What's the sketchiest vehicle you've driven?

I would say my first 78 Cherokee. I had left my 83 Wagoneer in Ames over the summer and took my Colt to my internship.  My buddy was using it to tow his Hobby Stock to the track and it had a hole in the block when I got back so we found this Cherokee with a 401 as a parts car. 

It was an old plow truck so there was more rust than metal in the car. Highway trips were interesting and I'm sure I shortened my life from carbon monoxide poisoning every time I drove it. It was sketchy as all heck and I'm sure if there were any sort of state inspection, it would fail. 

Finally in the spring we swapped the 401 into the Wagoneer and it was a lot of fun till I sold it. 

That would be a early VW bus. This thing was on a used car lot that was part of a Fiat Alfa Romeo dealership that I worked at in the mid '70s. Was used as parts runner,etc, while it was for sale. I think it was 40 hp version. The car lots were located off of a very busy main street in CA. Anyway, we employees often argued about who had to drive it next. That thing was underpowered to the point of being unsafe to drive in the traffic of the day.

My 68 F100; the steering coupler had disintegrated to the point of it had 3/4 of play before anything happened.  The back end weaved around on the freeway, the rear axle seal lubed the left rear brake, when it came to to fix the seal the axle slid out with no resistance whatsoever..........which explained why the back of the truck weaved around. It also had a mismatched brake master resulting in the brakes needing about 100lbs of pressure to stop.

I eventually traded it to a friend and he's since rectified the numerous issues.

My actual first car was a 1984 Chevy Caprice with the 305 - my grandfather acquired it from who knows where, and I managed to convince my mom to drive it home for me - 80 miles, on the highway. It had a burned valve, flat spotted tires, and had been sitting for at least a year, so attempts to go over 35mph were met with clouds of dark smoke and an alarming amount of shaking. She was not impressed. My grandmother actually made my grandfather give me my money back for that one.

Then I had a Saturn, which was a great car. The driver's side door latch failed, and being a poor college kid, I just strapped it closed anytime I needed to drive it. Learned pretty quick not to use a bungee cord for this purpose, since the stretch meant that the door would swing open on right hand turns. Fortunately it wasn't a first gen, so it had normal seat belts. Mousetrap seat belts would have made that even more entertaining.

The sketchiest was definitely my E30. I drove that car for quite a while, until I realized that the gas pedal wasn't really....attached. Pulling the carpet revealed a quite clear view of the driveway below. I'm pretty sure that was also around the time the brake lines blew out on me (fortunately only about a mile from home). The driver's side rear shock tower had been replaced at some point with scrap metal, and I tried to fix it, but I'm not sure what I did was an improvement. I also discovered that the battery box had completely rusted out a big chunk of firewall and front passenger side shock tower - I was slightly better at welding by this point, so that turned out halfway decent. I paid $500 for that car and it probably wasn't worth it, though I definitely got $500 of enjoyment out of it. I ended up giving it away (trading it for a decent bottle of whiskey, actually) to golfduke, who turned it into a Lemons car and still owes me pictures of it actually making it around a racetrack under its own power!

76 F150 with a disintegrating 10,000 lb travel trailer behind it.  The steering box had so much play you had to turn it nearly 90 degrees before it would correct, it had a snapped leaf in the rear spring pack, and a rust hole in the frame you could stick two fists in.  The seat track latch didn't work, so every time you hit the brakes (only two of which worked) you slid into the steering wheel.  The top loader had so much slop in the shifter and forks that if you weren't careful you could engage 1st and 3rd simultaneously with disastrous results.  I only had to go 7 miles.  In that 7 miles, the lug nuts came loose enough on the trailer that one of the wheels was just dangling and it destroyed the studs so I removed it and kept going on three.  Every once in a while the drum would hit the pavement and made pretty sparks.  The engine overheated and sprayed coolant all over the windshield which was only made worse by the dry-rotted wipers I engaged.  The travel trailer had leaked pretty badly causing some rot in the walls and on the last turn into my destination the rear window fell out and the rear door frame was hanging on by a thread.

But I made it gosh darn it.  I lived in that trailer for three months while I finished college so I didn't have to renew my lease.  I also had a Honda Shadow that I rode 15 miles every day in February, March, and April in PA - rain, cold, and even some snow - so I could commute to my classes.

