What was your WORST car ever?

I bought and sold cars for a while. The absolute most painful ones were from the same few years. An 03 Honda Pilot and 03 Acura TL Type S both looked wonderful on paper. Good Carfax, no paint, Good miles, service records,clean clean clean. But immediately transmission problems followed by more transmission problems. Out of warranty on the first trans by five minutes and the dealer rebuild on the other was also of course just out of warranty. Fresh looking trans fluid turned cesspool in minutes. The pilot had many other exciting opportunities for hair loss. Like the oil pressure light (STOP ENGINE IMMEDIATELY!) that came on when the battery was anywhere below 12 volts and the mystery suspension malady that ate alignments and tires for breakfast. And the super hard to find nav disc for the flintstones nav system. Fun! But neither compare to the 04 Dakota and 03 Grand Cherokee that also were no paint great mile spotless vehicles. They both had something exciting called a blend door wayyyyyyy inside the dash. Could be hot,could be cold,could be nothing. Could work when the battery was disconnected for a little while. could not work at all. These two were nearly saleproof. After much effort and expense sold them at auctions for a loss. And finally the beautiful candy white Jetta with the cool everything. Just about wore the poor CEL out on that one. Oh how I enjoyed pushing you. One challenge after another. Also loved the 05 King Ranch with the impossible to remove little spark plugs and hula dancer idle. And just 35k on that one. Weeks of torture...The most pain free? GM trucks. Tahoes Suburbans 1500 2500 Gas Diesel. No matter what. Easy to buy parts, easy to fix and easy to sell.

I could read Toyota hate posts all day.

I read a column at the height of the unintended acceleration mess that was a sort of schadenfreude-laden "see-I-told-you-so" directed at masses of Toyota consumers. I thought this was in Car & Driver and I thought it was by Csaba Csere. I haven't been able to actually find the article online, though. Did anyone else read this? My fear is that Toyota PR drones have effectively purged it. (Csaba himself was fired from C&D shortly after the column was printed.)

b13990 wrote: I could read Toyota hate posts all day. I read a column at the height of the unintended acceleration mess that was a sort of schadenfreude-laden "see-I-told-you-so" directed at masses of Toyota consumers. I thought this was in Car & Driver and I thought it was by Csaba Csere. I haven't been able to actually find the article online, though. Did anyone else read this? My fear is that Toyota PR drones have effectively purged it. (Csaba himself was fired from C&D shortly after the column was printed.)

Was that the column that re-iterated the official verdict of "User Error" as was found during the investigation?

b13990 wrote: I could read Toyota hate posts all day. I read a column at the height of the unintended acceleration mess that was a sort of schadenfreude-laden "see-I-told-you-so" directed at masses of Toyota consumers. I thought this was in Car & Driver and I thought it was by Csaba Csere. I haven't been able to actually find the article online, though. Did anyone else read this? My fear is that Toyota PR drones have effectively purged it. (Csaba himself was fired from C&D shortly after the column was printed.)

I thought that Csaba was out of C&D in 2008, and the Toyota incidents happend in 2009?

In reply to Swank Force One:

Yes, I think it reiterated the "user error" diagnosis , but the subtext wasn't "Toyota is great," it was basically "man, Toyota drivers are dumb."

mtn wrote:

b13990 wrote: I could read Toyota hate posts all day. I read a column at the height of the unintended acceleration mess that was a sort of schadenfreude-laden "see-I-told-you-so" directed at masses of Toyota consumers. I thought this was in Car & Driver and I thought it was by Csaba Csere. I haven't been able to actually find the article online, though. Did anyone else read this? My fear is that Toyota PR drones have effectively purged it. (Csaba himself was fired from C&D shortly after the column was printed.)

I thought that Csaba was out of C&D in 2008, and the Toyota incidents happend in 2009?

That could be. Clearly I'm remembering something wrong, since I can't find the article.

2002 Volvo XC70. Bought it at an auction (first warning sign right?) and then proceeded to dump 8500$ into it over the next two years.

The car was amazing when everything worked. Most comfortable seats I've ever sat in and nothing beats the feeling of driving a big AWD Volvo station wagon down snowy streets in the winter.

b13990 wrote: In reply to Swank Force One: Yes, I think it reiterated the "user error" diagnosis , but the subtext wasn't "Toyota is great," it was basically "man, Toyota drivers are dumb."

LOL!

