What was the worst car you ever owned.

[E27007]

In theory a 1976 forward control Land Rover I bought 20 years ago and is still gong strong. For every hour I have driven it I have probably spent at least three hours fixing/working on it. But love every minute!

Low on disposable income and 30 years of age , just bought my first house , I needed budget transport, I purchased a 1982 Austin Metro, the car was S/H and 5 years old and the poverty-in-extremis City specification, everything stripped out , not even a glovebox or reversing lights, vinyl seats for additional discomfort.
It proved to be the car which would not die, I drove the Metro for 10 years and 90,000 miles, it never once broke down, it needed repairs most years but the parts were "loose change" in cost , a replacement exchange steering rack was £30, an alternator £40, all repairs were DIY, I had been fixing cars since I was 14 years of age. I continued with the Metro long after I had the money to buy something newer and better, but i could not bring myself to scrap the Metro, it was like having a geriatric but well-loved pet in the home, Eventually the car had to go, it was a sad day when the scrapyard lorry turned up and hauled it away. The worst car I have ever owned, but in some ways the best, none of my other cars ever had to tackle the annual mileage or driving in extreme weather conditions the Metro had to face, and I always enjoyed my long weekend roadtrips in the Metro

 

[BingMan]

What was the worst car you have ever owned and why was it the worst?

I’ve had my fair share of bad cars but mine would have to be a Renault Clio the filled with water every time it rained and constantly stalled at junctions and traffic lights despite having a automatic transmission.

A petrol engined Peugot 405. The engine used to stop randomly the restart when the rescue turned up.
Guzzled oil and was very difficult to top up.
And the main wiring loom was routed over a sharp edge of bodywork which eventually severed it completely

 

[birchesgreen]

I've loved the 3 cars i've owned, and my new one i'm sure i'll love too. I can't say any are the "worst" even my Lada which was my first car and thus is forever in my heart.

I once drove a Corsa a couple of times, thought it was awful.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Corsas are just bog standard small car. I don't fit one very well, but I don't recall anything specifically bad about them, and I've driven a few as my parents tended to have them as a second car so that was what I was insured on before getting my own.

 

[richw]

I’ve had some terrible £250 cars, but on the basis they were £250 I feel it would be unfair to judge them as terrible in context.

Worst reliability I had a 2014 zafira mk3. I returned it to the finance company when it needed a £3000 repair at 50,000 miles with full service history

 

[DustyBin]

Corsas are just bog standard small car. I don't fit one very well, but I don't recall anything specifically bad about them, and I've driven a few as my parents tended to have them as a second car so that was what I was insured on before getting my own.

Like most Vauxhalls they manage to take the fun out of driving in my experience (I’ve driven Corsas, Astras, Insignias - all awful!). Plus the 1.0 n/a petrol engine regularly fails at very low mileage, which is a bit of an issue even if you just want to get from A to B!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Like most Vauxhalls they manage to take the fun out of driving in my experience (I’ve driven Corsas, Astras, Insignias - all awful!). Plus the 1.0 n/a petrol engine regularly fails at very low mileage, which is a bit of an issue even if you just want to get from A to B!

I had a Vectra C 1.8SRi and thought it was a pretty good car, all things considered. Not quite a Mondeo but much cheaper and still drove well, though the engine needed the nuts revving off it to get the performance. If they were still made I'd not rule out another.

 

[Cowley]

Like most Vauxhalls they manage to take the fun out of driving in my experience (I’ve driven Corsas, Astras, Insignias - all awful!). Plus the 1.0 n/a petrol engine regularly fails at very low mileage, which is a bit of an issue even if you just want to get from A to B!

Yep can’t stand the things personally. It seems that whenever I meet a problem driver on the road, they’re usually in a Vauxhall. I don’t know what it is about the things?