I heard from the friend a few months later with the 76 F150.  He was in Kittaning one day and accidentally got it stuck between 1st and 3rd.  His solution was to go out with a bang.  He floored and revved it until valve float and popped the clutch, which ejected the shifter up into the headliner and split the case open on the bottom like cracking an egg into a pan.  Parts went flying.  When he removed the transmission (parts) later, he realized that the clutch, flywheel, and crank flange fell out.  It had snapped the crank right behind the rear main.

I can think of two and they are both Toyotas.

First one was a rental Yaris I had for a week in Aruba. No idea how many miles were on it but it was completely worn out. When you braked, or accelerated, you never knew which way it was going to pull. The steering was so vague you had to do a test turn to gauge when to make your move. It had no power to speak of, the seats were completely worn out, and when you put on the brakes you could feel the lash in everything as it took a fraction of a second for the rest of the car to catch up with the wheels. My DIL drove it once and refused to drive it the rest of the trip. Because of that car I dismiss every car review I hear based on a rental unit.

I actually came on here and started a thread asking about Tercels years ago. My youngest son was looking for a commuter and we found a good deal on one. I took the advice here that they were great cars, recommended it to my son,  and we bought it. I drove it the next two days as we were getting it ready for a safety check and in all the years I've driven sketchy pieces of E36 M3, that was the only time I ever drove a car that I considered inherently dangerous. It was like the above mentioned Yaris, only not worn out and not with really high mileage. It was, however, the worst handling car I've ever driven. With ineffective brakes, no power and no redeeming qualities that I can recall. He drove it for a few months and fortunately blew it up. That was about ten years ago and I'm still apologizing for it.

Idiot that I am, I bought a clean, low mileage Echo to use as a commuter a few years ago. It's been sitting in front of my shop for a year now.

the 78 C10 From Tucson to Indy.... on 11 year old dry rotted tires, unknown fluid changes, no spare and no seatbelts. Best. Trip. Ever.

Growing up on a farm - just about anything was sketchy.  A few of the high (low?)lights.  Timeframe this was all in the late 90s-early 00s.

• 70s schoolbus with the roof cut off and no seats, turned into a makeshift hay hauler.  Used to run it down I-94 from Madison to Milwaukee.
• Schoolbus was replaced with a MACK straight truck, only it wasnt a Mack it was a Renault with Mack badging.  No parts availability meant no service.  Gas tanks were rotted out and patched with roofing tar and pop rivet patches.  Air brakes were rotted out.  No oil pressure.  As a 16 year old kid getting tossed the keys and sent from the country to the Milwaukee county zoo with a poorly strapped load of hay was always an adventure
• 52 GMC pickup used for running into town.  Actually not too terrible, just like any other 52 GMC.
• 64 Mustang, actually a friends car.  Hot V8 with 6 cylinder drums and more bondo than metal made for a run ride.  
• 95 F150 that somehow by 99 had all the life wrung out of it and 225k spins.  I got it for $300 with a bad trans, put a trans in it, kept running it.  Broke college kid so I did no other maintenance at all, adding oil only when the motor sounded like it was coming apart.  Front end was looser than a $3 whore.  Ended up putting another 120k on it, several cross country trips, sold it for $1500 same day I listed it.  

Drove a CJ 2A with lots of miles and the steering bell crank bearings shot, lots of play,  nearly 100 miles.

 Found that steering with one hand made it easier to keep up.

This should come to a surprise to noone but... a Uhaul truck.  Local rental.  Had like 75 degrees of play in the steering wheel.  Scary as berkeley at 15mph.  

1991 poontiac grandammit

Rust holes the size of a softball in the doors, DEEEAAADD shocks, 20 year old tires, rusty brake lines, and an intermittant coil problem.  In the snowy mountains of western maryland. 

The tires were the worst thing. NO traction whatsoever, but I learned to drive through inertia.  Then there was the time one of the brake lines went as I was going down a mountain...

It was my grandfathers and he had full coverage on it still (this was circa 2005?) and I would have been doing him a favor to total it, especially if I wasnt at fault. 

