"what’s the worst car you’ve ever owned”

[Paulus]

My dad had two. A convertible which I don't remember and then a Traveller which we had all through my childhood.

My dad was a dab hand with filler.

When I see the bulbous monsters on the road these days I recall that my long suffering parents used to drive off on holiday with three kids (one of whom, usually me, would be car-sick) and a dog in a Moggie Minor.

My Dad had a Moggy in the early 70's as well, XPL 113 was the reg.
He took all the wood off it and re-varnished it all. We went on holidays to Scotland in one year, Mum and Dad, my brother and a large dog. It is what I learned to drive in. It seemed to be a very good car.

 

[Donger]

My very first car was a Hillman Hunter, and also the worst by a country mile.
Only had it a couple of years, had to replace the clutch, rebuild the engine, reconditioned gearbox fitted, new top plates, sills and doorpans. Loads of other niggly things as well. Only good thing was I learned a lot of car related repair stuff which came in handy for a few more old bangers that came my way.

Ditto ..... though mine was badged as a Minx.

To be fair, it was on its last legs when I bought it as a banger. Took it with me for my last two years at uni. It was full of recently sourced second hand parts from the local scrap dealer. Peak terribleness was hit when I took a carful of friends from Birmingham to Wolverhampton one evening for a footy game. On the way back it was dark and it was raining. It stalled at every single red light and required everyone to pile out and give it yet another push start. In the end I had to choose between lights and wipers. Chose lights and had to leave my window open all the way home in pouring rain so I could wipe a small part of the windscreen with my hand, leaning forward with my face almost touching the screen. Didn't get so many people cadging lifts after that.

 

[Profpointy]

I forgot to mention the dodgy, pulling brakes, the indifferent windscreen wipers and the appetite for tyres

Most of that sounds like shonky maintenance too to be fair.

 

[gavroche]

Hillman Imp. Was burning more oil than petrol.
Mini , both front wheels collapsed within 2 weeks of each other and kept cutting out in the rain.
Vauxhall 101. Gearbox was useless. You never knew what gear it would change into.
Renault 6: unknown to me it was made of two cars welded in the middle and was scrapped at the next MO T when I was told it was unsafe to drive.

 

[Rezillo]

You would expect a Swedish car to be ok on cold mornings.

I think technically it was a DAF (Dutch). Mine didn't like starting either, plus the handling was terrible.

I had a Metro from new and that was a love/hate thing. It was quite fun to drive but mine was almost impossible to get into first gear at times and second was no better when stationary. When I complained to the garage (John Grose) about being hooted at traffic lights because I was slow to pull away when they turned green, I was told rather haughtily that "It's not a sports car, sir". I pointed out that I was spending my time while the lights were red, trying and failing to get it into gear and that any subsequent movement however slow was a bonus. After that gem of customer care, I did my best to dissuade anyone from buying from them.

 

[Jameshow]

Easily the 2007 Skoda Fabia 1.2 that I inherited. I had no idea it was possible to hate an inanimate object so much.

Horrible to drive with vague over-assisted steering and harsh, bouncy ride quality, weirdly placed pedals and back-breaking seats.

It drank petrol and broke down repeatedly with niggly electrical and sensor issues and cost me a fortune. Just when it was finally behaving itself, the engine starting burning ridiculous amounts of oil and the mileage wasn't that high. Somehow managed to be inferior to my Peugeot 205 in every way despite being designed 20 years later and despite being much bigger on the outside, it had less usable space on the inside.

My 205 was the best by far and will be returned to the road when funds permit some body work. They were great to drive and the suspension can deal with the undulating bog roads around here in a way very few other cars can. I covered about 170,000 in my ownership and it only let me down once when the fuel pump seized.

Saying that, I have grown to love my Yaris. Not very exciting to look at or to drive but superbly engineered in every way. It just lack an old Peugeot's magic carpet ride.

205 is definitely the best small car I've had.

Bit like a Volvo estate is the best estate car I've driven.