(Actually I do have an opinion on this but I’ll keep it to myself for a minute)

 

[High Dyke]

The worst car I never owned was a blue Ford Orion:

Funny you should mention a Ford Orion. That was probably my worst purchase. The engine had been changed at some point. It had a petrol engine fitted, but registration / insurance checks came back as a diesel, even though it was purchased from a respectable dealer. Hmmm! After a couple of weeks the drivers seat frame began to twist (it was previously a rep's car). The car was returned to the dealer and repairs made, but they never seemed to last long before the twist appeared again. Following numerous visits the dealer eventually agreed to replace the seat frame. A couple of weeks after all seemed alright, the vehicle was hit by a stolen car and deemed not cost effective to repair. However, that wasn't the end of the story. It was never officially written off by the DVLA, only the insurance assessor, a mechanic friend bought it off me for scrap value, repaired the car and sold it on.

 

[bspahh]

The worst car I've owned was the first one. It was a 15 year old Mini 850 which I bought for £250. I only used it for about 9 months, but in that time I had more breakdowns than all the other cars I've had in the following 35 years.

A week or two after I bought it, I found a bucket seat that had been dumped in an ASDA car park. It had metal grommets, like a seat on a Ford GT40.

When it was fresh out of the factory, it had 33 bhp, but the points would often need adjusting or it would have far less power than that. One time they went out of adjustment in a 10 mile drive, and I ground to a halt on a country lane. The plastic block in the points that rubbed against the distributor cam had melted. This was before mobile phones, so I went to the nearest house to ask for help. The guy there had an old set of points from a BL B series engine which were close enough in size to fit, so that I could get home.

Another time it blew a head gasket on the M5. I got towed to a garage, got a bus home. My Dad then helped fit a new gasket. We were pretty much done. One of the last things was to tighten the nuts for one of the coolant hoses onto the engine block. I asked my Dad how hard should I tighten it and he said "just give lean on it a bit". I did, and snapped off the stud, leaving about 5 few millimetres proud of the engine block. It took a couple of weeks of soaking with penetrating oil, WD40, hitting it with a hammer and wiggling with a monkey wrench before I was able to get the old stud out. I sold it for £350 not long after that, when I inherited my Grandad's car.

 

[DustyBin]

I had a Vectra C 1.8SRi and thought it was a pretty good car, all things considered. Not quite a Mondeo but much cheaper and still drove well, though the engine needed the nuts revving off it to get the performance. If they were still made I'd not rule out another.

That’s fair enough actually; it’s more the later models that felt/feel particularly under developed.

Yep can’t stand the things personally. It seems that whenever I meet a problem driver on the road, they’re usually in a Vauxhall. I don’t know what it is about the things?

(Actually I do have an opinion on this but I’ll keep it to myself for a minute)

Your minute is up!

 

[Lloyds siding]

Rather surprisingly my worst was a VW Golf Mk I. It was a lovely car to drive, but it had built in obsolescence. Lots of plastic things started just snapping. Problems with switches. The ventilation system seized as various plastic bits disintegrated. Seat springs started snapping. Then one night there was a bang, ignition light came on and I stopped the car. I realised that my fan belt had snapped, I called out the AA. Patrolman turned up, pointed out that I was missing a bottom pulley on the engine, looked over the car and suggested that he tow me to the entrance to a scrap yard. I persuaded him to tow me home, then drove it to the scrap yard the following day using the battery.

 

[Vespa]

Like most Vauxhalls they manage to take the fun out of driving in my experience (I’ve driven Corsas, Astras, Insignias - all awful!). Plus the 1.0 n/a petrol engine regularly fails at very low mileage, which is a bit of an issue even if you just want to get from A to B!

Glad you brought up Vauxhalls, you reminded me of a 2000 Vauxhall Zafira owned it for a year and the cambelt failed on it, had it fixed and it failed again, apparently unknown to me then it's a common fault with them.

I vowed not to touch another Zafira.

 

[cactustwirly]

Corsas are just bog standard small car. I don't fit one very well, but I don't recall anything specifically bad about them, and I've driven a few as my parents tended to have them as a second car so that was what I was insured on before getting my own.

