[Closed] All the vehicles you bought…. but shouldn’t have.

I had a 1973 Reliant Scimitar. 3 litre Ford V6, auto box 16mpg, fibreglass body.

It was wonderful, a 2-door 4 seater small estate. Every time it rained there were puddles inside. I once was about to give a lift back from work in Leeds to a certain Bob & Jo Thorogood (Bob was Drummer for Joe Cocker for a while) and as she was getting in Jo noticed that the rear seats (they were in individual pods) were about 2″ underwater.

There have been a few but the standouts are:

Air cooled VW bus
Suzuki RG500 Gamma
VOR 503 (temperamental Italian high revving 500 single)
ZZR1400 after a twelve year layoff from riding motos

Original Range Rover. Realised driving home it was a massive mistake (oil leaks, tatty). Managed to sell it back the next day. Only cost me a few hundred!

A 1993 Renault Clio in 2000. Car was ok but I paid well over the odds for it, an emergency purchase as my old Nova had just revealed how rotten it was as it came off the ramp from having 4 new tyres fitted.
A 1994 Escort that I bought after the Clio. Car was fine but turned out to have a stolen engine so had to go through a long court battle to get my money back. I only found out about the wrong engine when I took it to the local Ford dealer who spotted that it was running a different block to what it should have, everything else looked fine. He actually said it was a good job of covering it up except that they hadn't fitted the idle control bits - the reason it was being looked at. Caused me over 6 months of hassle that did.
A 2005 Fiesta. I had at the time a Ford Ka I'd bought new on a stupidly cheap deal that I really liked and was invited in by the dealer to look at upgrade options. Wasn't particularly interested in changing but went along anyway. Saw the Fiesta and thought it looked better and was an upgrade on the Ka in terms of image and comfort. I was working at Barclays at the time and the boss was constantly making digs at me driving a Ka so the seed was unconsciously in my head to change it, liked the Fiesta so a deal was done. 3 weeks later it lunched it's gearbox when the input shaft decided it no longer wanted to input anything, causing me to enter an argument with the dealer about it being a warranty job. Was without the car for a month while I complained to Ford UK who eventually got it fixed. It was then fine for a few months but then it started to fall apart with trim rattling, the driver's seat recliner snapping and it developing a random wheel wobble at times. All just out of warranty. I was up to my eyeballs in debt paying for it so had no choice but to just patch it up and soldier on with it until it was paid off. Cost me a bloody fortune that car but it refused to die, just kept on swallowing money. Never passed an MOT first time for random faults, was expensive to insure and even refused to die when the cambelt pulley fell off one evening! Strangely I had it for 7 years but it's the only car I've ever not looked back at when leaving it for the last time, absolutely hated it but by the time it was paid off I was determined to never get into large amounts debt for a car again so had to keep running it until I could buy something new with a hefty deposit.

Purely in unreliability terms a 1989 Citroen BX Gti 16v. It broke down on the way home from picking it up when the high pressure pipe from the hydraulic pump to the accumulator failed spraying LHM fluid onto the exhaust manifold. I had it for 12 months and in that time everything was working properly for about six weeks or so in total. When it was running properly it was fantastic, but it cost a lot of money to fix and stress. Strangely enough I regretted having to sell it

My first car, a Mk4 1500cc Triumph Spitfire in British Racing Green. I thought it was a sports car, it wasn't. It was a collection of some metal but mainly tinworm that I spent ages trying to get rid of, I failed miserably but I learnt that every journey was an adventure and chances of arriving at the destination was 50/50 at best.

Suzuki vx800 - on paper it ticked all the boxes for me, in reality it was under powered, under braked, handled woefully and to top it all dumped its fuel into the sump if left for any length of time and then sprayed the oil rich two stroke mix all over the back wheel if you didn't check the oil level before setting off.

Morris marina Estate - my first car, enough said, I paid £34 for it and couldn't get it through an mot so it got scrapped.

Citroën bx estate that had been clocked, luckily someone drove into it when it was parked & I got paid out on the mileometer reading not the actual mileage.

