[Closed] Whats your worst ever car?

The aptly named shitty shitty bang bang. A VW Polo. The old style ones that looked like a mini estate. It was always on the way home from work that it would break down, never to work. Got chucked out of the RAC in the end for calling them out too many times. One time on the way to the airport, the engine kept overheating and I had to keep pulling over onto the hard shoulder to let it cool down before setting off again. We made it but it was a tad stressful. Then there was the time it broke down in the middle of central London on a roundabout. It had been a bit stop start for much of the journey but the roundabout was where it chose to finally conk out. The black cab drivers were none too happy with me. Then there was the petrol leak. The garage had done something to the fuel tank - the next garage I took it to said it was a death trap - and fuel came out over the top when you filled it up. The problem was the fuel gauge was broken so you just had to try to judge how much petrol you had. Sold it for scrap in the end for £50. I had bought it with an ex partner and saw her in a club that night. We'd split by this time and things were pretty bitter between us. I offered her £25 for it. She was with her new girlfriend and I think felt pretty embarrassed. So I guess there was that 😉

A 1980 Renault 5 . Comedy values of lean when cornering,inaccessible plugs as longitudinal engine in front engines, fed car , bodywork as thin as Bacofoil and made lighter by corrosion, interior by Fisher Price.
Had numerous electrical issues and sold within 3 months.

Hmm close call between a Ford Focus Mk2 and a Polo of similar era.

The winner is the Polo. The Focus was just disappointing given the hype. Dull to drive, small inside, under underpowered 1.6

The Polo - doors didn’t shut properly, noisy, no power, scariest car I’ve ever driven in the snow, electrical faults. Never bought a VW since

. A VW Polo

Me too, but a recent one, a 1.4 petrol. It never broke down but it was a tinny, gutless piece of crap and we sold it after less than a year. The metro I had in the 90s was better.

Not mine but my parents when I was younger. A white vauxhall cavalier estate early 90s.
Waiting to be picked up after football practise or from fishing, you could hear it coming from miles off.

Also one holiday in Dorset, dad had to take run ups at a hill, never quite reached the top so had to turn round and find another route after a few attempts.

Ive actually been pleased with all the cars I've owned.

Worst - Morris Ital
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The choke starting position was an artform in location and Lord of the Dance foot technique.

Following the thread featuring Morris Marinas

A couple of high-school mates had Marinas, one of them a customized panel van that his dad though would help him score with the ladies. Good god those things were awful. I never owned anything remotely that bad. I think that after about 1985 or 1990, even the worst cars were actually quite functional, so there will never be anything again to challenge the crapboxes from the 1970s.

Audi A4 Avant, the wheel arches disintegrated before my eyes and I swear it needed new discs and pads annually.

2 year old Ford Fiesta. No major issues but plenty of minor and moderate niggles that have resulted in maybe 15 warranty claims (everything from seized gear linkage to faulty boot struts to buzzing dash to knocking steering).

Cannot wait to get rid but it is barely being used now and if nothing else it is cheaper than what would replace it.

Very likely to be our last Ford.

Mk2 Mondeo. It burst into flames while I was driving it. The fireman thought it started at the fuse box. Apparently this is common for them 😳

Peugeot 406 diesel estate replacing a petrol 940. Big expensive mistake. Even in France you didn't see many because they were all promptly cooked. What should have been the worst, Toyota Corolla estate (1200cc for a family car!) lived as long as Methuselah.

Peugeot 309 "Style".

Proper Gallic Friday afternoon special - it ate CV/driveshafts and wheel bearings, had two head gaskets replaced and electrics were from the Italian suppliers. We suffered it for two years.

It says as lot that the garage leant us a Proton, and we thought it better...

Renualt Laguna (early 2000's) company car, it spent most of the 2 years I had it in the garage. We had about 20 at work and they all suffered badly with faults.

An Alfasud,gearbox had first and reverse,it was a lottery trying to find anything else,the bodywork rotted while I watched it,and it blew light bulbs with monotonous regularity.

My mum's Fiat Panda.
Driving along and a horrendous noise. Front left wheel rolling down the road in front of us.
A major part of the suspension had rusted right through

Ford Ka, could’nt even accelerate down a hill.

Peugeot 406 diesel estate

Actually, I might reassess my polo comment above, we had one of these and it was a costly mistake.