They are driven to an inch of their lives. It is very difficult to find a used one in good condition that hasn't been thrashed around.

 

[birchesgreen]

To be fair to Corsas, my sis-in-law's one is a fine inoffensive little car, the one i drove was pretty knackered.

 

[delt1c]

Renault Savanaha, parked at an angle when it rained and passenger footwell like a bath. Brakes whilst passing MOT left you wondering if it was going to stop. Interestingly dealer could find no problem.

 

[Dai Corner]

Renault Megan. My first larger-than-a-supermini car and not cheap. I'd saved up for some time to afford it.

The head gasket failed which cost a fortune to replace. Then it was the heater matrix, leaving it freezing cold in the winter and it's a pool of water in the passenger footwell. I dumped it on an unsuspecting Ford dealer in favour of a Focus.

 

[trebor79]

A Renault Scenic.

• The worst pile of crap I ever had the misfortune to own. It cost me more in two years than all my previous cars put together over the previous 20 years of owning one
• Idiocy like having a key card which you put in the dash. If the card battery runs out, there was an emergency key as part of the card, which could unlock the car but couldn't lock it again. What sort of imbecile would design something like that?
• When it needed a new starter motor (I think, might have been alternator), the only way to do it was to remove the engine, with consequent labour costs from having to disconnect and reconnect the fuel, electrics, cooling and exhaust system.
• Amongst many other issues that I have tried to blank out.

+1. My wife's current car, bought second hand 6 years ago. Thought we got a bargain but it's the version with the ancient 1.6l petrol lump that somehow manages to have the highest fuel consumption and most asthmatic performance of the range.
Other design faults:
All the "chrome" wearing off the trim and gearstick knob by 50,000 miles
The radio and sat nav are completely built in, yet coded to the car so battery change means faffing around with codes etc to get it working again.
Windscreen drains are tiny pinholes. A leaf or twig blocks it. Then the water drains into the air vent and floods the air conditioning fan and/or an ECU module which fails and makes the windows, alarm and lights do strange things.
Rear brake discs are integral with ABS modules and wheel bearings, so replacement is ludicrously expensive.
Engine bay looks like a cut and shut job with massive very messy welds.
Horrible to drive.
Stalls easily at junctions.
Cambelt change is an engine out job so ridiculously expensive.

Fortunately it will be replaced in a matter of weeks (hopefully) with a Niro EV and I will relish taking it to the scrapyard for a few hundred quid.

 

[Tetchytyke]

They are driven to an inch of their lives. It is very difficult to find a used one in good condition that hasn't been thrashed around.

I inherited a Corsa- 1.4 automatic- from my elderly MIL when she stopped being well enough to drive. It was about 10 when I got it but still a really nice car. Fair shifted, too.

I've never owned a bad car, but I ended up with a Crossland X on long term loan from the insurer when someone crashed into my parked car. I hated that thing, it was an asthmatic skip. We also had a (shared) Peugeot 308 fleet car in one job, just no.

 

[MotCO]

Glad you brought up Vauxhalls, you reminded me of a 2000 Vauxhall Zafira owned it for a year and the cambelt failed on it, had it fixed and it failed again, apparently unknown to me then it's a common fault with them.

I vowed not to touch another Zafira.

I've owned 2 Zafiras. The first I kept for 11 years and 120,000 miles and only 2 piston rings and cambelt needed replacing (plus tyres and brakes of course). It had its original clutch, silencer etc.

My current Zafira has done 125,000 miles in 9 years. It has had an oxygen sensor and rocker cover(?) replaced, but otherwise only routine tyres and brakes replaced. I accept it us probably nit ths fastest off the grid, but it is certainly practical with its seven seats.

I've also owned a Cavalier- again no major problems.

Next car - haven't a clue! I don't really like any of the current designs, and am probably sitting on the fence for petrol v hybrid v electric.

 

[mmh]

What was the worst car you have ever owned and why was it the worst?