Bastardised honda transalp with an Africa twin engine, turned out the wheels were rotten through from the inside 😕

Another Citroen bx estate (I hadn't learnt) but this time a 2l tri version, trouble was there was a fault with the starter which meant carrying a spanner around to occasionally crank it a bit to get it to bite, embarrassing when you stall at the lights, finally killed by rusty hydraulics 😬

I don't regret it, at least not yet but I definitely shouldn't have bought it... There's a subaru legacy spec b on my driveway that I bought entirely for the gearbox, lsd and interior. And I've decided I don't like the interior. And putting the gearbox into my auto suddenly became much more daunting once I actually had the donor. So it sits there and stares at me and causes low level anxiety but so far its only actual contribution has been to make me like the auto box even less.

996 C2 that blew up after 3 hard pulls once broken in and the dealer told be to go stuff it.

Been pretty lucky with my choice of cars over the years so not many bad ones to name but the worst one had to be a Peugeot 306 D Turbo

Was slow (compared to previous cars and all cars since) being French meant that it had dodgy electrics, lean on any panel ever so slightly and they would dent, interior was very plasticy and cheap

Was the only Diesel car i ever owned, now i just stick to what i like, Ford hot hatches and fast'ish Audi petrol estates

Rover Sterling with all the trimmings (this was 30 years ago). Man was that s**t.

The utter pile of gallic Friday afternoon sh*theap that was our Peugeot 309.
It ate CV joints, head gasket(s), bearings, electrics, rusted, exploded rear windscreens, broke seat mechanisms and the interior mirror fell off at random.
To this day it's the only car that's actually broken down on us in 24 years of owning cars. Twice.

(Iirc though, nice handling and nice view out)

Anything French from 1995 to 2010. I acknowledge that they may have got a bit better recently but that wouldn’t be hard starting off from such a low base level. I still have nightmares after owning a 306 Diesel.

Mazda CX5 - just plain bloody annoying for the 2 years I owned it. The in car systems had what I later discovered to be a known fault but it took too many annoying discussions with the dealer to get them even to acknowledge it, despite good looking economy the diesel regen kicks in every few miles and kills the economy while simultaneously diluting the engine oil with diesel thereby getting you to do an oil change about half way between every published service interval, then to top it off one of the led lights failed and it took about 8 weeks for a replacement to make it to the UK. I was so happy when I handed that pos over.

Oh and an MG Montego - understeer doesn't really describe its reluctance to go round a corner. Plus the digital dash had its foibles.

Was that a Rover 820/827 sterling?, i served my time at an Austin Rover garage and the build quality of them was shocking to the point of dangerous, ball joints not seated correctly, gearbox oil leaks so bad that discs/pads got covered, many electrical gremlins and my favourite was the surprisingly common electric seat fault that randomly adjusted the seat position when driving. Utterly hateful cars, pretty much sums up any Austin rover of the late 80’s/early 90’s

Ford Focus Zetec Mk2 - dull to drive, not very powerful for the engine size.

827 - it was the first time I could afford a ‘posh’ car - paid 1900 for it - sold it 2 or 3 years later for 200. Still felt guilty about it though! Complete and utter s***e!!

Jaguar xjs V12 when I was about 25. It did 9 mpg, had lots of expensive problems and it litterly rusted away in front of me. I think I scrapped it 2 years later.

Mazda 323F. Uncomfortable and drank petrol like it was going out of fashion even though it was only a 1.5 litre engine.
Looked nice though.

Jeep Cherokee XJ series. I never bought it but chose it as my company car. A total disaster,kept blowing the oil pressure sensors and dumping the contents of the sump all over the road. Once on the German Autobahn.when we'd stopped at a restplatz for a break, our son said what's  coming out the bottom of the car. This was late on a Saturday.The recovery guys were great and managed to use a substitute sensor from a TransAm they had in their garage to get us on our way.

It did a similair thing on our way down to Cornwall.I realised the rear window was looking very messy when I looked out the rear view mirror. Near a rest place. Called for a hire car and recovery.

When the sensor wasn't dumping oil it was just failing to register any pressure.

Also brake problems.