Reliant 3 wheeler like Dell boy Driven on my motorcycle license,hence I learnt to drive without a lesson. The Reliant was inclined to fall over.

When I was 20, my father-in-law took me to a car auction & I got a bit too excited & ended up coming away with a Citroen C2. I think I liked the colour. Anyway, what an absolute shed.

It had no service history and when I serviced it it was clear it had never been anywhere near a spanner. The oil was like pre-historic sludge & the plugs were seized in.

I was young and poor & had to sell it on at a fair loss (which I felt guilty about). Lesson learned & I haven’t been back to a car auction as I’m too impulsive!

Mk7 Ford Transhit. I'm 2nd owner from new and had an easy non commercial life.

It's utter crap.
Gives me severe shoulder/neck pain after an hour or so due to crap ergonomics.
Appalling design flaws with no consideration for repair other than for throwing them together quickly on a production line.
Leaks water in
Continuously rusts despite slathered in waxoyl.
Random boost leak/EGR fault and drops power just when you need it most.
Eats starter motors.

I hate it

I loved my 406 hdi estate.

I had a 106 1400diesel that was woeful but I loved it

A 70 Cavalier

Mk1 mitsi colt.

I love bangernomics. Worst car a 3yo mg zr..... 2x gearboxes a power steering pump cambelt failure. Nit to mention front pads every 7000miles.

VW Golf MK3. If it could break it broke. Usually when I was on the way to something important.

An 8-valve Mk3 Golf GTi bought second hand when I couldn't find a sound Mk2. I know it's not in the same league of some of the stuff listed above, but after owning a really well sorted Mk2, it was truly horrible. Fat, handled badly, zero charisma, weirdly unreliable in a petty way. When I bought it the cam timing was out so it pulled hard low down, then died at the top of the rev range. It was geared too high and then the gear box failed and was replaced with a Mk2 spare I had lying about. At some point that basically fell out when I'd lent it to a mate. It had air con that never, ever worked reliably for more than five minutes. I think you can forgive that sort of thing if the car is fundamentally brilliant - my Corrado VR6 isn't exactly a paragon of reliability, but it only takes five minute of driving the thing to let me forgive it.

I don't think it was a terrible car per se, but it was a dull shopping car that VW had slapped a GTi badge on in a proper mutton dressed as lamb sort of way and was my worst ever car. By contrast my old Polo Coupe S was hideously abused and never missed a beat.

A VW Passat. Think it was a 2007 plate. The most utterly bland, wallowing, boring and uninspiring heap of crap I've ever had (it was a company car)

Austin Princess...

My second car was a 1979 Fiesta 1.1 and it was a complete POS. It looked cool though with Escort RS style alloys, Cibie spot lights and a rear spoiler, but there was always something going wrong with it.

In the late 90s we had a pool van at work, a Vauxhall Corsa based one. Utterly useless but the worse thing was the driving position. The pedals were off to the left somewhere vague and having large feet meant you get to push 2 out of 3 pedals most of the time.

It was chronically underpowered so overtaking was always dicing with death

Never had a really unreliable or crap car mechanically (including two Morris Ital and Peugeot 309) but we had a very late Rover Metro. Really nice 1.4 K series engine but my god it started rusting. Probably only 3 years old when the rust hit the A pillars. Traded in soon after that!

We also had a mid-90s poverty spec diesel Astra, again woeful at everything.

My colleague gave it a great nickname .. "The disAstra".

Fiat sedici. We moved to a house at the end of a 1 mile track, and needed a car with a bit of ground clearance, and the soft linkage 4wd was also a bonus.
They had early diesel particulate filters, before they were required, and the regeneration process never happened leading to all sorts of problems....the highlight being a 14 mile drive home from Bradford in limp home mode. Replaced the dpf with an empty box, new turbo, several strip downs and remappings, spent thousands then sold it for near scrap price. The last diesel car and fiat we will ever have.

MK4 golf.

On paper the best car we ever bought.

Taught me an important lesson.

Buy on condition and your gut.

What a raft of electrical faults and shit handling that car was

Very sad at the Polo hate. My first car was a 1978 Polo and I loved it. It gave me freedom.

My worse car. Probably a 1998 Vauxhall Vectra. I needed a car quick and brought a blue one basically unseen. It was horrid, really horrid and this comes from a man who owned a Vauxhall Chevette saloon 1.2 for a number of years.