 

[Gillstay]

Worst car was a Ford Fiesta, bought for us by a very careful professional and large parts broke down constantly after the first week.
Best car was a diesel Berlingo, from the side of the road, having been written off. Did 220,000 miles in it. Hauled timber, Chainsaws, motorbikes, animals, cycles of course and you could fill it with trees and shrubs.

 

[stephec]

Never actually OWNED a bad car (always stuck with Vauxhall

You never had a Viva then did you?

 

[Brandane]

You never had a Viva then did you?

No: Astra mk1, Astra mk2, Cavalier SRi mk2 (a good Belgian built one, and then a not so good UK built one), Cavalier mk2 1600, Nova 1200.... All ok cars (but the mk1 Astra was much nicer than the mk2). My mother DID have a Viva of sometime around mid 60's vintage, bought when it was about 4 years old. I don't remember it being particularly bad, but I was too young to be interested in cars at the time!

 

[raleighnut]

I worked with a guy who had a Moggy Traveller he used to give me a lift to work if he saw me, the crankshaft was shot but Mick had a spare engine in his garage (he also had a 2nd car but as we worked in a foundry he didn't drive that to work) 2 years later when he left the Moggy was still rattling along.

 

[DRM]

Worst car driven, was a company owned Lada Riva Estate pool car, it was impossible to kill it, we would fill the back with tools and nuts, bolts, screws etc, then follow the van to where ever the job was, the back window fell out in Guildford, one of the staff topped it up with oil, to the brim, yet the damn thing still started and ran, just in it’s own blue cloud, I think I dropped about 15 litres of oil out of it, and put about 5 back to get it to the right level, the seats were shocking, and to top it off, it was finished in “Baby poo beige” an absolutely hateful thing

 

[FrankCrank]

Reading some of these posts, glad I wasn't the only one battling with old bangers in their early driving years.
Last five cars have all been bought from new, long gone are the days of trying to fix a clunker at the side of a pavement on a freezing day, spanners slipping and bloodied knuckles. I admire folk who take on the challenge of a full car resto, and I can appreciate the end result, but know I'll never go down that path myself.

 

[Cavalol]

100% the worst, most miserable piles of scrap ever inflicted on anyone are Ivecos. Specifically the Cargo, extra-specifically the 4 cylinder ones.

The 6 cylinder (75E15) ones were bad enough. Breakdowns/problems were pretty much a weekly occurrence and you can pick anything from the 'computer' on the dashboard playing up, various lights not working when they felt like it (the o/s/r indicator randomly packing up was a real nightmare), the headlights came loose, the rear caliper jammed on, the air brake broke, the seats fell to bits, the gearbox packed up and the wiring caught fire. The fire was a bit disturbing as I was loading drums of flammable waste on the back at the time.

The 4 cylinder (75E14) was truly the worst, though. Most of the above plus terrible, dog-shittingly bad 'performance'. It wouldn't pull a skeleton off a sloping stretcher, it was absolutely awful on fuel and hateful to drive, plus it seemed to break down even more. Gutless, hopeless, hateful, terribly made piles of (occasionally mobile) (s)crap. If they ever do a new traitor's gate on the Thames, whoever designed these sh*t heaps and whoever was quality control need to be the first to have their heads chopped off and stuck on there.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Reminiscing about my dad's Moggie I remembered that when he got the pump attendant (no self service then) to fill up he would ask for "shots" and the attendant would squirt several shots of something from a can in with the fuel. I can distinctly remember the phrase "four and four shots".

What was the "something"? Someone here is sure to know. Not just oil presumably. I always thought oil in fuel in a four stroke engine was a Bad Thing.

 

[Cavalol]

Reminiscing about my dad's Moggie I remembered that when he got the pump attendant (no self service then) to fill up he would ask for "shots" and the attendant would squirt several shots of something from a can in with the fuel. I can distinctly remember the phrase "four and four shots".

What was the "something"? Someone here is sure to know. Not just oil presumably. I always thought oil in fuel in a four stroke engine was a Bad Thing.

I think it was a fuel additive, possibly Redex for extra lubrication of the cylinders, or supposedly to make it run better. On 2T motorbikes and scooters, you could get shots of oil as this was obviously long before the advent of autolube systems.