I refused to continue with the car. Had meeting with supplying dealer and Chrysler.
My company accepted the position I took and let me dump it and choose something else.

I got a nice Saab 95 with performance chip. Excellent car.

Only the one - a Fiat Coupe 16v turbo. Was lovely inside, ugly outside and just felt heavy to drive. Door skins were made of tinfoil so the slightest touch from another door and it dented. Sold it after a year, and 2 days later the new owner called to ask if I knew how to fix the alarm/immobiliser... dodged a bullet there.

Handily had a year 2000 special bonus come in from work which I invested in a brand new Integra Type-R. Owned it for 7 years, should never have sold it really. That belongs in the "what classic would you have" thread.

Citroën ZX Turbo D from a shady dealer in Buckley, N Wales. I swear he swapped loads of bits over or the number plates me test driving it and picking up. I would have noticed clothes pegs holding the windows up!

I seriously considered going round to his Compound after dark and throwing some tins of paint stripper over the fence.

One rear wheel rubbed against the front of the wheel arch when turning left and the rear of the wheel arch turning right leaving two deep cuts in the tyre. They all do that Sir.

Also converted to carbs from fuel injection without changing the fuel pump so instead of the expected 8psi the fuel was pumnped at nearer 40psi. Ran a bit rich

1.7d Corsa. Slow and shit
1.8d Fiesta. As above but Ford
1.6 Vitara. Slow, thirsty and shit
2.7td Terrano. Slower, thirstier, shitter

There's probably been others, but they stand out the most. For the wrong reasons.

A metallic purple Proton Compact for £300 - shouldn't have, but previous car had died, didn't have much cash to spare and needed to get to work in Ripon when I lived in Leeds.

Smelled faintly of off milk, turned out to have had fairly major electrical issues, tubes in all four tyres, and had had it's MOT signed by the old fella selling it's son, which made me think it might not actually have properly passed one. Discovered the tyres when it blew one on the back road from Dishforth to Wetherby, electrics went on the York Road out of Leeds, near the big Asda, finally got rid when it shat it's radiator contents outside my flat as I pulled up to come. It's the sole reason I have Green Flag cover, and I got my money's worth out of it that few months...

Pretty much every car I ever bought with money.

The problem is I’m too trusting and I tend to buy thing based on their “on paper” info, rather than the glaring, obvious, real world condition.

This has included a VR6 Golf that had obvious issues, I should have run a mile, instead I bought it, spent more than I paid for it to make it what I thought was sound and it repaid the favour by catching fire at 70mph and trying to kill me.

An MR2 with a Cat C marker, an engine that didn’t rev over 5k and non-branded after-market wheels that weren’t completely round, or straight, or the right size.

A Honda Accord, a by word for boring reliability that was in fact, some who worse than either the Golf or Toyota.

I lease cars now, it’s cheaper ha ha.

Air cooled VW van. It was awesome and I had some great times working on it and travelling in it. While I don’t really regret buying it, bloody hell was it a money pit.

55 plate Saab 9-3 diesel estate. Those disastrous 1.9 diesels. It had cost more in warranty work than fuel by the time the warranty ended. Completed too many trips on the back of a tow truck. And eventually scrapped for parts. If we'd only bought the petrol version we'd maybe still have it because other than the engine it was great.

A 1.7 diesel Corsa, cost me £50. It smelled of diesel due to the last owner carrying extra fuel in the boot. It was a rebuilt write off and gutless. The only good thing about it was that I got £170 scrap value for it after 2 years!

Oh and an MG Montego – understeer doesn’t really describe its reluctance to go round a corner.

My dad was in the trade and always called them hedge seeking missiles.

Rover 220 coupe - managed to get the dealer to refund me when it needed its 3rd engine in 12 months.

Jeep Wrangler - the least reliable car I've ever owned and the dealers were sh*t

honda crv. it was appalling

If bikes can be classed as vehicles in this discussion, then Cotic BFe MK1. Teeth chatteringly rigid and dead as a door knocker. Less than a dozen rides and it quite simply had to be sold.

