Worst car you've owned/driven/been in.

[Fenris]

The earliest cars I remember were the twin late-70s Accords my parents owned; one survived until my mom (and my sister and I) were t-boned one night, the other was passed down to my brother, who decked it out in hideous Grateful Dead decals (skeletons galore!). My dad in turn bought my mother a Plymouth Voyager (late 80s), which soured him on ever buying another Chrysler product ever again. But for himself my dad picked out one Hell of a car.

Now, my father is a sucker for European marques, and not even good ones. He owned a few Beetles in the late 60s/early 70s, and I emphasize here that he owned several - he didn't learn his lesson. At some point in the 70s he traded in a Olds Cutlass for an orange FIAT convertible. That was the first - and last - car he ever bought without my mother's input. The man is a lemon magnet.

But the car my father chose to replace his Accord should have been a step up. It was a Volvo 240 DL (probably a 244). The vintage of this particular motorcar is irrelevant - it takes a keen eye to discern what decade a 240 was made in, much less which exact year. The car was produced for 20 years and weirdly looked the same for its entire run. All I know is that it was from either the last years of the 1970s or the first 24 months of the 1980s. Now, when my father drove it off the lot (this is 1987 or thereabout) the condition was questionable. The first thing we noticed was the finish had worn down from a low-gloss burgundy to a matte claret. Oklahoma gets its share of snow, but inexplicably, there was no corrosion on the lower half, only on the hood, top panel, and trunk, as if someone had decided to deice the top of the car by throwing rock salt on it. Why my father thought this was acceptable is a secret between himself and God.

The interior had all the hallmarks of the Swedish maker's utilitarian design. The plastic was tan and extremely rigid. There was a radio that lasted for a few months before one of Broken Arrow's more eclectic criminals smashed the window and stole it. It was replaced with one of those awesome tape decks that for "security" could be pulled out of the dash cavity with a metal handle. Theoretically, you were supposed to take it with you when you left the car, but it always ended up in the trunk - who wanted to carry around an entire tape deck? The seats were upholstered with extremely harsh fabric, the kind that felt like sandpaper. On the front seat, right at "crotch level," there was a perfectly circular cigarette burn, which might provide you an idea of what the interior smelled like - awful. It was the sort of musty, stale smell that gets so burned into your memory that you can instantly recall it. It literally smelled like a wet dog had been smoking carton after carton of Parliaments inside it.

And then there was the frightening ride quality. 240s were famous for their painfully s l o w acceleration, but this particular 240 seemed like it had taken the automotive equivalent of quaaludes. The driver could slam his foot down on the accelerator on freeway on-ramps and it still sauntered along at a leisurely pace. That was okay until we moved to Houston, where freeway driving is fucking frightening. My dad almost immediately bought a slightly used Accord - driving the 45 minutes to downtown on I-45 every weekday in the world's slowest car was a bit too much, even for him. So the 244 got passed down to my brother.

You can attribute part of the 240's speed problem with its tremendous weight. There's a reason Volvos have a reputation for being a steel box on four wheels. One of my fondest memories was when my brother picked me up from my piano lesson and my piano teacher tried to close the door to the back seat. She had to put her weight into it to make it budge at all. And God help you if you slammed your hand in the door.

I do have a soft spot for the 240. I'm gonna buy one and put a small-block V8 in it. ;)

So what's the most awful car you've ever driven/been in? :)

[tigereye]

1. rented Geo Metro while my car was being fixed

it was like the cardboard container of cars. :scared:

[Rhythm]

3. We owned one for a couple of years...

Good gas mileage, but i always felt like i was driving a Pepsi can.

Never, ever again...

[DarkTirade]

8. I've been in the world's only indestructable Geo Metro.

It was quite bizarre. It kept getting into accidents with much larger vehicles... and coming out of it with nary a scratch.

Belonged to a friend of mine in high school. His sister owned it before he did, and she drove it into a BUS.

Not a scratch on it.

[sakabatou]

15. I drove one too

I hated that it had little acceleration and no power steering. It also had originally, no radio and cupholders.