I’ve been quite lucky with all my non project cars.
My first car (Datsun Stanza)you had to get where you wanted before the engine warmed up as the auto choke tended to stick. Helpfully it overcooled so rarely warmed up properly unless I got stuck in traffic. The stupidly heavy clutch would mean the pedal box would slowly tear the sheet
Metal, making traffic avoidance a priority.
Company vans:-
1991 Ford Escort van. Horrible in every way. Didn’t even have a lighter socket. Unreliable thirsty 1.4 petrol, 20mpg with ladders on the roof. Zero grip in the wet, followed my then boss round a corner. He made it I didn’t.
Lucky dip clutch, would slip randomly, usually halfway across a busy road. Took Ford a few attempts to fix that.
Burned to the ground before
It reached 100k.

1994 Ford escort 1.8d. Reliable but hateful in every way. No power steering but felt like broken power steering, the engine was utterly gutless.

1989 nova merit. It was only £150 and we got a couple of years out of it but it was a rustbucket. Battery was ****ed and manual choke was tricky so starting it in winter was a challenge. The engine slowly died as I was crawling up to the cat and fiddle in the early hours praying it would get to the top so I could roll back to Buxton. It got me home but never ran again. Still, it was my first car and it had a minidisc player so I loved it in equal measure.

Also sad for the polo hate. I learnt to drive in a 1l petrol c reg one. Great little car, killed it in the end by blowing the cylinder rings (probably got fed up with me loading with lots of windsurfing kit and driving all over the country).

My worst was a 1.6 Renault Scenic - the early round shaped one. look nice, air con, leather seats etc but soo underpowered that it made diving on motorways stressful and rolled round corners.

Renault Scenic and Clio at the same time, both from new, both had extensive issues just after warranty, airbag deployed when it shouldn't have, splinter on driveshaft shattered, loads of starting problems, soft feel interior that peeled. Clio ate springs daily and a multitude of other issues. Bought the Scenic for £14k, sold it 4 years later for £1.4k,shows how rubbish they were.

Would never have another Renault. Our previous VW To Iran also from new seemed to self district after the warranty ended, multiple electrical faults and sensors failed in quick succession and due to VW attaching cheap sensors to expensive mechanical parts and not selling them separately it got very expensive quickly and VW were not interested. Latest one is ok though, apart from the suspension, but that might be the roads locally and my wife's uncanny ability to hit every pothole there is.

The Devil Car.
In the 80s when we were properly skint, and the interest rate on our mortgage went up a percent a month (it can happen kids) we bought a Renault 5 for a couple of hundred quid. Absolutely nothing but trouble, until one day it caught fire outside my mum’s house. Fire Brigade type fire 🔥.

I have two - a Vauxhall Chevette - just because it was an awful rust box that was screwed together extremely badly. The wings just rotted in a two year old car.
It reached a point where out was costing 200 quid a month to rub - in 1984.

A Citroen BX 16 valve GTI. Has it for two years as a company car - 27 weeks off the road. Hydraulics, faux warning lights, build quality, mechanical issues - and being smashed into on the first 3 miles of owning it.
It was terrible - the noise levels were unbearable in the car - the only way to remove the sonic boom above the drive was to open the sun roof. The radio was so quite you could hear it - and the speakers fell out of the door.
Will never ever have another French car ( although I would love an original DS)

I've not had anything quite as bad as most posters.

For sheer abject frustration and irritation for me it has to be the more recent of the two Passat's I've had.

The Passat should be a good fit for me, big enough to lump sailing and biking gear in, ok for towing, auto, comfy ride and enough poke to make long journeys relaxing.

But the volume of electrical and mechanical part failures, large amounts of labour replacing them and faults in a sub 100,000 mile car, coupled with the constant changes from rolling post emissions fix 'updates' just did my nut in. In 3 years and 50,000 miles it threw up more unplanned repairs than the Mondeo before it did in more than twice that. What's depressing is I don't think that level of repair for modern cars is all that uncommon now.

It was infuriating at the time but looking back it only really justified glum annoyance.

Without question, the Rover 620SLDi.

Bought because, on paper, it had the best economy and the Perkins 2.0l diesel was a good engine. Sadly, driving it was a terrible experience and very uncomfortable. I had to tank every four days and it kiled a gearbox after about five months of use.