Well, then you have to add Audi drivers to the same list since they had the same "unintended" acceleration back in the 1980s.

mazdeuce wrote:

SilverFleet wrote: My Trans Am has had more problems, and has almost killed me a few times, but that car is over 30 years old and was formerly owned by a guy that exclusively wore teal mesh tank tops, so I don't fault it.

This.....this right here is funny. My kids asked me what I was laughing at and I struggled to explain why teal mesh tank tops are hilarious.

Don't worry, I have pictures. I'll post some up later.

So after reading this entire thread, are we to conclude that we should just ride bicycles?

1991 Pontiac Grand-am (Grandammit); Grandfather let me drive it as he wasn't going to be driving anymore. RUSTY. Headlights would dim randomly, engine power would die off unexpectedly, brake lines ruptured going down a hill and I narrowly avoided an accident in it. Had a softball sized rusthole in the door. Broke swaybar endlinks just driving along.

Only thing I miss about it is not caring! Grandpa basically said, "its fully insured, just don't let it be your fault and don't get hurt"

2000 Ford Exploder. Result of my mother going to a stealership and deciding that she wasn't leaving without a car. She had 3 shops look at it for a suspension issue, of which none of them figured it out. (I did the first time I was under it for some stuff. I guess shops don't know how to check balljoints?) thermostat, trans work, starter, rust problems, and now the drivers door won't unlock unless you pull the inner handel. She still has it. Loosly for sale, otherwise planning on using it to haul some stuff to the dump over the next few months.

In reply to kb58:

Nope. Miata.

kb58 wrote: Well, then you have to add Audi drivers to the same list since they had the same "unintended" acceleration back in the 1980s.

Add them? They were already there. Even at nine years old I was pretty skeptical of Audi drivers, and that piece on 60 Minutes did nothing to change my mind.

As for Toyota's issues, I still suspect that some kind of issue in the firmware might have played a role. A lot has changed since the 1980s, particularly in the area of throttling. And Japanese engine controls have never worked as well as American ones in my experience. I just don't think the Japanese are as far along with computer programming in general as the Americans are, and I can easily imagine the sort of difficult-to-isolate bug that could lead to what people describe.

Toyota drivers are still pretty clueless, though. Unintended acceleration is not that bad if you know what you're doing. I've had loose carburetors send the tachometer soaring to the redline before, and it was really just amusing.

b13990 wrote:

kb58 wrote: Well, then you have to add Audi drivers to the same list since they had the same "unintended" acceleration back in the 1980s.

Add them? They were already there. Even at nine years old I was pretty skeptical of Audi drivers, and that piece on 60 Minutes did nothing to change my mind. As for Toyota's issues, I still suspect that some kind of issue in the firmware might have played a role. A lot has changed since the 1980s, particularly in the area of throttling. And Japanese engine controls have never worked as well as American ones in my experience. I just don't think the Japanese are as far along with computer programming in general as the Americans are.

I uhh.... ermmm....

In reply to Swank Force One:

You don't agree? My 2009 Subaru floods/stalls/fails to start much more frequently than any EFI Ford or GM vehicle I've ever owned. It's still OK, and better than a carb... but it's not up to US standards.

In general, computer programming is an American-led field... I'm struggling to name a Japanese computer program that isn't a game.

For me, it was my 98 Audi B5. It was the worst for me because of it's ability to always surprise me. Every week, it seems like it thought of a new way to leave me stranded or make my wallet bleed. And it was never something easy. The fact that I was still young and didn't work on my cars much back then, surely didn't help, but I had owned an 130k, 12 year old Alfa Milano before, and I'd rank it more reliable.

In reply to b13990:

I dunno... I think it's more Throttle by Wire problems than where the car was made or where the computer was programmed. My 2002 WRX had fantastic throttle response. It was cable-driven. My 2009 WRX was AWFUL and had rev-hang issues.

A 2008ish Dodge Avenger rental we had was TBW and had the worst throttle response on any car that I have ever seen or felt by far. Having to drive that car every day would drive me insane. If I owned that turd, I would have mentioned it earlier, but thankfully we only had it for a couple brutal weeks.

That said, my current Mazda 3 is TBW and has some of the most crisp throttle response out of any car I've had, so hopefully they are getting better.

I can't believe Ian F hasn't been in here yet complaining about his E30.

I guess I've been lucky. I haven't really had the long, funny, hateful experiences written here. I bet I will now that I've admitted that.

Wasn't mine, but my father-in-law's 2000 Buick Century was the worst car I ever had the misfortune to work on. I remember bloodying my knuckles while changing spark plugs because it has sheet metal screws poking through the firewall from the inside. I was SO glad when that car got traded in.