[Fenris]

9. GM's rebadged Suzuki!

They were economical (especially for GM) and practical if you lived in a city, but when everyone else drives gigantic trucks and SUVs, its a little scary.

[XemaSab]

17. I had a REAL MOMENT in one of those

I rented one when I was in Texas for a week birding.

When I picked it up in Austin it had literally 200 miles on it.

This thing was BRAND NEW. I mean, yeah, it was a Metro, but it was BRAND NEW.

So I drove around in it for a few days, just birdin' and chillin'.

I decided I wanted to go camp on the beach near Corpus. I got to the beach in the middle of the night and since it was DARK I decided to stop when the pavement started to get fluffy and sandy.

The next morning I woke up and looked out of the car and I realized I had stopped just in time: beyond where I had parked was the open beach, and nothing but sand. I considered just backing the car straight out, but some of the sand was pretty firmly packed, and I decided in turning the car around I could pull forward a few feet and just whip it around.

I pulled it forward, and immediately BURIED the car in a sand drift.

It was in sand up to the frame.

I probably spent an hour alternating digging and spinning the wheels to get that thing out of there.

Finally I freed the car and was on my way.

Unfortunately I soon noticed a PROBLEM. The car was driving like total shit. I mean, it was REALLY rough. Horribly ROUGH. The faster I went the rougher it got.

I met up with my friend Martin at the dump in Corpus, and I was FREAKING OUT. I thought sand had gotten into the engine and I had RUINED a BRAND NEW car.

He quickly determined that sand had stuck to one of the tires and thrown the balance off. Problem fixed, I went on my way. :D

[MnFats]

2. The Chevelle.....brief Chevy product in the scramble to build small cars...

..wasn't mine but one of my best friends got one around '75
they were ALL lemons.

apparently the geniuses at General Motors decided it would help mileage by making the car lighter. OK, so far.
one of the ways they lightened it was to make some engine parts out of aluminum while others were made of the traditional steel.

trouble was, steel and aluminum expand at different rates, thus causing the engine to literally pull itself apart.
the car started having major engine problems at about 20,000 to 30,000 miles.
so you had a car that acted like it had 100,000 miles on 'em.
oh, they were hateful vehicle.s GM dumped them after a very short run...

[Fenris]

7. Weirdly, those A-Body cars were GM's top sellers at the time.

It was that and the Olds Cutlass. Go figure!

[Pool Hall Ace]

49. Are you confusing Chevelle with Chevette?

In high school, one of my friends had a '71 Chevelle. That thing could really move, and it wasn't small.

The Chevette, on the other hand -- I had one of those, and yes, it was crap.

[MnFats]

75. correct, thank you. The chev vega alsowas a pos.

[Throd]

65. You're thinking Chevette. Chevelles were similar to A body Malibus

[Robeson]

4. My first car...AMC Gremlin....

...biggest piece of sh*t ever. I was just happy when it started.

[Fenris]

5. My favorite design quirk of the Gremlin was the back window.

AMC claimed that they made it so tall and wide to aid rear visibility, but they completely ignored the giant pieces of purposeless metal stuck on the side.

[Skittles]

20. a Gremlin mars the classic Skittles pic

yes INDEED

[Archae]

23. That was my favorite car!

Grey 1971 Gremlin, straight 6.

I could cimb INto the engine compartment if I needed to.

Worst car?
In 1978, on the urging of my asshole Dad, I bought a 1965 Ford station wagon.
Whatever could go wrong with that POS, did.

Finally I threatened to run my Dad over with the car until he let me sell the POS and get a better car.
Next day I got the Gremlin, and sold the Ford. To a junkyard.