Skoda Yeti. Bought it just under 2 years old with 7k miles on it. Sold it less than 2 years later with 12k miles on it just as it was dieing. Clutch pack and gearbox failure which would have cost half the price of the car to put right. Skoda were useless to deal with and don't honor their own warranty.

My dad helped me buy my first car. For reasons I don't fully understand, but were probably along the lines of "it's cheap" he decided that a second hand Ford Granada Coupe would be a good idea for an 18 year old.

The thing was huge and had a 6 cylinder mill in it. Sky blue with a black vinyl roof. It actually looked nice, but too many big things went wrong with it.

Probably could have done better than buying my mates mum's fiat regatta when I was about 21.

Car was sound enough but it was scary trying to drive that gutless thing over wrynose pass and the brakes cooking on the descent.

Not a lot of street cred either, strangely.

Mostly managed to avoid lemons, but I went a bit nuts in my early 30s and bought a V6 Nissan QX, huge saloon thing.

Quite pleasant to drive but massively failed it's first MOT on my watch so I didn't get to cruise around like a gangster for very long.

A 1966 Mini Marcos Mk11 based originally on a 1959 mini with a 1.3 A series that inhaled through twin SUs and exhaled via a three branch manifold and single cherry bomb. The fuel tank sat next to the battery in the boot and it had drum brakes all round. It had 10" Rostyle wheels (with drum brakes) and a final drive from an Austin that took 13" wheels. Previous owner raced it at Doune hill climbs. Stupidly quick, smelly, dangerous but kinda fun up to about 65mph.

Make yourself a nice hot drink and get a biscuit or 9

1. Talbot Sunbeam Ti in willow green metalic ONR 711W. Rusty pos that leaked petrol onto the exhaust manifold. Fitted comp air filters and rolling road tuning set up then rolled it on a corner. Too fast for 18yr old me.

2. Toyota Celica that jumped out of gear. Was conned at at rebuild place our of hundreds for a recon box thst wss notchy as hell. Brakes failed as quick fit imstalled wrong pads

3. Fiat Tempra Turd estate, the ambulance. What a crap box. Beam axle failed on rear, numerous electrical gremilns, glow plug rely failed, tyres wre oval

4. Fiat Tempra TurD estate, the brick, as it wad nearly red. Beam axle failed leaked, awful thing

5. Black VW Sirrocco. 1.6 auto. Caught fire in a car park in Woking as the rocker cover gasket leaked. Sunroof leaked, failed its mot so badly that the mot tester commented, well irs got a nice windscreen

6. Citroen BX. Oval tyres, leaky sunroof, killed batteries so much i learnt to solo push start it and leap in. Woyld go from a controlable understeer on wet roads to snap oversteer in a split second. 1.9 xud emgine worked really well in that car
Hydrostatic suspension also fully functional

6 Toyota Avensis off ebay. Lpg converted, botom end had been bodged so a few hundred miles later the banging started. Scrapped it

7. Volvo 850 lpg. Not entirely my fault as my bro checked it over. The 'its got a great radio' comment should have been enough, but he got it home and it was knocking, Stupid me gets train up to collect drove maybe 20 miles out the 200 and the con rod exists the block. Huge fireball under car as oil ignites, and all i can think off is the 60ltr lpg tank in the boot going boom.
Got bonnet open and extinguished fire with a towel and a 2ltr bottle od evian, very scary.

8.Saab 95 td estate. Never buy a car from a guy who lives up a long bumpy farm track. Camshaft sensor failed, locking wheel nuts failed meaning drilling a holesaw through the alloys to remove them. Suspension ruined by said cart track sp it banged and crashed constantly.

Don't really regret it as such, but it's by far the sh1ttest car I've had, a fiat coupe 20v turbo, put a rod through the block about 6 months after I bought it, quite fast in a straight line, understeered like a boat.

