The worst car you ever owned?

[DAVID PATERSON]

Tell us all about it? Why was it so bad? Did it cost you a lot of money? What ever happened to it?

[Truckosaurus]

Excellent anyother chance for me to reel out the 'Honda VTECs are toilet' speech.

Background: In May 2000 by beloved Impreza turbo got written-off in an accident when a lady of a certain age drove into me when her foot slipped off the brake pedal. So I needed a cheap car asap. So I spent £3500 on a '94 Civic VTi saloon. Initially it was amusing to drive something which revved to 8000rpm and got 154bhp from 1600cc. I drove the car for 6000 miles in 10 weeks over that summer, but then got rid of it for the following reasons:

1) It's 5th gear was 18mph/1000rpm so you were doing 5000rpm @ 90mph, which didn't make for comfortable cruising, its comfortable speed was 65mph. Maybe you could live with this in a 'sports' car like the S2000 but in a 'hot hatch' that is meant to be a jack-of-all-trades it wasn't good.
2) No power outside VTEC zone (<6000rpm), it was frustrating during road driving, eg. you'd be approaching a roundabout at 25mph and were looking to jam the gearbox into first to get any sort of acceleration.
3) No torque (84 lb/ft).
4) I only averaged 35mpg which is pretty poor for a small car, Again, a legacy of low gearing and having to rag the cojones off it to get anywhere.
The journeys I do are fairly economical motorway cruises, I used to get 28mpg from the Impreza which shows how poor the Honda was in this respect.
5) It needed new tyres.

I replaced it with a Saab 9000 Carlsson which on paper was slower but in reality felt quick all the time, and had instant power available at the twitch of the throttle pedal, so now roundabouts which you'd be trying to take in 1st in the Honda were now dismissed in 3rd and a wave of turbo charge torque. Much nicer.

[garcon]

28mpg on 'fairly economical motorway cruises'... hmmm - thirsty beast the old Impreza wasn't it?! I never got better than about 25 from mine - and I once measured 8mpg for a tankful, though that was largely on track at Oulton!

A Saab 9-5 Aero is still one of the cars on my list of future possibilities - largely because I like to flow on a surge of torque rather than blat through the rev range hunting for power... if it wasn't fwd I'd probably have one already.

Maisie won't like me for this, but the worst car I ever owned BY FAR (and trust me I've had some dogs, if you know what I mean) was an Austin Maestro 1.6HLS. I cannot to this day explain what possessed me to buy it, and I can confirm that in the ensuing 6 months it went on to prove just about everybody right about how awful it would be. It's not a bad design as such - class leading interior space - and it wasn't particularly sporty or pretty but not particularly terrible in those respects either, it's just that it was so completely and utterly unreliable.

[simon drabble]

sadly a 1963 Jaguar 3.8 E Type FHC, everytime I took it out for a spin something else would go wrong! I owned it for 2 months and on a per mile basis was probably the most expensive car I have ever owned. Having said that to sit in the drivers seat and look down that bonnet was enough for me to still want another one, just this time I will go into it a little less starry eyed!

[topwelshman]

Mine was a 1.3 escort estate when I was 17. I broke down 4 times from Cardiff en route to Bristol-took me nearly 10 hours and after the 3rd breakdown I turned around. I only got 29 miles from my house!

[Bigguy]

Clear winner - Standard Vanguard!

[Tim Falce]

My first car, a 1959 Mini was probably the worst, although as a 16 year old I did give it some abuse, it used to break down nearly every time I went out in it. I think my dad got so fed up of coming out to tow it home most nights he bought me a Mk2 Cortina which wasn't a lot better

[daz90]

My 1st car, a Renault 19 1.4 tr, awfull car, things went wrong with it from the start heater packed up, exhaust,track rod end, only little things but it was a dog to drive round in, overheated on the a1 once too, luckily not to far from my home, hole in the rad after that too. I got rid of it after 4 months. Since then i have had some very good cars. Sierra, nowt special but thats probably my best car yet in terms of reliability, and i have always had a soft spot for them, a mondeo, an Astra, and hopefully soon a bmw 3 series. (got my eye on an r plate 320i)

[Mattracer]

My dad had a Peogeot 505 in the mid eighties. That was pretty special... lots of problems not the car per se, just that particular vehicle, a "lemon".

[Super Tourer]

Citroen BX diesel.

I decided to try a diesel and bought a D reg BX 19 RD hatchback from my uncle, it was about 4 years old at the time.

I can honestly say that any money I saved in petrol, was handsomely swallowed up by repair bills! That car was ALWAYS leaking something. I remember parking it at the station one day and getting off the train to see it sat in a puddle of green fluid - hydraulics, again!

Had new sphere's fitted, plus a new radiator as that leaked, along with numerous pipes and hoses and finally it leaked diesel - I had enough and stuck it in the Auto Trader, got a call from a BX fan who arrived at 9 o'clock at night to view it, by which time it wa dark!

I told him about the leak (I'm an honest guy..), but he didn't care, it was love at first sight - he was so keen I stuck to my guns for the asking price, we even drove to a cashpoint for him to get more money!

He paid me and drove off besotted, whilst I was relieved to see the back of it - who says love is blind..!

[Mattracer]

I guess you caught the train home...

[rdjones]

Worst car it has to be my E-Reg Vauxhall Astra it was a turely awful car it cost me a lot of money. It was a Club model so had the ture awful deckchair coloured seats. At first it was OK and then it went to Halford's for a service they found loads of things wrong which I put right as you do.

What happened 6 weeks later the Head Gasket went so it was of to the local back street garage who replaced it. Great I thought shouldn't have any more problems now. Oh how wrong I was, what happen on its first long run. The engine went bang just outside Bangor in North Wales (yes I know the joke The Banger went Bang in Bangor), something went straight through the bottom of the engine block, possible something which had been dropped in there during the Head Gasket Change. So that meant a new engine, so more money had to be put in to the thing.

After that I finally gave up with it and sold it to a Taxi Driver from Leeds. The money I got for it paid for a few nights out at uni.

[Alfaholic]

My worst car has to be my Alfa 145, but only on the grounds of reliablity. Purchased used from a main dealer, a crankshaft bearing failed - new engine required under warranty. One month later the replacement engine needed replacing following a loud bang - they ever told me what it was, but I'll never use a certain dealer in Tunbridge Wells again. Finally after various other niggles, all mechanical, I scrappesd the car after it lapsed onto 3 cylinders and needed yet another engine.

However when it was on the road it was a fun car to drive, just not very often.

[Slippy Diff]

1995 Jeep Cherokee. Impulse buy unfortunately as I needed a tow car quickly. Had one of the worst interiors of any car I have ever seen. I have never bought an American car since.

[shinchley]

1992 ford orian , handled like jelly