[Chan790]

6. My friend Matt had a car

no idea what the make or model was, which he bought for $100 in Nov. 2000. Thing had zero side windows, no heat, had to be parked facing downhill in order to reliably start, and one working door. He was the only friend I had with a car so we had to take his car to go anywhere. So we drove around DC all winter in this shitbox. Come March some kids, 14 y.o. or so, are snooping around the car, peeking in the windows, etc. Next thing we know, the fuckin kids are in the car. So I grab the keys off the end table and go running outside. Matt is right behind me. I hurl the keys through the driver-side window into one of the kid's lap. Matt immediately starts yelling "Don't come back, don't you dare come back, you'd better crash that car."

They didn't come back. Matt got a nicer car with the $400 appraisal-value check from insurance.

[Fenris]

10. He made a profit!

:rofl:

[siligut]

14. Funny story!

Wonder what happened to those kids? They probably abandoned it after failing to park on a hill.

[JCMach1]

11. 1981 Chevy Chevette-- worst POS ever made

We bought a REPO that was just a few months old. The engine nearly died on the way home from overheating.

My god, how many starters did the thing go through? All the electrics were wanky. And then, maybe 1-2 years enough of the floor rusted out so your feet got bathed in major rain storms.

Argh!!!

However, it could beat a Yugo in a drag race!

[Fenris]

12. There was a Brazilian version of the Chevette that was a pickup!

I don't know which is more frightening, the fact that there was a Chevette pickup or that it was made until 1994.

[JCMach1]

16. THAT is scary

[Oeditpus Rex]

68. Around 1980, Bedford and GM conspired to build

the Chevanne in the UK.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

13. vega

:yoiks:

[Lil Missy]

18. An 82 Mazda was the worst piece of shit I ever owned.

I only had it for 5 years, and had to replace the alternator 3 times. Not to mention the other constant problems and repairs with it. Later it was named as one of the worst cars ever in the Consumer Reports, and a lemon.

The last time I went to pick it up after replacing the alternator, the damned alternator blew up when they started the car to bring it to me! Boy, did I cause a major scene. They gave me a free loaner off the lot to shut me up, that had about 1/4 tank of gas in it, and had the nerve to tell me I had to fill it full upon return. I put $1 of gas in it.

Worst piece of shit, ever.

[QMPMom]

19. I owned a 1982 AMC Spirit. It was the worst piece of crap

*ever*. It was in the shop more than out - and I bought it new.

The last thing it did was break a tie rod and throw itself into a 20 foot ditch nose first. I ended up with a fractured skull, broken left hand, broken left arm, broken left knee, broken left foot, sprained right wrist and sprained right hand. I still have head pain at times and my knee has never been the same.

[Richard Steele]

21. I have no answer to that. I've always had MAGICALLY good luck with amazingly shitty cars.

I'm racking my brain here to come up with a "bad car" story,
and I'm coming up with NOTHING.

Sorry.

[LeftyMom]

22. My late stepfather paid $1000 for a ten year old Yugo.

Surprisingly enough, he didn't become my late stepfather when my mother found out about that. Or when they split up, and he took the Crown Vic and left my mom the Yugo, though I'm sure no jury would have considered killing a man for doing so in any way unjust.

I rode in that car precisely once. My mom and I were going shopping, so she picked me up and we took the 99 north in to downtown, in heavy traffic and a downpour of rain. It helps to understand that the 99 in this section connects a suburb of 100,000 people with the downtown area, where all the state office buildings are, and where a fair share of the city works. It's one of the busiest, most congested stretches of highway in the country, a bit of a mess at the best of times and in fair weather, and here we are bouncing along it in this horrible little relic of piss poor eastern european engineering.

Meanwhile, it's my mother driving, and my mother is 1. Italian and Scot by breeding, so she's impulsive, temperamental and horribly stubborn, either culturally or down to the genes 2. a native child of the Bay Area, who learned to drive in Oakland, Hayward and San Leandro, so she's a terribly aggressive driver and tends to regard use of one's turn signal as a sign of weakness 3. somebody who had until recently been driving a retired police car, and was rather used to both the police interceptor engine and to other cars clearing a path. So it's given up raining dogs and cats in favor of larger animals, currently elephants but I'm watching the sky for blue whales, this car's top speed is maybe 65, and the engine sounds like it might give up and catch fire at that, and my mother's weaving in and out of traffic consisting mostly of oblivious suburbanite-driven Subdivision Assault Vehicles, in a process that reminds me a bit of Frogger, only with Suburbans and Exploders (Ford had not yet built the Second Death Star) in place of alligators.