Ok then
1303 beetle, heavy to push! dropped a valve on A55 fast lane that was scary swapped engine with a £ 20 unit from scrappy rear drive shaft stripped splines on hub. Solved the crap car problem soon enough cos it caught fire quite scary, fire crew were good, Mot had run out but luckily got paid out.
yamaha xs 250 wouldnt charge battery slow as a slow thing
MG midget mates had them so i got one not too bad in the dry but liked to be sideways in the damp. rotted away as you watched
Almost bought a Marina TC coupe Luckily never got to buy it cos I rolled it on its test drive !!might have been making progress could have been ice or mud?
86 metro leaked oil like a sieve brake shook car apart when used nasty L green metallic
citroen C15 van overheated head went pop obviously been heavily clocked Px'd for escort almost seized van on way to collect it. About to buy again soon ive got to do a lot better.

VW T5.... Not bad as such, but over priced for what it is. Can't recall how much I've spent on it in the six years/ 100,000km I've had it. Turbo and struts need replacing now, too. Sliding door doesn't always open. Some electrical gremlin has cost me several batteries (both starter and leisure) and X-hundred €€ trying to find the fault. Several rear discs due to rusting and lack of use... Oh, that's the other thing that's getting done next week.

As a weekend camper it works fine, but for longer trips it's far too small for two people plus bikes.

Should have gone for something bigger.

Hopefully I can flog it for a decent price around springtime as everyone starts thinking about their social distanced camping holiday.

Been lucky enough to have had some great cars, but only two bad buys.
Chrysler Crossfire. I’d had some very good sports cars while living overseas. Coming back to the UK at the time when the Porsche Boxter and Audi TT were relatively new, I decided I wanted something different, still wanted sporty but had a sub £30k budget for a new “sports” car. What a piece of junk the Crossfire was. Handling was terrible, I’d had some fast cars with big powerful engines, but the crossfire only had a 3.2 engine, it just didn’t feel safe on the road. The interior was just cheap plastic.
After selling that, decided I wanted something a bit different, Mercedes CLK Convertible, I believe it was the first 350 engine they did with a nice AMG kit, it was actually a very nice car and drove really well. Bought it new, about a month later wife was pregnant and no way was she letting me put a kids seat in a 2 door car....so lost a chunk of money selling that. The wife wanted a Range Rover Sport (what can I say, she’s from Milton Keynes!!),I managed to convince her that the Merc was the right choice. Should have just listened to her and bought the Range Rover.

The 2007 Vectra I bought 6 months ago with 12 months MoT which I've just had to scrap because it's basically toast.

Cars - Golf Mk 4. Not the car's fault but I had a new job, took the cash alternative to a company car and then lost the job. Sold it back to garage after 6 weeks losing a grand.

Motorbikes - CD200. The engine spent more time in my bedroom than in the frame.

A - never buy a bike from a scrap yard.

B - be worried when everyone comes out the shop to wave you goodbye.

Vauxhall Vectra B 2.5 GSI. Was a fairly new and expensive car at the time, but a ****ing money pit that really wasn't that quick TBH. Sounded good and went well at motorway+ speeds though

Range Rover P38 2.5 DSE. Nuff said. (Though I would have a minted Vogue at the right price though)

Vauxhall Omega, ex taxi, totally shagged out, 180,000 miles when I bought it.

To be fair it looked good in the dark and was only £300.

All the bushes and ball joints were worn, so it dived for the kerb unless you kept an eye on it.

Tyres were pricey but it was fast and comfy, proper barge.

Traded it in for £400 at 280,000, AFTER it had been hit from behind by a bus outside Crumpsall Hospital.
The bus came off worse. 🙂

God, I'd love a nice one, but there aren't any left.

I've had a couple of poo cars because I was a povvy student, notably a mk3 Escort that was a proper Friday Night Special. Amongst its many interesting failings, at one point it needed a new engine. My tame mechanic later took the old one to bits for the lols, turned out that the piston rings were upside-down so it was cheerfully scraping engine oil up into the chambers rather than down into the sump. I finally did for it driving out of Preston in traffic, I stuffed it into the back of a Mitsubishi Colt because I was too busy looking at the legs of a girl walking down the other side of the road rather than looking where I was going.

