Worst Car Ever Driven or Owned?

[Salsa Shark]

1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme

Got the car used in 1996 with 80,000 miles on it. Paid $8k for it, seemed like a good deal at the time, looked and drove clean, was a little lower than blue book value at the time... for the first 4 months, I was quickly falling in love with the car... then everything started to change.

First, the coil housing fried.
Next, the head gasket blew.
Then the O2 sensor died.
Then the timing chain jumped
Then the crankshaft sensor died... the f***ing crankshaft sensor!

That all came over a period of 9 months time, the last 2 coming while on a road trip out of state. After the first, I had to take a f***ing greyhound bus home. Drove back with a friend to pick it up after it was fixed a week later, only to have the last straw happen on the drive home. Drove 2 hours back when the crankshaft sensor went out. Had to leave it with another shop in the middle of nowhere again. That was it...I had it...

A week later, drove down again to pick it up with a friend, got it the rest of the way back home after a 5hr drive, drove straight to a car dealer instead of home, looked at the cars on their lot, test drove a 1994 Ford Probe GT with a stick (had never driven a manual transmission car, so the test drive was hilarious), fell in love with the power of that car and traded in the POS Cutlass for a $2k loss for what I originally paid (never mind the $6k in repairs).

Went from one of the worst car purchases I ever made to one of the best. That Probe? I spent less in total service/ repair dollars over the next 7 years than I paid in 9 months for the Cutlass Supreme.

was the cutlass the 3.4 twin cam? I am tempted to buy one of the convertibles but I've heard horrors about that engine. The 3.1 should be bulletproof, no?

 

[HansonBro]

was the cutlass the 3.4 twin cam? I am tempted to buy one of the convertibles but I've heard horrors about that engine. The 3.1 should be bulletproof, no?

If its the 3.1 im thinking of, then yes

 

[HansonBro]

 

[HansonBro]

@Salsa Shark if you need more power the 3.4 is a direct bolt in I believe. But those 3.1's are great. Sounds wicked with a nice exhaust too

 

[TaLoN]

was the cutlass the 3.4 twin cam? I am tempted to buy one of the convertibles but I've heard horrors about that engine. The 3.1 should be bulletproof, no?

Worse... it was the 2.3L Quad 4.

 

[TheGreenTBer]

Thank you very much it was my divorce present to myself.

I'm trying to learn guitar (probably a midlife crisis thing) and don't want to hijack this thread but I'd be grateful for any tips as to how best to learn/practice. Would you mind if I shot you a DM?

 

[coupe89]

I'm trying to learn guitar (probably a midlife crisis thing) and don't want to hijack this thread but I'd be grateful for any tips as to how best to learn/practice. Would you mind if I shot you a DM?

I do not mind at all although I am not really good at guitar from not playing much since my teens.

 

[Elysian]

My 2018 Chevy Colorado was absolutely the worst vehicle I've ever owned. I actually LOVED driving it, but it was a nightmare reliability wise. It was in the shop for 80 days in the first 2 years of ownership, it had so many frigging problems. I tried to lemon law it, but because they always gave me a loaner, per Texas state law the time it was in the shop didn't count towards lemon status, so even though it had nearly 3x as many days in the shop in 2 years as required, literally was not a lemon because I got a loaner. Stupid. Sold it to CarMax.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Had some shitty cars, but even the "bad" ones were just characterless city commuters. Mazda Protege, late 80's vintage was probably down there. I guess the one I didn't like the most was a Bonneville...I want to say mid 90's? I can't even remember the year it was. Bought it in...07 just after I moved back to Vancouver from Ireland. Low miles, got what I considered a good deal at the time, my kid was still in school so I still needed the four doors...watched it fall apart around me. Last GM product I'll ever buy.

 

[IslesNbeer]

1980 Amc Eagle. Was great in northern Alberta winters.... when it wasn't in the shop, which seemed every other week.

 

[Factorial]

I think it was an '89 Mercury Topaz. Free car but it sucked. Put your foot on the gas and count to 3 until it would downshift.

The car I learned to drive on was a 1980 4 speed Chevette. Utter crap can. If you went over 55 it started to shake.