Car outlived him, I sent it along to a cousin who drove it for a year and sent it back. It was still driving when I sold it to someone who actually wanted to transplant the engine from it into another 91 grandammit as it had under 100k on its iron duke.  I was mystified at someone wanting to bother putting the effort into one. I think I sold it for $150 or something stupid. I was just glad they didnt have intention on keeping the thing on the road. 

it really doesnt compare with others posts, it had a working cassette deck and I still have the alice cooper tape I pretty much just kept in it. 

Like many of you, I've had plenty of experience with sketchy rides. Here are some of the sketchiest:

1987 Mercury Cougar XR7: I bought it for $250 from the dealer my sister worked at, because it was cheaper than getting a new gas tank for my '64 Skylark at the time. It had been hit on the rear driver's quarter, but it ran and drove home. Interior was nasty, windows didn't roll down, it was filled with trash, and it would do this weird thing in reverse like it had stripped gears. I pulled an amazing assortment of crap out of the engine bay including a fork, knife, and spoon, 2 non-functional alarm systems, about 75ft of wire that went to nothing, various rags and towels, and a Chips Ahoy box propped under the headlight. I only had it for a few months before the transmission lunched itself, and the dealer sold me yet another 1987 Cougar XR7 that I had slightly better luck with.

1979 Trans Am: Yep, this one. When I bought it, it was replacing my 1989 Maxima SE as a daily driver. That was a mistake. A week after I bought it, I found that most of the exhaust manifold bolts were snapped when I tried installing headers, so I had to pull the heads to have them drilled and tapped. Then, after doing a tune-up, it caught fire and nearly burned to the ground (my fault, put the incorrect ignition module in it). There were plenty of former owner hacks I had to fix, and after just one day trying to drive it to school and having it barely make it there and back, I gave up and got a different DD. It's been relegated to Project Car Hell ever since.

1979 Dodge Power Wagon:  Also something I currently own. I knew what I was getting into when I bought it, and it's come a long way since, but there's still plenty of sketchiness that needs fixing. The electrical system had more scotch locks, wire nuts, and bare wires than a Radio Shack had in stock circa 1985.  Most of the hoses were dry rotted and cracked, the fuel feed line had about 12 splices in it and no clamps, the filler neck was held on by grease, and it leaked enough oil to make it onto an EPA watch list. The thing was basically a rolling Superfund Site. It's a lot better now.

BONUS! NOT EVEN MINE! 1995 Chevrolet Suburban: Back in 2010, my friend bought a 1995 Suburban from another friend for $1000 to use as a tow pig and dump runner. It was 2wd, had the 350, and plenty of rust, but it ran and drove and the trans had been replaced at some point. We took it up to the Canadian border on a rafting trip, and it did well until the end of the trip when it started running funny, so he threw a tune up at it. About a month later, we hooked up a trailer and attempted to drag a Miata to the Challenge to go along with our Jeep XJ-R. We got to about CT and it started running worse than ever. After stopping for an hour at a parts store, we threw a bunch of sensors at it, but it didn't care. After getting back on the road, it would give us full throttle and then nothing, no matter the pedal input, and that came in waves. After some internet sleuthing, someone said to unplug the O2 sensor, and we got it running closer to normal. And that doesn't even cover the rest of the issues! The steering was super loose, so towing at highway speeds was a challenge.

Then there were the brakes.

On day one of the Challenge, on the way back to the hotel, we stopped for beer. Our race car was street legal, so we left the trailer at the hotel and had both cars with us. I get in after buying beer and immediately pop a brake line. We just happened to stop within walking distance of a parts store, and were able to cobble together a brake line, but we missed part of the day 1 festivities at the hotel. Later that night, after a few beers, we decided to get stupid and cobble together a turbo swap on the XJ-R in the hotel parking lot, which ended up being a life-changing event!

Oh, but the Suburban wasn't done with us yet! It got a flat tire and one of the calipers locked up after blowing out a seal since now it was getting consistent line pressure with the new line. We also had to plug the flat tire on the vehicle because the wheel was seized to the hub and none of the tricks worked to get it off. We eventually made it back to MA, but yeah, that was the sketchiest tow rig I've ever piloted by far. 

