Worst car owned thread.

Many years ago, I had an X reg Renault 9TLE 1.4. The entire braking system failed (all pipes, cylinders, calipers, master and servo) bit by bi over a 3 week period, every time it went to Flitwick the exhaust fell off, the electrics defied description, etc, etc...
But I can top that with a shoite modern - I had an 02 Citroen C3 1.4HDi 16v Turbo 92 Exclusive from nearly new. Three complete engines in five months saw me abandon it a a non running heap in Inverness and buy a Volvo S40 to get home! It was the last 'modern' Citroen I'll ever own, and surprisingly, they don't make that engine any more! Couldn't get a penny in compensation out of Citroen either (they did replace the engine under warranty each time though), even though it was a shade over 2.5 years old when I gave up...

Some cackers, I owned many... The chapies you can forgive being curse word but when you pay good money for a lemon it hurts.

'93 Audi 80 - I bought this only like 4 or 5 years old. Big money purchase. full VAG SH, one owner, everything. by 98K the main bearings were shot and I punted it on as a P/ex to a dealer as I didn't dare sall the POS privately. One of only 3 nearly new cars I ever bought myself.

'92 Citroen AX 1.0 Debut. Was Em's not mine. Paid about £1500 for it back in the day as a nearly new. Absolute dross. bits fell off it when you washed it, drove it or even looked at it funny. Surprisingly nice to cruise at 70 or so in, but badly geared for round town, horrible handling, gutless, no acceleration, nasty tinny thing and horribly unreliable. final straw when it broke down 6 times in one week. Another one I didn't dare sell privately! P/ex'd against a Ford Ka at the dealer. We got £600 back.

We had a Fiat Punto (new shape) as a courtesy car a couple of years back and that was the worst brand new car I have ever driven. suspension knocks and bangs and other wierdness, it had 60 miles on the clock.

Mk1 Toyota Avensis. Company provided car back in '96 or so. Absolutey the WORST handling car I ever drove and you know thats some serious competition.

I don't really have a worst car, i've enjoyed them all!



very odd that my dads got exaclty that model/engine c3 its just clocked 130k with out a problem (there have been problems with the rest of the car but the engines fine!)

1983 Fiat Uno. It was the lowest engine sized one there was.

Me and my dad brought it for my brother for his 16th birthday to tinker with before he got his own pride and joy. On the plus side, it ran great. But it was like a clown car. If you staired at it long enough you would see something randomly drop off. When we finally got it all fixed, the insurance was about £4k for my brother. We ended up spraying it matt black and my dad sold it for about £75 IIRC.

My Bini was a good car, but the amount of stuff that went wrong with it. I'm glad it had a warrenty. My mate got one a few weeks before me, they ended up giving him a brand new one 9 months later because of the amount it was costing them under the warrenty.

1986 Ford Escort MkIV

Noisy, tinny, cheap, rusty, leaky, uncomfortable, strange handling and impossible to start from cold without 2 tins of Holts aerosol product. 'colour coded' apparently using tipp-ex. Disgusting.

Mk2 Granada 2.0 AUTO - gutless and knacked. I ended up abandoning it in Brent Cross shopping centre's multi-story car park with a packet of jelly babies on the drivers' seat. I stuck a note in the windscreen:

"FREE - take my horrid car home with you for free. Pack of jelly babies to anyone who takes it away..."

An hour later, mercifully it was gone.

Talbot Horizon - or the Horrorzone as we called it. No redeeming features whatsoever - broke down constantly, was ugly, was noisy, was ugly and you couldn't get any bits for it. Oh, and it was ugly. Now in Australia! The only one, so I'm told... the new owner exported it. I think I owe the Australian nation an apology.

Rover 2000 SD1 - oh dear. Shonky build quality, comedy electrics, no power, bottomless pit fuel consumption and no power steering making it heavy as hell. Gave it to a hippy at the Glastonbury festival and hitched home (run out of money/petrol/will to live).

Fiat Punto - in six months of ownership, this heap of rancid dung from hell consumed: 2 headgaskets, 1 steering rack, 1 clutch, 2 rear wishbones (cos the bearings aren't available separately - WTF?), a radiator, an alternator and a battery. Redeeming features...er, can I get back to you on that.

MK2 Astra 1.4, Just plain shoddy.......


Never owned a Ford...

ovlov 340,just nasty nasty nasty.
tried to kill me too , going round a roundabout in beckenham,it decided to pitch me into Frank Dunstalls motorbike shop,with a dose of terminal understeer never before seen in the western world.my only saving grace was the high kerb in front of the shop or i would have ended up as a display dummy,and not just a dummy with a volvo 340.and it was slow and it smelt kinda wierd,and it was uncomfortable and slow.

I bought a brand new Fiat Punto Abarth in 2000 when i was a young lad of 19. A week later it went back to the garage on a low loader due to it overheating, this happened several times a month for the next 9. Everytime i told them i thought it was the stat as the rad was cold. Finanaly after 9 months and god knows how much in transporting costs (them, not me) they changed the stat, it worked fine, I sold it!

As an aside, the little base model Seicento affair they kept giving me was cracking fun, every corner it cocked the back wheel!