 

[TaLoN]

I think it was an '89 Mercury Topaz. Free car but it sucked. Put your foot on the gas and count to 3 until it would downshift.

The car I learned to drive on was a 1980 4 speed Chevette. Utter crap can. If you went over 55 it started to shake.

I prefer to shift on my own.

The vibration issue sounds like wheels out of balance more than anything, but yeah, the model was crap anyway.

 

[Factorial]

I prefer to shift on my own.

The vibration issue sounds like wheels out of balance more than anything, but yeah, the model was crap anyway.

I don't know, my father was on top of that sort of thing (a nuclear engineer). Always logged his mileage, gallons added, and its price. Chevettes were garbage.

 

[Tasteless Beaver]

My worst was a 2006 Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart. It had 80k miles on it, but all 4 struts were blown, both tie rods were shot, the padding in the driver's seat failed and a bar dug into the shoulder, and it just wasn't pleasant to drive. I expected much more.

 

[heyfolks]

Honda Accord - My wife and I were so broke, we bought this POS for $1000. Junk... just absolute junk. Wouldn't start, wouldn't stop, wouldn't heat, wouldn't cool... everything a car should do, it wouldn't. I NEVER let my wife drive it until a "must" situation occurred. As fate would have it, wife is at a light and a coworker rear ends her and totals the car. No injuries and the insurance settlement is $2300. My father tells me he knows a guy and to wait for him that Saturday to go look at a car. Cool, we need a break (3 kids and still in college) ... he rolls up and right behind him is his girlfriend. He tosses me the keys to his car and says, get me a beer. YES SIR!

 

[Tweaky]

1988 Hyundai Excel
1982 Ford Futura
1991 Daihatsu Charade

Not including cars from my short stints as a mechanic.

 

[cjm502]

I have owned several 150,000+ mile Audis and even they don't come close to comparing to my 99 Mercury Cougar I had in college. That car was an absolute pile. Always needed work, and when I worked on it and saw the garbage engineering snd craftsmanship I saw why it always needed work. Just an all around ultra low quality vehicle.

 

[Shad]

Anything Chrysler

I've never seen so many head gaskets go in my life

 

[adsfan]

My sister had a mid 70s Opel. I was house sitting for her while she was on vacation, so I drove it to my summer job a few miles away. One evening it rained really hard, like you can't see the house across the street hard. Her driveway was a small steep hill to her garage. When I backed the car down the driveway the next morning, I heard a sound like water sloshing in a washing machine. Somehow, a few gallons of water collected on the floor of the back seat. Maybe a faulty window seal? I used a small bucket to bail it out and left the windows half open at work. When I got back to her house, I used a hair dryer to dry out the carpet. I parked the car in the garage every night after that mess.

A few days later, I needed something from home, so I stayed overnight. I got on the expressway downtown to go across town to work. The ramp was uphill. When I shifted from 2nd to 3rd gear, a big black cloud came out of the tailpipe with a bang. I have no idea why (carbon build up?) and the car acted normally (for it) the rest of the day and week.

I told her about the water when she got back. She didn't seen surprised.

That fall, our grandfather decided to stop driving. He was in his 80s and he gave her his newer Maverick. That was a big improvement over that darn Opel Kadett! It was a piece of junk that would have folded up in an accident.

 

[Albatros]

Old Kadetts were generally very solid, newer Astras not so much.

 

[LarryFisherman]

I have owned several 150,000+ mile Audis and even they don't come close to comparing to my 99 Mercury Cougar I had in college. That car was an absolute pile. Always needed work, and when I worked on it and saw the garbage engineering snd craftsmanship I saw why it always needed work. Just an all around ultra low quality vehicle.

I ran with a b6 S4 back in like 2015. I previously had a b5 and loved it - normal maintenance and 2.7T problems, but wanted to play with the v8.

f*** me 50 shades of bloody red that b6 was horrible. We spent ~$12k in 18ish months of ownership fixing all the dumb shit. $5k of that was just to pass emissions right after I bought the thing. It was a huge mistake, and we were way too broke back then to be able to afford such a nightmare. I paid $13k for it, sold it for $5k about 2 years later and ate a huge loss on both maintenance and loan cost. Worst decision I've ever made.