A buddy had a 1935 Packard, unrestored other than the engine. After a lot of convincing—on his part—we took it out, with me driving, at night, around the block. With a six-volt system, the "headlights" were more of a suggestion, at around 20-candlepower I imagine. As we neared a turn, my friend urged me to start slowing down. Given that I was only going about 25mph, I asked why, and he said, "try the brakes." Geezuz... turns out that they're cable-actuated, with a fair bit of cable stretch, so that was attention-grabbing.

The above aside, the straight-8 was awesome, all torque. Between it and the ride, I could see driving across the country in it... robbing banks along Route 66 even...

I drove sub $500 cars for 20 years. All of them were sketchy in some way or another.

One of them was a Pinto I paid $150 for it and pushed home. It didn't run due to a hole in the side of the carb. The repair consisted of a #2 pencil driven in the hole. Every time it backfired it would shoot the pencil across the engine bay. I kept a handful in the glove box just in case. I sold it a couple of years later for $400. It still had a pencil stuck in the side of the carb. 

It was replaced with a Corolla wagon that also required pushing home. It was expensive though at $250. It needed a clutch.

I went to check out an early '70s Datsun 1200 for sale for about $1000. Driving it identified the problem, that it pretty much had no rings - tons of smoke. Between that and the owner having to move quick, I drove home in a $175 car. The fun part was that, it being at night, when I'd step on the gas, my brother's headlights behind me would totally vanish. Even better was stopping at a traffic light, where after a few seconds, an enormous cumulus cloud of oil smoke would catch up to and envelope the car. Good times!

Buddy of mine I was stationed with bought a 260Z that had a 350 and rock crusher trans swap.

Swap was a hack job, frame rigidity was compromised, rust in all the usual places, bad tires, and we found out after we'd been hooning it around at way too fast a E36 M3ty brake system, rears leaked and the master cylinder was about shot.  Thankfully we found that out when we got it on a lift the day after we'd been driving like idiots.

How we didn't die, I have absolutely no clue.

Oh yeah. Probably the sketchiest would be this and it was 1100 miles to get it home. I thought for sure it was going to burst into flames within the first 30 miles. 

  My family were Peugeot dealers in the 60's and 70's (I think the statue of limitations has expired).  One of my jobs as a newly licensed driver was to take the Peugeot 404s we took in trade with rotted frame stiffeners and drive them 30 miles to the welder and pickup the previous victim.   I had one of these mechanical marvels as a driver.  The frame hadn't been fixed, and it had 3 radials and 1 bias ply on it.  Going to High School with a full load of kids, we spun going down a hill when I had to jam on the brakes.  No accident, but the car pool got smaller for a few weeks.  

My brother's 1973 Gremlin X.  This was maybe around 1981-1982-- I know we drove it to the inaugural Detroit F1 race.

if you swung the steering wheel back and forth at the correct tempo, there was no response from the car.  Headlights would go out with no warning, but banging on some things under the hood would usually get them back.  The aftermarket air conditioner sitting in the console area would spit ice chips-- thankfully the heater did not throw flames.

I think he bought it for about $650 as a high school car, and passed it on to my sister.  While she drove it, she and her friends "harlequined" it with latex house paint.  There was also an incident where she got pulled for speeding and, with her out of the car, it started rolling towards the squad car, eliciting a "You're not going to let that thing roll into my squad!?!"  I think the ticket was almost worth it for the "color" section the cop filled in: "yellow, red, orange, green, blue."

If I recall correctly, she sold it on to a classmate for $75, at which point the rear axle was entirely rusted away from the frame, so even sketchier at that point (there are no vehicle safety inpections in Iowa).

My grandpa sold brand new school buses back in the 60's and 70's.  Thomas Built Buses.

He took trade in's and my dad sold the used buses for his extra money.

One time when I was about 16 I delivered a brand new 1974 Thomas bus to a guy about 30 miles from our shop.  I had to also drive the trade-in back.  A 1955 school bus. It had a one barrel carburetor on a V-8.   Steering had at least 1/3 a turn of slack so keeping a straight line took some effort.  Brakes were poor.  I needed to double clutch to shift - I don't know if that was by design or if the synchro's were shot. 