I’ve had my fair share of bad cars but mine would have to be a Renault Clio the filled with water every time it rained and constantly stalled at junctions and traffic lights despite having a automatic transmission.

Worst car I've owned was an Austin Montego. The best looking car of its type at the time, but what could go wrong would.

For another from the same era, worst car I've ever hired was a Ford Sierra estate.

 

[stuu]

+1. My wife's current car, bought second hand 6 years ago. Thought we got a bargain but it's the version with the ancient 1.6l petrol lump that somehow manages to have the highest fuel consumption and most asthmatic performance of the range.
Other design faults:
All the "chrome" wearing off the trim and gearstick knob by 50,000 miles
The radio and sat nav are completely built in, yet coded to the car so battery change means faffing around with codes etc to get it working again.
Windscreen drains are tiny pinholes. A leaf or twig blocks it. Then the water drains into the air vent and floods the air conditioning fan and/or an ECU module which fails and makes the windows, alarm and lights do strange things.

Which has reminded me about another fault we had - the appalling electrics meant the radio code had to be re-entered every single time the car was started, so we only bothered on longer journeys. On the plus side it was the turbo diesel version which could do 60+ mpg with a smidge of conservative driving

My second ever car was a Citroen ZX which was fine apart from a similar problem with drain holes, which once got blocked with snow during a brief snow shower on the M4. Eventually something melted and the resulting water poured into the heater, almost instantly filling the car with fog/vapour. Which was fun

 

[DerekC]

I've been driving a long time so I have to cast my mind back .. and of course you can still love a basically awful car, like my Austin A30. Cost £40 if I remember, plus another £40 to get her through the next MoT. 28bhp on a good day - mostly ran on three cylinders - smelt horrible inside - brakes poor even with the mechanical linkage for the rear drums adjusted properly - but I still loved her. My mum bought her off me for £50 (she was feeling generous) and loved her too.

Then there was the shiny red Morris 1100 with hidden subframe attachment point rot - a kind of squeaky noise from under the back seat. Parts all over the front room (fortunately we hadn't summoned up the cash to buy a carpet by then). Once Joe from round the corner had welded it and I reassembled the bits, driving it depressurised to have it pumped up was fun!

And the Allegro (a company car so I didn't actually own it). I must be the only person in the world who actually liked an Allegro. It was comfortable and reasonably roomy for its size and quite economical - but then the idler gear fell off half way up the M1 and that was the end of that - the company gave me the works Morris Marina instead - usually driven and maintained by apprentices! I did hate that, mainly because the brakes pulled heavily to the left and the gear lever didn't have any detectable "gate" - just had to push the lever in vaguely the right direction and hope for the best. I dumped it outside the yard manager's office after a week or so.

After living with 1950s to 1970s cars, anything produced in the last twenty years seems amazing. Renault Scenic, VW Golf MkIV estate, Voivo V50 - loved them all!

 

[A0wen]

Two contenders - both were company cars issued to me when I joined the company and I had until the car I chose arrived:

A Citroen ZX Diesel estate - not intrinsically bad but it was the non-turbo diesel version and had been specced with an automatic gearbox. Gutless genuinely wasn't the word - it was dangerously slow, it made pulling out of junctions a scary experience. It's the only modern (i.e. built after 1970) car I've ever owned which was incapable of exceeding 100mph - I took it along the newly opened A50 between the M1 and Stoke and with my foot to the floor on the long sections of dual carriageway it resolutely refused to exceed about 96mph. Dreadful thing.

The next one was a VW Golf Mk4 TDI - another gutless wonder (it was the 90hp version), was expensive in list price terms yet lacked things like air-con which the Peugeot 306 it replaced did have. One of the worst handling cars I've ever driven without doubt, dynamically inept, seemed incapable of going around a roundabout and that's before you then talk about reliability. This thing had about 50k miles and needed a gearbox rebuild. Awful, awful thing. Completely over-rated.