I am, to this very day, thankful that I survived it.

I have no clue what became of the car. Knowing my mother, I shouldn't ask until I'm fairly sure the statute of limitations has run out.

[The Animator]

24. My first car was a 1986 Mustang LX

This was no sports car by any stretch of imagination. It was a heavy car, and with only four cylinders, it was seriously underpowered. Zero to sixty in like 8 weeks.
It would stall three times every single morning, like clockwork. Once as soon as I started it, once as I backed out of the garage, and once from the driveway to the road.
What a Piece of Shit.
You never forget your first.
Her name was Sally.

[siligut]

37. Wilson Pickett - Mustang Sally

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1JUyPDcIQc

Good story. "You never forget your first.", funny.

[Old Hickory Fan]

25. 1977 Ford Pinto

nuff said!!!!!

[BlueCollar]

31. I actually got a speeding ticket in a pinto

Of course, the limit was 55 in those days and I was going downhill...LOL

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

26. '63 VW Bug

It was the best of cars, it was the worst of cars.

Good times, it (almost) always ran, cheap transportation.

But the heater channels rusted out, so no heat, no defrost. Drive in snow with the window open, reaching outside with the scraper to keep the snow/ice off the window. Froze my butt (and hand) off in that car.

:hi:

[terrya]

27. My 1974 Chevrolet Vega

My first car.

It was blue with...a white racing stripe along the sides. If you can fucking believe that...

It started rusting practically right after it left the lot. It had an automatic transmission...oh, dear god, if I could get that thing to 60MPH, I would be lucky. Taking it out on the highway was not really an option.

The Chevrolet Vega was the worst, the very worst, piece of shit Chevrolet ever made. Without a doubt.

[BOSSHOG]

54. We had a 76 Pontiac Astre

The Vega's ugly twin. Four speed, four cylinder, no air conditioning. My wife hated it.

[Burma Jones]

28. A 1971 Fiat 850 Spider - looked really nice, that's it, just looked good, rarely ran.....

[cloudbase]

42. The Italian stuff is "special."

You certainly learn how to get intimate with the machine, and it doesn't hurt to be half a bubble out of plumb. I own two Moto Guzzis, so I can relate. Next on my list is an Alfa restoration. Pray for me.

[erinlough]

74. Mine was orange and your right it rarely ran, even new!

I spent more money trying to get the electronics on the car diagnosed. Man it was pretty though and cost 3,900.00 new in those days!!!!

[RebelOne]

29. I once owned a Ford Cortina.

Everytime it rained, the car would conk out.

[BlueCollar]

32. I think I bought that car in Phoenix...LOL

[Orsino]

30. '81 Chevy Citation.

'Nuff said.

[jocal]

36. '80 Pontiac Phoenix (brown)

This was my parents' car when I was a kid. I remember the windshield wipers starting randomly.

[guitar man]

33. '85 Olds Cutlass Supreme

I bought it in '87 with 25,000 miles on it, looked like brand new. Over the next 10 months or so, it literally fell apart, I have never owned such a POS in my life :grr:

[flvegan]

34. My college roommate had a Renault Alliance.

You know, Renault..."the one to watch". Yeah, the one to watch fall apart. It was circa 1984, red, total POS. However, in defense of said Renault, it worked more often than it didn't, got him from A to B when it needed to, and it was free to him from his dad.

[PassingFair]

39. My dad knew nothing about cars beyond where to put the key and where to

...put the gas, BUT he always told me that
whenever I saw a Renault Alliance, I should
shake my head slowly and say:

"piece of shit",

and everyone would instantly respect my
knowledge of automobiles.

He also taught me how to look under a hood
while someone else was fixing a car and say:

"Well THERES your problem"

when they suspect something.


My dad knew a lot about humor...

