What Was the ABSOLUTE WORST Car You've Ever Owned?

[paironines]

My worst? 86 Cutlass Supreme 307. One of my best? 86 Cutlass Salon 307!  The supreme ran crappy every other 100 miles. Finally stretched a rod and wouldnt fully turn over. The Salon ran on and on flawlessly......

[404NOTFOUND]

Mercedes=


Major
Expenses,
Rarely
Cheap,
Eats
Dollars
Swiftly

Well, that might have been true for a few years but, they certainly make some of the best cars now. I have one of the newer ones in a diesel. You can't get anything more reliable than that.

Mercedes

Magnificent
Engineering
Rarely
Costs
Excessive
Dollars
Except
Servicing.

[GOTWING]

My X-wives at the time brand new 92 Camaro RS 305. and a 2003 Mach 1 that I purchased brand new as a left over, at a little over 4,000 miles the engine clattered without a load on it with easy acceleration and the trans would "crunch" going into second gear every time, and it was not beat on. The first week i had it i was leaving a resturant and had no heat and the check engine light was on, ended up having a piece of plastic stuck underneath the thermostat! all warranty issues, i traded in 6 months for a new truck. Through friends at the dealer that Mach 1 ended up with a new engine and trans from Ford, It's crazy, because before it i had a 99 GT Mustang 4.6 5spd. that was super dependable? Well now that the Challenger is out i have a 2010 plumcrazy R/T Challenger 5.7 hemi for my modern muscle car. so far great luck, also my wife drives a 2005 300C with the 5.7 Hemi, we purchased it new and it now has 109k miles, great car, only had to replace the ball joints and a trigger piece to release the shifter out of park.  

[aussiemuscle]

worst? subaru leone. front cv joints so loud that pedestrians dived out of the way. also had a front wheel bearing lock up while driving.
best? my current Ford Falcon ute, nearly 5 years old and no warranty issues at all.

[c00nhunterjoe]

I've owned a lot of vehicles for my age. Surprisingly none of them were lemons or horrible. My least favorite would have been the 88 chevy berreta. Stripped down base model 4banger. Would not getout of its own way, engine vibrated awful at idle. Coolest part was the all digital dash.

[69finder]

Pontiac 6000

[myk]

I'd say the worst is my '97 Camaro Z28 'vert.  When I was DD'ing that thing something broke every other week.  Driving it around I literally expected parts to fall off of it.  Hell a month after owning it the convertible top came loose and hit my head as I was lowering it.  Switches would sometimes snap off from being toggled.  At one point I think I determined that the car was built during GM's series of strikes in the late 90's.  The real kicker was the transmission.  I've never even so much as peeled out in that thing and the automatic broke at 70K miles, despite regular maintenance.  What a goddamn joke.  All complaints and cursing aside I love that car enough to still have it.  When it's clear and dark out, with stars in the skies, and the air is just right, putting the top down and cruising along with the best stock exhaust note from the 90's as your soundtrack is worth all the trouble.


I think....

[Fitz73Chrgr]

I'd say the worst is my '97 Camaro Z28 'vert. 

I had a '94 Formula and that thing was down all the time.  I had to take the transmission out of it 3 different times over 5 years.

[myk]

I'd say the worst is my '97 Camaro Z28 'vert.  

I had a '94 Formula and that thing was down all the time.  I had to take the transmission out of it 3 different times over 5 years.

Ok, glad I'm not the only one then.  I will say that the "4.1" gen with the LS1 was considerably better.  My '99 T/A has been an angel up to this point; best mileage, performance and reliability of the squad...