 The best part was I was driving back on a highway. Top speed of the bus was under 60mph so I had it floored for probably 10 miles.  I came to a stop light so lifted my foot off the pedal.  Nothing happened. It was stuck to the floor.  Not much brakes, remember?   Being as I had above average knowledge about vehicles since I had been hanging around our mechanic shop since I was 12 it hit me to switch off the engine.  So between engine braking and standing on the brakes I avoided a catastrophe.   

I managed to unstick the accelerator pedal and DID NOT floor it again the rest of the way back to the shop.

NickD said:

A good one that my father tells is working for a family friend of ours' logging business in the late '70s. They had an old mid '60s Ford F-700 with a stake rack. It had a a number of mechanical issues, but most notably the cab mounts had all rotted out of it and the cab settled over the frame, so our friend Leigh jacked the cab up and crammed a bunch of chunks of 2x4s under the corners to hold the cab up. 

I had a '65 F-250 similar to that, but instead of wood blocks the previous owner had wedged steel fence posts between the frame and the underside of the dashboard.

In reply to jharry3 :

A 1955 bus probably never had any synchros. 

What about a donated-to-the-scouts-because-too-expensive-to-haul-away 1989 E150. 
On one hand, 302, 9", and space for a mattress. On the other hand, no seats, smells, leaks, doesn't really run, alignment? What's that?

well 15 year old me got it running one day and decided to drive it around our neighborhood. With no seats. Braking was an adventure since I was just kind of squatting there holding the wheel. 
I wasn't dumb enough to try again. 
 

Or... I daily'd a 77 K10 for a bit. Great truck for $300 but it was really worth maybe half that. Pull up 3 layers of floor mat and house carpet and you'd be doing the Fred flinstone. Ball joints were just a memory, getting the transfer case shifter to move required that I jump on the shifter violently, some genius had installed a mini spool so it was great off road but was eating rear tires faster than any drag car. The steering wouldn't hold fluid for a day, the carb had a whistle and would stick open, and at some point the rockers and fenders had decided to return to the earth which is not a common thing around here. And it was terrifying on the highway. And the tailgate was a booby trap meant to crush feet and pinch fingers. I miss that truck. 

An E250 one ton van, loaded with two tons of bottled water.

This was an after-school job as a warehouseman in high school at a place that ran a network of vending machines, institutional coffee deliveries, etc. They had a van that was on its last legs - hit several times, the power steering would make the wheel saw back and forth at a stop, the brakes were warped, and the engine barely ran. They had retired it from vending machine route use, so naturally it was what I was sent out with when I needed to pick up the water cooler tanks from the bottling facility.

While in college in the late '80's, at my first ever track day at Sears Point, I put my nice '74 Capri street car on it's roof.  I had just rebuilt the engine, so I found a '73 Capri with a tired engine but nice body.  I drove it the ~40 miles back to the house where I was renting a room, trailing a huge cloud of smoke.  There was tons of slop in the steering, first gear didn't work, it wouldn't run at low throttle openings, and who knows what else was wrong.  

Where I lived in the hills above Oakland, the driveway was narrow, super steep, and a couple hundred feet long, and it had a big bump halfway up where it transitioned from asphalt to concrete.  The road in front of the house was one lane wide with a pond not far off the side opposite the driveway.  So, with no first gear and no way to get a real running start, I decided to back up the hill.  I got a little running start, hooked the steering hard, headed more or less up the driveway, and got it straightened out such that I thought I was home free.  Then I hit the bump and it popped out of gear.  AARRGH!  So I had to do it again, but this time with only one hand for steering so the other hand could keep it in gear.  I clipped a couple plants on that ultimately successful effort.

After swapping the drivetrain and suspension from the rolled car, it was a pretty nice car which I drove throughout college and kept for several years after being gainfully employed.  I brought it to Michigan when I moved after school.  About 5 years ago, I saw it again at Michigan International Speedway.  The guy I sold it to lived near there, and when he saw my name on the entry for the SCCA race, he brought the car for me to see.  It was immaculate.  He'd replaced the interior and had it repainted the original brown metallic (bronze?) color.  Fantastic to see and hard to believe it all started with that piece of crap in California.