 

[A0wen]

Like most Vauxhalls they manage to take the fun out of driving in my experience (I’ve driven Corsas, Astras, Insignias - all awful!). Plus the 1.0 n/a petrol engine regularly fails at very low mileage, which is a bit of an issue even if you just want to get from A to B!

You've clearly never driven a VW then - dull really isn't the word - the magazines all say VW's are "comfort biased", which is rubbish - they handle like a wet sponge.

To be fair to Vauxhall their cars are generally reliable, generally cheap to buy and own - I've had two, the first was a Mk2 Astra (my first car) which was lively for a 1.3, the second is my current car a 1.5 petrol Insignia auto, which I picked up last year when I needed a cheap family car having handed back my company car. Sure it's not the most exciting car to drive, but it's comfortable, roomy, quiet and just shrugs off long journeys with no complaint from the passengers.

 

[Julia]

Pre-facelift Rover 216, L-prefix, bought a low-mileage example at 5 years old. Underpowered, heavy and unresponsive on the pedals, and everything inside felt cheap and tatty. After having some pretty nice cars loaned to me by work, it was a terrible buy. I got rid of it at about 8 years old, after the bonnet catch failed suddenly on the A45, resulting in the bonnet flipping up and through the windscreen. Traded it in for an S-prefix Escort which was a huge improvement; the dealer suggested he'd be scrapping it but I did see it subsequently on the road with a (different coloured) bonnet from a scrapper.

 

[Cowley]

Pre-facelift Rover 216, L-prefix, bought a low-mileage example at 5 years old. Underpowered, heavy and unresponsive on the pedals, and everything inside felt cheap and tatty. After having some pretty nice cars loaned to me by work, it was a terrible buy. I got rid of it at about 8 years old, after the bonnet catch failed suddenly on the A45, resulting in the bonnet flipping up and through the windscreen. Traded it in for an S-prefix Escort which was a huge improvement; the dealer suggested he'd be scrapping it but I did see it subsequently on the road with a (different coloured) bonnet from a scrapper.

Blimey. That’s definitely one of the worst stories so far @Julia!

 

[Gloster]

I got rid of it at about 8 years old, after the bonnet catch failed suddenly on the A45, resulting in the bonnet flipping up and through the windscreen.

I was, I suspect, responsible for a similar occurrence when coming up the M5 south of Taunton one evening. Two lanes were coned off and everything was going up the outside one. At the end of the cones cars chose their lane and a black, souped-up Capri with extra vents in the bonnet took the middle lane. I decided to continue in the outside lane at my standard cruising speed of 56 mph past a gaggle of cars, before moving across to the near side one. As I passed the Capri I glanced at the driver, accompanied by his ‘bird’, and saw printed across his face the thought, ‘I am being overtaken by an old Mini.’ As I moved across to the near side lane, he rammed his foot down, roared out in to the offside lane and shot past me. He was about a hundred yards ahead when his bonnet flipped up. Luckily he was past the other vehicles and was able to pull into the hard shoulder.

 

[Lockwood]

Second hand 1.9L Seat Leon.
Had a bad handbrake when I got it - took it back to the dealer the same day with nose damage after it ran away down the driveway.

Gutless... Would go for the overtake on a road that the last car would have effortlessly done, and have to abort as it would not accelerate quickly enough.

Thing failed on my first shift in Crawley - annoying I'd been given the address for the wrong station, so I parked up on the road by there and couldn't get going again. AA deemed its engine was a total failure. Had to get the AA to drop me at station and find a hotel for the back to back shifts. Luckily a taxi driver saw me walking to the hotel on the first night and gave me a free lift.
Scrap man offered me £20 delivered, or nothing if they grabbed it from the roadside. Ended up giving it to WSFRS for them to play with.

That was a car that was not fun to drive at all; it lacked snap and crackle, and was quite short of pop as well.

 

[gavinro]

Toyota Yaris,
It shuddered when I changed gear

I have a Yaris now and it's absolutely magnificent.

Toyota GR Yaris Review 2023 | Top Gear

The GR Yaris is superb - the best Toyota we've ever driven

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