1993 Pontiac Sunbird. Free from my uncle, so I can't look a gift horse in the mouth - but I can complain about riding it.

One day, I was dropping my teammates off after track practice, and had difficulty climbing a hill at any decent pace. T.K. said that the car was probably slower than I was.

So the race was on. 100 yards at the stadium. T.K. drove the car. I lined up next to it. By the time I got to the flagpole I had a twenty-yard lead. The car blew by me at the 110 yard mark.

T.K. is now a medical resident. I still play with cars. I wonder - who won that race after all?

In reply to SilverFleet:

Ah, rev-hang; it's sort of like the high-tech successor to "run-on," AKA "dieseling." They just can't quite engineer it out, it seems, at least not without endangering some stupid emissions goal.

If you can stand NASIOC, there's some impressive-looking crap on there about remapping the electric throttle. The factory map is designed to create an impression of power during test drives.

I worked as a programmer on vehicle control systems for a few years (mostly autopilots and robotic positioning systems for work boats). It's easy enough to write a "loop" that reads some sensors and generates an output command (e.g. injector duty cycle) repeatedly.

The aspect of the newer systems that scares me is multiprocessing. Just like a desktop computer, an advanced ECU is running multiple programs at once. Guaranteeing the correctness of such a system is much more difficult. Think of all the ways programs on a desktop can crash, lock things up, etc.

There is an unfortunate lack of respect for these issues among many engineers, in my experience. You can't take the people who wrote the single-process system and expect them to make the multi-process system unless they're able to start applying a much different mindset to their work. This is an emerging area in computer science, and the people who really grasp it fully aren't as widespread (in geography and in their roles) as one might hope.

My hunch is that the Toyota firmware has some sort of infrequent issue that only arises under certain circumstances, and if different ECU activities are interleaved with each other in very specific ways. That's 10% of the problem (these things happen...) and the other 90% is attributable to driver panic/ignorance.

Honestly, my experience in different dodges (nitro and avenger) and my sister in law to be's toyota camry is a disconcerting lack of engine braking.

Taught my fiance to drive in my 04 Impreza and she scared herself with her sisters car's lack of engine braking. (lovely girl, she hates appliancy cars that lack any passion now)

spitfirebill wrote:

Feedyurhed wrote: I never really owned a bad car but my sister's car was so bad it genetically attached itself to me. What was it? Chevrolet Vega. Chevy's answer to the imports. Aluminum block, cast iron sleeves, which liked to crack ( the block that is), burn oil, overheat, rust, had a 2 speed auto tranny. Took forever to accelerate and stop. Everything either fell off or quit working or both. In fact it was so bad it's far easier to list what was good about it because there wasn't anything good about it. Chevrolet covered some items under warranty but then refused after the second block cracked. My sister ended up leaving it sitting outside the Chevy dealership with a big sign that said "Lemon" on it. She had it towed there because it didn't run. Oddly the car was yellow in color. There's a reason you don't see many (any) Vegas driving around any more. It was so bad and she was treated so poorly by Chevrolet I still will never drive/buy a Chevy even 40 years later.

You beat me to it this time, but I have already expounded upon my hatred for my 1972 Vega. 22 mpg with four speed and no AC. That thing was an oven in the summertime. A bad AM radio. And of course the engine. This car fostered such hared that I will never own another new Chevy. EDIT: On second thought, my wife's 1991 Lincoln Continental was a much bigger POS. Especially since it was a $31K luxury car. At leat the Vega never really broke down. This car ate money in $600 increments. Three tranmissions, head gaskets, speedo cluster, power steering hoses, intermittant AC, air bag struts, faulty brake booster, etc. But when running, it got 29mpg on the road and was the most cofortable thing I've ever taken on a long trip.

Hey there fellow Vega hater, we are kindred spirits now. Once you have owned and/or driven a Vega and lived to tell about you are in select group like we climbed Mt. Everest together or lifted the flag on Iwo Jima. There are so few of us that survived. See you at next years meeting!!

I've thankfully been quite fortunate with cars myself- and also likely owned a LOT less than most of you have at least to date. I think the worst car I've dealt with though would likely have to be my parents' 1984 (I believe...) Renault Alliance. I don't care how many awards it won or what Car & Driver said, that car was a BITCH to drive by the time I got to drive it in the early 90's. It retains the record for the most obnoxious clutch I've ever had to drive- though ironically since it's the clutch I had to LEARN on, everything else since has been a piece of cake..