By the time I sold it (eBay, sold as seen) it had a crack case oil leak, the sunroof did not work, the electric window on the driver's side would not close properly, the clutch was stuffed and it would not leave third gear. My mechanic told me that, even though it would have made him a lot of money to fix it, he just did not think it was worth it. The bloke that bought it drove it home in third gear.

Hated that car. Horrible thing. The only good thing about it was the colour.

The least reliable car I have owned was also a Citroen BX16v GTi.
I had mine for a year and it was running properly ( i.e. everything worked as it was supposed to) for about 6 weeks in total. Strangely enough I actually liked the car, it was comfortable, characterful and had good brakes.
The worst car as a whole in terms of what it was like to drive and general crapness was a Peugeot 309 XS. Nasty, tinny, horrible seats etc. Etc. But at least it was reliable.

Honda Jazz,

First new car we ever owned. Hateful pile of crap. Three years old failed its first MOT.
1. Leaking sump, had to be replaced
2. Wheel corrosion so bad on inside Honda had to replace them.
3. Honda took the car for evaluation and after £3500 of repairs returned.

Roll six years roof leaked, boot leaked, gearbox layshaft bearing went, apparently they do that. Gearbox needed £600 of repairs and rebuilt. Leaks, faulty panel gap sealant, they used the incorrect sealant that went hard. After 10 years we finally decided we couldn't bare the car any more with only 52K miles on the clock. We traded in for Toyota IQ. The garage scrapped the car, beyond economic repair. We had many cars prior to this heap real bangers and many new cars thereafter, but it remains the most unreliable heap of monumental crap we ever owned. Whenever I hear people say get a reliable Honda I almost feel obliged to hit them. Give me french cars any day over these. In fact the two culprits of countries that make apparently reliable cars (Germany/Japan), have produced the most unreliable cars we have owned...

JeZ

Honda Jazz, 2004.
Claimed on warranty for wheel bearing when it failed its first MOT, first of many wheel bearings to die. Leaky tailgate from new. Huge wide gap in the front bumper meant the radiator fins looked like they had been shotblasted with beach pebbles within months of new. Tracking would be put out by a single pothole. Bowden cables for bonnet catch and tailgate handle siezed every winter. Clutch stupidly heavy at the pedal and squeaked loudly when pressed after warranty was up, like a clown car. Had three recalls for electrical stuff (window switch that was a fire risk in snow, airbags, something else like a control column stalk, I can't remember now). Brake calipers all round prone to dragging & eventually seizing & handbrake was comedy, ineffective no matter how much adjusted. Ate two air con compressors. Radio died suddenly after about four years, then CD player. Engine mounts had rapidly worn out according to its last service/MOT.

It actually got singled out & shot with a BB gun in my works car park one day.

My first car was a K reg Escort in glorious burgundy, no power steering and a 1.4l petrol engine. I helped a mate move house from Worcester to Sheffield and it used a full tank of fuel. Each way.

Any sign of a hill in the distance and max motorway speed would be 50mph.

At least it only cost me £100

Volvo XC60. Delivered minus some of the options we specified inc the towbar. Dealer couldn't quite understand why i was asking how it passed its PDI. Never ran properly, limp mode randomly, drove like a tanker, wheel bearings x 2 fell apart after 3 months, headliner fell off, eventually managed to give them it back after i had spent more time in their courtesy car than that hellhole. Cost me some money but i would rather have walked !

For me it was the most mechanically unreliable and at the same time the most fun: A 1974 Spitfire. Built by BL in the 70's it wasn't put together with much care. and by the time i was playing with it it was already 20 years old and had had a handful of careless owners. the body work was full of holes, the mechanicals were falling to bits and the electricals were particularly unsafe. If I wanted to drive it on a Monday, most weekends were taken up with fixing it! But when it worked it was a bunch of fun

The least reliable car I have owned was also a Citroen BX16v GTi.

My dad had one, the handbrake failed on a hill and it ended up on it's roof a few hundred yards down-slope.

Realistically, a Mk1 Fiesta 1.1L in Caribbean Blue. First car, but of an era when cars were not very reliable mechanically or structurally. Eventually rotted between the inner and outer wheel arch into the passenger compartment.

Had loads of Rovers - all fine apart from those with the K-series engine. Worst was a 75 (which was a nice enough car, but boring after a 2.0 T-series Turbo Tomcat) 1.8K. Had a broken wire in the coil pack loom which took ages to trace. Car would kangaroo once warm. And as soon as I'd sorted it, the rad holed and it overheated.