[WCIL]

50. My first brand new car was a 1986 Renault Alliance

My dad FORCED me to buy it, as it was Car of the Year. It always smelled like rotten eggs, often ran for about 2 minutes after you took the key out the ignition, and pieces started falling off from day 1. Chrysler offered a settlement to the fools foolish enough to still have one; they gave me $300 and towed it out of my driveway to some junkyard. I would have gotten rid of it sooner, but I was afraid I would be sued if I sold that POS.

[Enrique]

35. my family's 1978 Plymouth Volare

:puke:

[lizziegrace]

48. Woohoo!

I had the 2-door coupe. Great engine (slant-6) but everything else was a mess.

[Rob H.]

38. A friend's late-80s Toyota Tercel

If the driver's seat was positioned so you had a comfortable bend in your arms when reaching for the steering wheel, the pedals were too close and if it was pushed back enough for your legs to be comfortable, it was impossible to comfortably reach the steering wheel. I'm convinced that whoever designed the controls modeled the Tercel's ergonomics on a gorilla's anatomy.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

40. Hmmm...

When I was dating my ex in college, she had a beat up 1984 Chevy Cavalier which would break down whenever it rained. Don't ask me why it did it, but that's what would happen. It would literally flood. Yet it was my only means of transportation at the time--I had a perfectly good 1994 Dodge Shadow (my best car ever!)sitting 800 miles away at home that my parents were holding hostage because they said the out-of-state insurance costs were too high. :mad:

My very first car--the 1986 Ford Escort I inherited from my sister--was pretty bad. I wouldn't trust it driving 25 miles away from home because it would always flood up. Thankfully, a year later my parents bought me the Shadow and it was like night and day. We traded in the Escort, and after we signed the paperwork, the dealer went to drive the Escort away and it wouldn't start. Thankfully, we had already made the deal so it was their problem.

Not the worst car I ever owned, but my 2000 Mazda 626 was grossly disappointing. It was a beautiful, beautiful car--leather interior, all the upgrades, looked slightly like a Jaguar. But it was plagued from the get-go. I bought it with 38,000 miles and only a few thousand later, the alternator broke. Then the gear shift broke. And the big money item, the transmission, crashed at 50,000. As I no longer had it under warranty but I was still making payments on it, I just decided to trade it in for something new and reliable.

My current car, a 2004 Toyota Corolla, I'm not that big a fan of at all. It's one saving grace is it's 30+ mpg, but it's sluggish, noisy, and disappointing craftsmanship. The brakes wore down, and the stupid thing wouldn't take off-market parts so we had to spring for the manufacturer's brakes which cost a lot more. Last month the AC died on it, so I had yet another big money repair. Unfortunately, because it is now paid off, I'm probably stuck with the POS for a while.

[XemaSab]

56. I've got a Toyota Corolla and it's not that great a car

Like you said, the craftsmanship is disappointing.

Half the interior trim has fallen off/is falling off, and for some reason the thing goes through tires like you wouldn't believe.

And yes, I had the starter replaced last week. :(

[calico1]

41. Worst I ever owned was a Renault Alliance.

It sucked big time.

My oldest sister once had a Gremlin. In a lovely shade of burnt orange.

:rofl:

[flvegan]

70. Yes! Another vote for the Renault Alliance!

[MissMillie]

43. My 1989 Mercury Tracer .... needed a 3rd engine before 100K miles

Nasty nasty nasty nasty

[Hangingon]

44. 1968 Plymouth Valiant - overheated constantly.

[jobycom]

45. A wrecked Fiat with tail lights duct-taped to the body and seats not bolted down.

My dad, the auto mechanic, liked to buy junk cars and "fix" them. So my first car was a an old model wrecked Fiat hatchback. It had been rear-ended, so I had to rewire the tail lights and duct tape one light to the frame, since it was too twisted to fit properly. Also, the front seats had already been salvaged by someone else, so we found two mismatched seats. The driver seat would only bolt down on one corner, so it swiveled when I tried to brake. The passenger seat wouldn't bolt at all, so it rocked back and forth. The passenger rolled backwards when I took off, and when I braked they had to catch themselves before rocking forward into the dashboard.