Haven't bought an Audi since. Though I'd dabble back into a B5 if there were any decent examples left. Real dream is a C4 URS4, but those are even more difficult to find these days.

Looked real nice though

All of the three together when they overlapped briefly

 

[Sweetpotato]

Can't say I've owned many bad cars in terms of reliability because I'm religious with maintenance. But worst car is probably the Hyundai Veloster N I own now in terms of how terrible it is to drive. Just a fast car that has no feeling to it. Last winter the throttle body froze and wouldn't start until I pointed a heater at it for 20 min.

 

[cjm502]

I ran with a b6 S4 back in like 2015. I previously had a b5 and loved it - normal maintenance and 2.7T problems, but wanted to play with the v8.

f*** me 50 shades of bloody red that b6 was horrible. We spent ~$12k in 18ish months of ownership fixing all the dumb shit. $5k of that was just to pass emissions right after I bought the thing. It was a huge mistake, and we were way too broke back then to be able to afford such a nightmare. I paid $13k for it, sold it for $5k about 2 years later and ate a huge loss on both maintenance and loan cost. Worst decision I've ever made.

Haven't bought an Audi since. Though I'd dabble back into a B5 if there were any decent examples left. Real dream is a C4 URS4, but those are even more difficult to find these days.

Looked real nice though

View attachment 532885

All of the three together when they overlapped briefly

View attachment 532886

Audis can definitely be a pain, I have one Audi left. It's a C6 A6 and I've been lucky enough to have only taken it in for repairs once and it didn't hit the wallet that hard. I have spent countless hours fixing other issues with the car on my own time, but all of that has been for free or close to it. Most recently my steering column lock went bad and was sticking in the locked position, a close to 3k fix from the dealer. They replace the entire steering column, the column locking mechanism, and code it all. I temporarily unlocked the module by clearing codes on VCDS (the generic OBD2 app on my phone wouldn't pull this specific code), and snipped a wire while the steering module locking mechanism was unlocked to permanently disable it. Free permanent fix, my steering column just doesn't lock now but I'm not worried about that one bit. Having VCDS in conjunction with doing preventative maintenance found on Audi forums makes them not too bad to own.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

@Salsa Shark if you need more power the 3.4 is a direct bolt in I believe. But those 3.1's are great. Sounds wicked with a nice exhaust too

hahaha, amen. Had a 96 Grand Prix in high school with the 3.1, sounded nice and mean with flowmasters bolted on...at least to my 18 yr old ears.

worst is a 2010s Elantra I had for 10 days as a rental. Steering and braking were an adventure due to it having zero feel or feedback. Highway driving was russian roulette with it not having the balls to get to highway speed in a safe amount of time

 

[LarryFisherman]

Audis can definitely be a pain, I have one Audi left. It's a C6 A6 and I've been lucky enough to have only taken it in for repairs once and it didn't hit the wallet that hard. I have spent countless hours fixing other issues with the car on my own time, but all of that has been for free or close to it. Most recently my steering column lock went bad and was sticking in the locked position, a close to 3k fix from the dealer. They replace the entire steering column, the column locking mechanism, and code it all. I temporarily unlocked the module by clearing codes on VCDS (the generic OBD2 app on my phone wouldn't pull this specific code), and snipped a wire while the steering module locking mechanism was unlocked to permanently disable it. Free permanent fix, my steering column just doesn't lock now but I'm not worried about that one bit. Having VCDS in conjunction with doing preventative maintenance found on Audi forums makes them not too bad to own.

Which motor does your c6 have?

I thought the B6 S4 V8 was fairly easy to work on, although there wasn't much space for things on the side/front. Same for the 2.7T in the b5. That A-series chassis just didn't have a ton of room to cram those big engines into.

By contrast the A4 with the 1.8T was a dream to work on and I still maintain one of the best cars I ever owned. It ran me perfectly all the way up to 200k with minimal issues. We did the timing belt/wp service on it in a day or so, mostly drunk. It was a breeze and I wish I still had it. I sold it to pay the bills on that S4 that sucked shit.