1.8D NASP Fiesta, 1.5D NASP 106 and 1.7D NASP Corsa - all gutless and dull - didn't have them long enough for things to go wrong.

I've never had a proper lemon, but the Fiat Regatta I owned in the mid-90s was probably the most underwhelming.

1.3 litre engine, terrible brakes and did more understeering than it did actual steering.

I'll always remember the terror of the brakes smoking and stopping working as I descended the Hardknott Pass. Though I'll admit it probably wasn't the best idea to drive over it in the first place.

I actually find our current 2010 Scenic more annoying though. It's very pleasant to drive and really comfy, but the electrics are so unpredictable I feel like going full Basil Fawlty as I'm stood there pressing the keyfob but unable to open the driver's door.

So far, the one I bought most recently...Vauxhall Insignia Country Tourer...bought as it will tow my caravan; is an estate not an SUV; is a mighty sight cheaper than alternatives...now people will slate Vauxhalls, and whilst I don't 100% disagree, I have had lots over the years - Nova, Corsa, Vectra all without major incident etc. This one, however, is taking the biscuit (along with the cup, water and tea bags):

Owned it for 9 weeks. For 3 weeks, to date, its been at the garage. Arrived with a timing belt issue - this was repaired under warranty. Engine decided it did not like the new timing belt so destroyed it, ripping off several teeth, and itself. New engine required now being sorted under warranty.

Oh, did I mention it needs a new gearbox too?

At least I'm not paying for any of this, but still

Now, the worst car I've ever driven...Fiat Seicento as a courtesy car. Quite literally a death trap on wheels. Close the door - windows on both driver and passenger side drop open. Body of the car was thinner than a baked bean tin. Zero brakes; zero acceleration, obviously offsetting the lack of brakes; fuel tank leaked; engine oil leaked.

Ford Focus C-Max (04). Nice engine but drove like a double decker bus round corners and the extra space in the back was completely unusable. Awful.

Swapped it for an 02 Golf Estate TDI 2.0 (IV) which was an awesome car. Mechanically became expensive later on but still relatively cheap over a life time. I miss that car.

Mk7 Ford Transhit.

We had one as a home camper conversion. It was great to drive and never needed much done apart from the regular consumables. But... it started rusting at about 4 years old and thereafter it was a constant battle, initially just cosmetic but structural not long after. We got it through an MOT with a bit of welding and decided to only do that once then get rid.

Edit: I'm talking bollocks it was a Mk6

On a practical basis, my 1.3 Chevette - 77/78 registration, obtained by me in 1988 for £50. However, it was my first car and has mainly happy memories associated.

On a dullness basis, 1.0 Micra, 1988 E reg obtained in 1993 post uni. Totally unmemorable, also snapped a timing belt and munched the valves.

On an emotional basis, a Fiat Coupe 16v turbo. Lovely inside, ugly outside, door skins made of foil so they showed the slightest ding, dodgy alarm and I just didn't like how heavy it felt to drive.

Replaced with a brand new Honda Integra Type R (DC2) which was amazing and I never should have sold it!

Difficult choice between a Rover 220 Coupe and a Jeep Wrangler.
The Rover needed 3 engines in 15 months and I was only doing about 4k a year, I complained to Rover and they told the dealer to buy it back off of me.
The Wrangler was meant to be my long term car but it only lasted a year - every month was around £200 in repairs and the dealers were awful. It was only a couple of years old when I got it with 18k on the clock.

Fiat Coupe 16v turbo. Lovely inside, ugly outside

Ugly? UGLY?

A couple of my pals had them and they were stunning vehicles, inside and out - albeit the handling apparently wasn't quite there.

Im pretty uncritical when it comes to cars. My crapheaps all did the job well enough. At one point in my life I would be given cars to review and I was loaned the then new Vauxhall Frontera for a month. Gutless, unreliable crap that even on southern motorway cruises encountering the slightest hill meant changing down to try to stay at 65.
Hideous.

A couple of my pals had them and they were stunning vehicles, inside and out – albeit the handling apparently wasn’t quite there.

It had some neat details - the petrol cap, the key fob, the Pininfarina badges - but the overall look didn't do it for me. At least I didn't have to look at the outside when I was inside it.

Worst was a Fiat Panda which, at less than 10 yo and with around 30k on the clock, collapsed going over a speed bump. Rear end had corroded so much that bits of axle and spring littered the road. At least it was light enough to push home until it could be scrapped.