It got worse. The wreck had bent the frame, so the clutch cable kept breaking, so I finally wound up having to drive it by dry shifting, or shifting it by letting the RPMs drop and then cramming it into the next gear.

I'll never forget when the cable broke the second time, and my father, the mechanic, figured it was my fault. He told me "Son, I'm disappointed in you. You ruined a really good car." :rofl:

But as one of my friends said at the time, "Hey, at least you've got a car."

In case you are wondering about the inspection sticker, my dad had friends. He just called one of them, gave him the model and make info, and he mailed us a sticker. So it was legal! In a 1980s south Mississippi sort of way, anyway.

[lizziegrace]

46. Chevy Vega and an AMC Pacer

Thankfully I owned neither of these cars. I *did* own a 1978 Volare coupe. After a year of pouring gas in the carburetor to start it, the differential went out at 66,000 and it was downhill from there. I've owned Hondas ever since.

Oh, and the 1975 Honda CVCC was unreliable and thrilling to drive... :eyes:

[LanternWaste]

47. 1972 Buick Electra

A 1972 Buick Electra I had bought for about $75.00 when I was a Jr. in HS. A serious gas hog (even by 1983 standards...) that wouldn't start on cold mornings unless I pumped some QuickStart into the fuel system. It would die every time I cam to a complete stop, and the passengers front seat floorboard was virtually non-existent.

But-- I was the only guy in my group of friends that had a car, so it wasn't that bad... :evilgrin:

(Note: mine looked nothing like the picture-- it was half lime green and half rust with bald tires, no A/C and the bench fabric looked like drapes you'd find in a West Texas brothel...)

[RubyDuby in GA]

51. 1984 Ford Tempo

Quite possibly the biggest piece of shit car ever made! And I don't make that claim lightly.

[soleft]

52. Nobody has a Jetta story?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x7639784

[Rhiannon12866]

53. My cousin's grandmother's Corvair...

When we were kids, I remember riding with them and, periodically, these awful smokey fumes would belch into the passenger compartment. She was used to it, would yell "fog alert!," crouch down and cover her face, so I learned to do the same thing...:scared:

[jakefrep]

55. My grandma's 1979 AMC Pacer

It couldn't have been THAT bad - it did, after all serve for 15 years as her daily driver, and after she passed, a few more years for my aunt. I remember my mom & uncle gently prodding her to buy a newer car, but she was reluctant to part with the Pacer - it was the last vehicle she & my grandpa had owned together.

But the one time I drove it, it had too much play in the steering wheel, and desperately needed a brake job.

[Initech]

57. My brother's old Pathfinder

We bought it for about $2K from a co-worker of mine. The thing looked like it had been driven through a war zone. Hell, it caught fire when I was driving it to San Diego. No fucking joke.

[NoGOPZone]

58. My brother's thirteen year old LeCar

"He LeGeorge! Bonjour, LeGeorge!"

Second worst was a first generation Corvair. Those cars sucked for a number of reasons.

[driver8]

59. Suzuki Samurai.

What a piece of shit.

This vehicle belonged to an old roommate -- he hit a parked bus going about 15 miles an hour and totalled the Samurai! The damned thing folded like an accordian!

[mikeytherat]

60. Early-80s Chevette diesel - all three cylinders and 58 horsepower of it!

It did not have an accelerator, it had a thermostat - you set out for 60 m.p.h. and you wait. And wait. And wait.

mikey_the_rat

[ElboRuum]

72. Funny...

I always thought things with that much horsepower came with 3 or fewer wheels.

[geardaddy]

61. AMC Pacer

My friend used to say it was like "driving a terrarium"

[KamaAina]

62. That would have to be Mom's Corvair

which she drove right up until the bottom rusted and fell out. Luckily (?) I was not in it at the time.