But the single worst motor I've ever 'owned' if not actually bought was when I first entered into the world of company cars back in the mid- to late-90s. I was given a succession of 1.8L normally aspirated diesel Fiestas and they were the most hateful pieces of shit it's ever been my misfortune to sit behind the wheel of. At the time I was doing maybe 20k/year and they just weren't fit for purpose, they'd last about six months before curling up their toes. Utterly gutless engine even dragging a lowly Fiesta about, there's a gentle incline on the motorway on my commute home, in anticipation I'd hit the bottom at about an indicated 85 - the vehicle's top speed - and with my foot to the boards throughout I'd reach the 'apex' a few hundred yards later doing about 60. Hateful hateful ****ing things, I don't know what Ford (or work) were thinking.

Current car. Focus st 2009.

Didn't realise the orange paint would shed it's lacquer so badly. Apparently common in this colour. Crap on fuel. 22mpg.

Great fun though. But not what I need. But fun.

Despite having owned a couple of metros it's my current car, an 08 civic type s. Cars are a functional thing, have had a number of xsara picassos as proof. Fancied getting something more interesting, the 2.2 engine goes well and corners well too.

3 doors aren't practical, it's too loww, the suspension is too hard and I'm too old. Fortunately I kept the Picasso, the civic will be getting sold ASAP.

1.1l fiesta in Paris blue. Fine for a 19yo but developed a fault in the light stalk cluster which needed fixing every so often in order to have lights. Replaced with a unit from scrappy.

Worst car ever rover 314. Absolutely terrible. Just had a rover 620si which was brilliant. The 314 was hateful. Bought it on PFI or whatever it was called in 1999 just before rover went bust. Returned it convinced them the finance had been mis sold so the actually gave me money for it.

Rover 214
Actually a Honda, with a K series engine
I had one, or 2 actually. 214 petrol 218 Deisel. Both were ok in ad much as i cant recall any major issues
Squeaky plastic wood trim, on both
Ahh yes the 214 would randomly m just switch itself off whilst driving along. Then died in driveway overnight, i suspected the ecu but had progressed up to a cat c golf mk3 td (£90)

Not mine but my old mans Maestro in the late ‘80s. Even today I still hate maestros - it was an appalling piece of s***!! I saw one at a car show a couple of years back and it made me angry 😀

Nowhere near the drama of everyone else but, a 2008 manual Audi A5. Looked lovely but was horrible to drive for more than hour. Hugely offset pedals made heavy traffic painful, tram lined like a swine at even the slightest wrinkle in the road, aquaplaned as soon as looked at you. Sold after about 4 months after driving to the Lakes and back to Scotland over a long weekend and needed about 4 bouts of physio to walk straight.

Still looked nice though and I loved the ridiculously long doors 😉

Audi A4 cabriolet - lovely car , always wanted one but I bought the cheapest one I could find and went to look at it in the pissing rain.

The dealer was so keen to make the sale he drove me to the bank to deposit the cash and then drove the car home for me.

in the cold light of day the paintwork wasn't great. It needed a new clutch after a couple of months and the 4wd developed a distinct "pull" to the left which I could never fully sort.

Swapped it for an MX-5 after 18 months which was perfect for the 8 years I kept it.

Saw the Audi on the MX5 dealer forecourt I few days after I traded it in , gently leaking steering fluid onto the concrete.

2nd worst - brand new Audi TT. A lovely car in every way but the dealer experience from start to finish was awful - to the extent that I won't ever go back to the same dealer again.

They took my MX5 in part exchange but gave me cash to max the finance figure.  I didn't actually get the cash in my bank until I threatened court action. Took about 6 weeks after collecting the car. I took revenge by cancelling the finance so the salesperson didn't get commission.

2013 Mini Paceman. Thankfully my wife drove more than me, just not pleasant, not comfortable poor placement of external mirrors, the interior seemed to be bunch of components left over in the design box, poor rear visiblity. Swapped 3years later for a new 2016 Mk3 Audi TT which in comparison ( yes its apples and pears) drives more like my old minis and just so much more fun.