Honourable mention to the old Saab 9-3 1.9 diesel which had a season ticket for the AA lorry. Shame really as the rest of the car was good and if we'd bought a petrol one it might still be going.

Peugeot 3008 2011 plate, VW Caddy 05 plate. Both financial horrors mechanically.

I was loaned the then new Vauxhall Frontera for a month. Gutless, unreliable crap that even on southern motorway cruises encountering the slightest hill meant changing down to try to stay at 65.

We had a review one in for a bit. I remember that as well as being gutless, it also had the disconcerting feeling that the chassis was pivoting in the middle when cornering.

Were they supposed to be quite well-regarded for off-roading though?

It had some neat details – the petrol cap, the key fob, the Pininfarina badges – but the overall look didn’t do it for me. At least I didn’t have to look at the outside when I was inside it.

Fair enough, it certainly had a strong aesthetic.

Not being funny, but why did you get one in the first place though?

Audi A6 estate. Bought as a family wagon. Used, relatively high motorway miles. low owners. A complete and utter moneypit. Eventually wrote it off completely as uneconomic Cost about 70p/mile. Never again.

Not being funny, but why did you get one in the first place though?

I loved the inside - black leather, painted dash, PF badge etc. It was a nice place to sit. I was coming from a 115bhp hatchback so the jump in performance was great too. Just the handling and a few reliability issues let it down.

And

At least I didn’t have to look at the outside when I was inside it.

We had a review one in for a bit. I remember that as well as being gutless, it also had the disconcerting feeling that the chassis was pivoting in the middle when cornering.

Ironic we replaced our shite golf with an ancient frontera because a mate was getting rid of it.

It was a MK2 with a 2.2 dti. It perhaps had some chipping going on I don't know but it could shift certainly wouldn't have called it sluggish and it was a great tow vehicle. Never batted an eye lid no matter what I hooked on.we treated it like shit and It was put in ditches Nd trees and didn't bother just drove out and carried on.

Unfortunately a woman drove into the side of it as it was driving along and pushed it through a bus. It still reversed out and drove home but ultimately it was a write off due to chassis leg damage.

Would i have bought one new - would i **** . as above it was horrible to look at .

My first 2 cars were utter piles of shit!

1979 V Reg ford fiesta, bought in 1995 for £150, 2 tone cream and brown. absolute junk but my first car so also amazing! Broke down pretty much every week, eventually died on the drive from Halifax to see my girlfriend (now wife) at Nottingham Uni. I got the breakdown folk to take me to her place after the weekend, left it there and got the train home.

1982 Y Reg Mini Mayfair in brown, Also bought in 1995 for about £100 or something, following the demise of the Fiesta, only lasted a few months. Actually scrap that it was a great car in the short time I had it, went like stink from the lights but had a tendancy to over heat on the motorway.

Decided I needed to up my car game after that so bought a 1986 D Reg Fiat Uno for £650.....

BMW 325 Touring - 03 plate from memory. It was utter gash. I think it was a "Friday car" just before the Munich workforce p1ssed off to the Brau Haus for the afternoon.

When it worked, it was a lovely drive. But that was so infrequently that I ended up having to carry around a mobile jump starter with me everywhere I went.

in 12 months....

Wiring was awful - boot wire kept getting water ingression every time it rained, popping the boot glass, turning all lights on and killing the battery. It took BMW 3 attempts to not fix this. Thankfully a local auto electrician did find it.

New hedgehog resistor

New Battery (linked to the first point)

New Radiator - I returned to the car after work to find a massive puddle under it

New Clutch and rather expensive dual mass flywheel - My wife's waters had just broken and when you need the car most...the clutch goes.

New Electric mirror (not the car's fault....someone knocked it off driving past, but they cost a lot to replace nonetheless)

The final straw was when the wipers broke one Xmas eve....I couldn't see anything and had to stick my head out of the window like a scene from Dumb and Dumber to get home.

To rub salt into the wounds - everything is just so expensive to replace. But I knew that when I bought it. Just didn't expect such an influx of constant bills.

Citroen ZX 'Furio' The only furious thing about it was me after the constant engine fails (ie, randomly cutting out at low revs). It was also woefully underpowered. After six months (and a full top half engine rebuild) it went back to the dealers as not acceptable for a full refund and I got a Renault Clio RSi in exchange. I loved that car - such a stealth vehicle that could surprise many 'hot' hatches.