[billyskank]

63. When I was a kid my parents both had Eastern Bloc cars.

Dad had a Lada and my Mum had a Skoda (long before VW bought them and they became respectable). And they were just two in a line of shite cars. As a kid I was traumatised.

[Throd]

64. Wow, all the Chevette bashing. I miss my old car.

I had a '79 Chevette 4 door with a Jimi Hendrix graphic painted on the hood. It never gave me a single problem for 80,000 miles. I sold it to my friend Rob for $300 and the engine exploded three months later. I prefer to think it missed me and comitted suicide.

[ceile]

66. Pontiac T-1000

Little 5 door POS that mom drove for about a year. The most uncomfortable, problematic, no-shocks- having POS I've ever been in in my life!

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

67. Fiat 128 Sedan

circa 1974, worst F***in car I've ever had........... :mad:

[derby378]

69. A public transit bus on the Las Vegas Strip - known forevermore as the "Fun Bus"

The engine and gears kept making ominous grinding noises, and there was a persistent smell of burning oil throughout the passenger cabin. We were all too grateful that the bus made it all the way up to within walking distance of Fremont Street.

[ElboRuum]

71. Any model year of Chevy Corsica...

These cars are snapped up by rental companies and I invariably end up with one when I travel on business. The interior looks as though it was designed by a stubby fingered toddler. Every button, switch, and dial is weirdly oversized and everything's labeled in this goony big lettering such that you can still identify the treble adjustment on the weak stock stereo if you happened to be flying by on the space shuttle.

The car was, as expected, an underpowered mess with awful throttle response. And given the fact that it was a rental, there was always something in it beat to shit.

Now the worst car I've ever owned was a 1984 Chevy Celebrity sedan. Now, I actually thought that Celebritys in general were pretty decent, my mom owned a wagon, my data a Celebrity Eurosport with the more powerful engine. However, this WASN'T 1984. It was more like 1992. And this thing had 7 previous owners, one apparently with some incontinent Marmaduke who sat in the back seat most of the day seeing just how much urine the back seat could absorb. But it was cheap and I was broke and I needed wheels. This abomination took an entire day of upholstery shampooing to clean up the urine stink to a passable degree, although the stains themselves were a lost cause. I went through two alternators, a carburetor, four snapped tie rods, two mufflers, two sets of shocks, 4 split CV joints, and finally ended up cutting down the head liner as the backing foam crystallized and draped the fabric like bunting over my head. This is in the space of perhaps 4 years.

When I finally decided to get a new car as I was driving to the dealership to trade in my Chevy, the car snapped another tie rod... seemingly just for spite.

The worst car I've ever been in... Hmm. Had to be my mom's Family Truckster in Metallic Pea. It was actually a Pontiac wagon straight out of vinyl 1975, a Country Squire or some such roadboat (nope, no wood paneling). We didn't keep it long, but I did have the chance to relive the days of my youth when my mom would come pick us up at the pool in the middle of summer and we'd have to sit on hot vinyl seats. On days we weren't drenched in chlorinated poolwater, we'd, of course, stick to the seats. Getting up was like tearing off 30 Band-Aids simultaneously. It steered like a cow, accelerated like a cow, braked like a cow, and looked like an overstuffed tribute to a time where people seemed to have gone temporarily color-blind, en masse. By the way, cows do quite a few things, but for those unfamiliar, they do none of them FAST.

[triguy46]

73. Dodge Omni 024, 1979 version. It broke down in a dealer's lot while trying to negotiate a trade...

for a frickin' Renault Encore...I had no money and shitty sense then.

[CreekDog]

76. Every car my grandmother had

she went out with a guy who owned a used car lot in the 70's.

i swear she had a different car every week.

she had more boats than Carnival. :think:

[mentalsolstice]

77. Please gawd, don't say a MINI Cooper

We're picking up our brand new S tomorrow, I can't wait. OTH, when I was little, like 4 to 7 years old, my mom had a little Fiat convertible that was so cool, when it would go, which wasn't very often. If we could get it started, it was great for driving up and down the beach in Ft. Lauderdale.