abandons the vehicle! Just catches a bus and goes on to school like this was just an ordinary thing to happen.

We drove by (in my car!) a week later and the car is gone. He NEVER hears another word about it. I am not sure what happened as I would have thought they would track him down and cite him for something. But the car just disappeared. We don't even know if it was engulfed or someone caught it before the car was up in flames. Still a mystery to this day. And now this guy is a College Professor!

ps--Keim, awesome way to get a new car!

 

[travelover]

I had a 1964 VW beetle in college. One day on the way to class I felt a bump, but thought nothing of it. When I came out and tried to start the car - nothing, not even a click. So I lifted the back seat to look at the battery and saw only a huge hole in the floor with two cables lying on the ground. I wrapped the positive cable end in a rag so it wouldn't short out, push started the car by myself and drove it to the battery store. VW had thoughtfully made the rear floor syymetric and the new battery lived happily ever after on the right side.

 

[NW-Bound]

Oh man! I would have thought you people made up these stories. Or did you?

One of my brothers-in-law had a big Chevy sedan some years ago, when he could not afford anything better. It was not a bad car, but an old gas guzzler that nobody would want.

Well, his car got stolen one day. We felt sorry for him, and were thinking of helping him with some money to buy another one. After a few days, the police called to say they found his car abandoned some 20 miles away. The car looked the same, but, but, but, it got a different front bench seat!

Whoever stole the car just swapped out the seat before abandoning it. They even bolted the crummier replacement seat back in place. Nice conscientious car thieves, huh!

My BIL got his car back and drove it with the lousier seat for a few more years.

 

[2soon2tell]

1972 Chevrolet Vega - What a POS! The engine was horrible and had to be rebuilt at 30,000 miles. This was one of GM's worst efforts.

 

[ls99]

While on war stories.

At last j*b had a co-worker with chevy malibu. Looked fairly good outside. He a motorhead rebuilt and blue printed the engine. It was fast. He never quiet finished the interior.

One morning coming to w*rk got stopped and ticketed for not wearing seat belt. Then got a second ticket for sitting on a milk crate. There were no seats in the car, they were getting re-upholstered.

He also had a 66 corvette spread around his living room , kitchen and bedroom. Why? So his soon to be ex could not attach it.

Then he died, drank too much of the moonshine he made in his basement, his liver and kidney were destroyed.