[68 Bullitt Charger]

1964 Ford Thunderbird.....   2Dr Ht. 390 V8 Auto. Wow what a POS! This car was bought on Racing Junk and looked beautiful. Loaded, swivel seat, A/C I mean just great looking and low mile's. Man this car leaked and burned oil. Then I have a "Ford Guy" restore the Engine and it ran worse, leaked again 2 month's later, the Trans started to not shift when it felt like it. The brake's were dangerous and the Pwr Window's worked when they wanted(some day's good, other day's they didn't move) I sold this POS needing work and was honest with the Buyer. He asked me "why you selling it, and why so cheap?" I said " because its a money pit, and a POS IMO and had enough" He just started laughing and paid me the money. I kind of though I offended him as he was a Thunderbird Guy. Anyway it was good ridding's!!!!!!!

[Charger_Dart]

81 Cadillac Eldorado with the 8-6-4 engine.  OMG that car loved to eat expensive parts. It rode like a dream when it did run... just could not afford it

[myk]

What's 8-6-4?  Was that their attempt at cylinder deactivation in the day?

[hatersaurusrex]

I was given a 75 Ford Maverick 4 door with a straight sick. I wanted a beater to go trail bashing and I thought the car would be fun. The motor made less power than any other car I'd had, so tossing it sideways would only happen on ice. I live in California, so not much chance of that.
I took it out the second day that I had it. I knew of a construction site where they were building houses. I tried to have fun with it but that Ford motor was a slug. My weed wacker had more torque. I drove the car off of a few 4 foot cliffs and tore a gash in the radiator. This was YEARS before cell phones, and I didnt want to walk 12 miles home. I Topped off the radiator with muddy water from a puddle and left the cap off to avoid building pressure. Within a mile the oil light was flickering and I heard some clattering. I stopped to check the oil. It showed FULL on the stick, so I pressed on. At the point where I was crossing a bridge, I had the loud pedal FLOORED and the car topped out at 35 mph. I didnt want to get stranded on a bridge! The water temp was in the HOT end of the scale and the flickering oil light was now a glaring, solid red. It was knocking, smoking and struggling to keep moving. The motor shut down without any drama and I popped it into neutral and coasted into a gas station on the other end of the bridge. I called one of those..."tow away junk cars" numbers  and said that they can have the car on the condition that they give me a ride home. They did.
In retrospect, I have had WORSE cars that turned out to be decent ones once all of the mistakes commited by previous owners were fixed. The Maverick  gets the award for the shortest time I have ever owned a car. I had high hopes for off road fun. It FAILED me.

Uh, if your standard of a 'good' car is 'must be able to drive off several 4 foot cliffs without damage', then what is the best car you ever owned?  A Sherman tank?

[ACUDANUT]

My 94 Dodge shadow.  It had a 3.0 with a automatic.  Transmission went out at 70K and the paint flaked off.  Dodge simply said "sorry". The car was only 3 years old...I have not bought a new Dodge again.

[Larry523]

I can honestly say I've never owned a truly bad car. The worst looking car was an '86 Dodge Diplomat police cruiser. It ran great, but looked like crap! My Dad had a couple of lemons though. He had a '69 Galaxy 500 with a 390 2bbl that ran strong, but had a strong tendency to burn out the ignition switch if you ran the air conditioning. The worst car he ever owned was a '79 Mustang with that gawdawful variable-venturi carburetor. No one knew how to properly adjust those things, especially not the dealers! The car ran like a pig and got terrible gas mileage. Which was made worse by a fuel guage that read too high. When it indicated a quarter tank, you had to find a gas station in a hurry because you were running on fumes! Can't tell you how many times I had to go rescue my Mom when she ran out of gas in that thing.

[aussiemuscle]

The worst looking car was an '86 Dodge Diplomat police cruiser.

i just bought an 86 dodge diplomat scale model, that i'm going to make into a police cruiser....

[Larry523]

To be fair, when I said my Diplomat was the worst-looking car I'd ever owned, it wasn't so much because of the styling as it was the way the car looked after the Honolulu Police Department buffed/scraped the door, fender and trunklid emblems off the car. The white paint was dulled where the decals used to be, and you could still see outlines of them. The rest of the car wasn't that bad. But I had no money to fix it up. I'd bought it for cheap transportation. Traded it in a year later on a new '89 Trans Am GTA, which I still own.