1988 Yamaha XT350. Great fun on/off road but it was pre-electric start and kicking over was a pig, the auto decompression and carb choke was far from effective. Ruined the right sole of my boots in 6 months. Traded in for a 1985 Kawasaki GPz 600r

My first car was a huge mistake. A VW Scirocco. It leaked from below, from above and from the sides. But boy was it good looking.

2nd mistake was a Renault 5 Gordini turbo. I was young at the time and not yet an environmentalist, also because of my age the insurance was off the scale.

3rd mistake - a Vauxhall Astra GTE 2 ltr. Very fast. Horrible looking car (the rounded version) and being only 5' 4" tall I couldn't see out of the back due to the stupid aero foil thingy.

All three were a complete waste of money and I don't know what came over me at the time. Oh the foolishness of youth.

Maybe
But i am well impressed
They are all / were all petrolhead nirvana at the time, early 90' s

Austin Montego

Sounds like I did well owning two Sciroccos with no major issues.

This was when they were cheap and not desirable compared to the Golf.

I bloody loved them and they were the only cool cars I've ever had. Apart from a Mini perhaps.

Fiat sedici. Why did we buy it? Needed a small hatchback with a bit of ground clearance and 4wd for the mile long unmade road home. 1st generation dpf failed, destroyed the flow regulator and then the turbo, garage hadn't a clue, sank about 2k into it, then the garage, out of guilt, offered to buy it for a face saving ( for both of us) price. Last diesel, last fiat.

All the VW's I have owned have been expensive and not particularly reliable.

2005 T5 Camper - Oil Cooler Failure at 20k, Water Pump, Alternator all gone before 90K - side windows leaky, drivers door electric window failed. Did like it when it worked, travelled around Europe and a trip to Iceland.

2008 VW Polo 1.2 (Ex's Car) Cracked Engine Block - 1 month out of warranty, £1200 to fix.

2009 VW Sorrocco - Mad single man phase, see above 😀 Ate Tyres, Faulty DSG Gearbox. 4K Depreciation in a year!

2011 Twisted Land-Rover Defender (90)

Bought on a whim, the most unreliable vehicle I have ever owned.
It spent most of the summer with the local Specialist chasing LR reliability issues.

After several theft attempts and finally the bonnet being stolen whilst on my drive! ,
I gave up after 11 months and gave it too local Land Rover Specialist for SOR.

It sold quickly as it did look good, I felt sorry for the next victim/owner.

2001 Clio 172 - bought off a friend of a friend who knew about Renaultsport cars. A week in it generated an intermittent starting problem. Tried a few things to sort it but ended up being a new ECU/UCH, keys and barrel. Luckily that only cost £60 because it was sourced through the owners group on faceache. Then the gearbox started crunching into 3rd and I got rid of it. I'd only had it a year.

2008 First ST150 - had a straight through stainless exhaust on it so not only was it incredibly loud it was also incredibly thirsty. Only ever did one long journey in it and resolved never to do such a silly thing ever again, it was absolutely horrific at motorway speeds. Started leaking from the steering rack, that was the last straw so it went.

1992 VW Polo Coupe 1.0 CL - after the Fiesta I decided I'd get something that would be easy to fix. Only had 32k miles on it. However, it had been resprayed by Stevie Wonder so looked like a bag of shit when you got up close. Exhuast fell off within a month, then the rear brake cylinders went and also needed new drums and shoes, then it cut out on a busy roundabout in rush hour. Tried everything to get it back running but it wasn't having it. Flogged it for £400 which wasn't bad for a non-runner with a months MOT and two flat tyres.

1993 Fiesta 1.3 LX - the car was fine but I went halfs on it with the girlfriend at the time and she turned out to be a complete and utter mental case.

The first (and to date only) new car I bought was back in 2002, a BMW 330ci and @ £33k was a few k more than my annual salary at the time :p I'd convinced myself it might be the only chance I had to get a 'nice' car and I had a lot of equity in my house so could afford it via remortgaging.

I enjoyed the car but sold it 9 years ago (for £3k, it's dashboard was lit up like a Christmas tree by then) and am still paying the mortgage for it :p I could probably have afforded a Ferrari the amount it will cost me over 25 years...