Unreliable cars from the 60 and 70 oh and 80s ...like Marina, ital, ford Anglia, maxi, Morris minor, minis ( Evil and wonderful), wolsley, rovers, ford Cortina's,
worse cars

Mini metro 1981, awful bucket .... sold it with three cylinders working.

Ford escort rs, bought new in the late 1980's after I owned and crashed a ford Mexico.... seriously shite car sold it in Birmingham to a man with a perm.

Seat Altea...job lot of random be parts that did not work.... seriously rubbish

Peugot 307 that had innumerate sensor failures in the first two years. Having said, after then it was pretty steady chassis, engine wise. Interior quality horrible.

Close competition from Audi A3 Tdi that had random electrical leaks so it would drain the battery every week or so . Carried a spare battery in the boot so I could always start.

The older members here certainly have an advantage when it comes to crappy cars.

1979 V Reg ford fiesta, bought in 1995 for £150, 2 tone cream and brown.

Might have been my old one, in which case I'm very sorry.

Another car which understeered terribly, but was my first motor so I didn't care or know any better.

My dad was given a Renault 4. He painted it with black Hammerite and gave it to me.
People saying Audis! VWs! BMWs! You haven't a clue what a shit car is!
Column change? No power? Suspension like a half inflated rubber dinghy in rough seas? That's what you got with a Renault 4. The only fun was taking mates in the back and scaring the shit out of them going round roundabouts too fast (ie. 10mph) - it seriously felt like it was going to roll on to its side (and then the other side as it swayed back and forth on the springs).
I gave it back and bought a Austin 1300, which was a Maserati in comparison.

1.3 Maestro - though it was actually my old mans and I used to borrow it - utter sh**heap. Also pretty much anything by BL (minis excepted). It makes me laugh when I see people restoring cars like this. In my kingdom they would be compulsorily scrapped...

Volvo V70 bought when kids started coming along - ostensibly to put them in something bombproof. How 5 cylinders can only push out 140bhp in a two tonne car is beyond me. The fuel consumption was disastrous by todays standards, it devoured tyres, the heated seat burst into flames one day on the school run, the suspension started shedding bits of metalwork, servicing meant remortgaging, I could go on...
I bought it with a bank loan for approx £15K and sold it 6ish years later for £100. Every car since has been on pcp - never buying a new car outright again.

Mercedes ML 420

Slow, wallowing, badly built, constant faults, expensive to run and fix, big but not spacious, the list goes on.

1988 Ford Escort Van - purchased in around 1996/7
I was properly tucked up for it - it was a rusty, unreliable death trap - i only had it around 18 months, and it needed constant work (including a new gearbox) in that time.

It was replaced by a 1990 VW Jetta GT (big bumpers) which was like driving a Maybach in comparison.

The Jetta then made way in late 2000 for a 1995 Landrover defender 110 van - which was my all time favourite car, and the one i regret selling the most.

These days i'm driving a 2018 BMW 220D 7-Seat family hauler - it is comfortable, fast and reliable - but lacks character..
But if 'character' means you get to spend more time with RAC/AA men then i'm all good.

My dad once bought an a-reg Austin Montego just dreadful in every way especially as this replaced hi Cortina which i loved. My Uncle had a Talbot Sunbeam back in 1980, thats was a hateful piece of rubbish - terryfying when doing anything above 30mph. He got this to replace his 70s poo-brown Vauxhall Viva.

Most hateful - Mitsubishi Lancer auto Estate. Slower than slow! It was 1.5 but felt like it was powered by a mouse, used way too much petrol too

Biggest world of pain - 2014 E63 AMG wagon. Was back at Merc more than with me. Made them take it back and now I’m in a brand new C300d wagon....that broke down within 20 hours....

CTRL+F "Toyota"
*not found*
Smiles in Midengine

Two cars qualify for me.

My god, these were terrible.

Alfasud, rusted before me eyes, people use the term rust bucket, they need to have owned one of these to understand the term.

Allegro, I don’t know what I was thinking of when I bought it.....A friend had a Marina, I was envious , the Allegro was that bad.

Close call between a 1.3 Mk2 Golf or a VW Polo. Both put me off owning VW ever again which is a shame as I did have a Golf GTI for a spell which I loved.