WORST car you've ever owned for whatever reason...

Dandy

Future CF Mod
Oct 11, 2012
22,141
17,366
113
Western Iowa
2002 Chevrolet Monte Carlo with the 3400 motor. What a lemon. So many issues. Chevy's 3400 was a total failure. Not only mine but a bunch of my friends had it and it had countless issues of every variety.
 

ruxCYtable

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Aug 29, 2007
7,383
4,387
113
Colorado
My parents had some real doozies, including a Pinto. I'm eliminating my own first two cars ('77 Malibu and '70 Maverick) from contention cuz it wasn't really their fault they were old!

Worst car I ever bought myself was a '93 Pontiac LeMans. Don't let the name fool you, it was actually made by Daewoo in Korea. 4-speed, no A/C, no radio (although I put one in later.) One problem after another. Blew a head gasket with about 60k on it. Repaired and ended up getting 90k out of it but it was on its last legs. It came from the factory with black electrical tape covering the lights and buttons for features mine didn't have. Classy.
 

dmclone

Well-Known Member
Oct 20, 2006
21,605
5,945
113
50131
Parents had an 80's Oldsmobile Diesel. Enough said. My mother had an 80 something Fiat X 1/9. Enough said.
 

jbhtexas

Well-Known Member
Oct 20, 2006
14,327
4,377
113
Arlington, TX
Parents had an 80's Oldsmobile Diesel. Enough said. My mother had an 80 something Fiat X 1/9. Enough said.

My parents had a 1984 Regency 98 diesel. It ran great for 20 years. We sold it at their estate sale and some guy drove it for a few more years after that. GM finally got all the bugs worked out of the engine by that year, and then decided to shelve the motor. Typical GM.
 

1100011CS

Well-Known Member
Oct 5, 2007
16,127
5,846
113
Marshalltown
Olds Cutlas Calais with a Quad 4. I think it was one of the first years (if not the first) of that engine. Went through 2 head gaskets. junked it after the 2nd.
 

MeanDean

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
Jan 5, 2009
14,668
20,951
113
Blue Grass IA-Jensen Beach FL
My first and worst car was a 78 ford Granada. AM only radio, manual locks and windows, and the headlight dimmer was actually a button located on the floor. That car met its end when it overheated and caught fire. My second car wa s a 92,ford Thunderbird that crapped out with bad headgaskets at only 102,000 miles. I have a Chevy now with a transmission that had to be replaced at 70,000 miles. After this one I'm done with ford and Chevy. If I can squeeze my lanky *** into a Subaru that's my next car.

This indicates you are young. Literally every American car built between at least 1950 through the mid 70's had that.
 

dtISU

Well-Known Member
Nov 17, 2010
2,603
922
113
A suburb of Ames
1990 Chrysler LeBaron convertible. It was actually a pretty fun first car.

I had a late '80's LeBaron convertible. Worse POS I've ever owned. Besides the normal engine problems, the doors were so heavy they'd sag at the ends and wouldn't shut right (or even shut.) The rag top was so flimsy...don't get me started.
 

twocoach

Well-Known Member
Jan 13, 2014
5,335
28
48
Omaha
My first car was a 1977 Ford Thunderbird. At close to 18 feet long, Ol' Bertha as we called her was a true beast. In her day she was probably pretty luxurious with power steering, power windows and a power sunroof. By the time I owned her she made these strange, random electrical buzzes all the time that made you feel like you could be electrocuted at any time and things would just stop working for days. The sunroof was stuck open for a week. Once the hooded headlight covers were stuck half closed so it was really unsafe to try to drive at night because half the headlights were covered up. She ate about a quart of oil a week due to a never discovered leak somewhere. It had a lot of parts rusted out in the engine compartment. My battery was literally duct taped in place. the nice part was that it was so huge that I could carry pretty much an unlimited number of people in there if they chose to put their life on the line. With the radio turned up (if it was working that day) you wouldn't notice that you were going to be electrocuted to death.
 

Colorado

Well-Known Member
Aug 29, 2008
2,472
1,316
113
Colorado
1985 Chevy S10. Rusted out big time and the carb was junk. Got it stuck on a no-maintenance road outside of Ames and barely made it home.
 

dmclone

Well-Known Member
Oct 20, 2006
21,605
5,945
113
50131
I had a 77 Monte Carlo when I was 15 that had a hood roughly the size of a yacht. Man there were some terrible cars in the 70's.
 

VeloClone

Well-Known Member
Jan 19, 2010
48,550
39,386
113
Brooklyn Park, MN
1975 Gran Torino Station Wagon - **** brown. I bought it from our neighbors for $100 and spent $73 on a new timing chain to get it running again. That $173 party wagon served both my sister and me through high school. You had to roll down the windows whenever you drove on a gravel road in the summertime because it was so rusted out that it would fill up with dust and you couldn't even see out the windshield. If you stopped at a stop sign or light you would have to feather the gas to keep it running.
Cool car! :jimlad:
 

ruxCYtable

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Aug 29, 2007
7,383
4,387
113
Colorado
Olds Cutlas Calais with a Quad 4. I think it was one of the first years (if not the first) of that engine. Went through 2 head gaskets. junked it after the 2nd.
My mom had an '87. Engine blew with under 60k miles (coming back from seeing Hornacek play an NBA game in Minneapolis no less.) Total engine replacement.
 

dmclone

Well-Known Member
Oct 20, 2006
21,605
5,945
113
50131
When I was 17, I lived next door to a guy that use to do a lot of demo derby's. One day he sold a friend and I a car for $100. It had no hood, doors, glass, etc but ran decent. We spent all day driving around and raising hell on gravel roads. When that got boring we drove it through fields. When that got boring we started doing water crossings. It finally died out when the water went above the engine. Walked back home and told our neighbor and he pulled it out of the water and took it to the junkyard for cash. We use to do a lot of dumb things on gravel roads. I've probably burned 50lbs of rubber off the tires of 3 wheelers, 4 wheelers, and cars from the age of 12-18.
 

fwiw

Member
May 20, 2009
400
20
18
1980 Chevy Citation. Something was always broken on that thing, had a bad floats in the carberator which would stall the engine at embarrassing times. Like the drive through at Wendy's ... Had to push the car through, which surprised the person at the window.

Also leaked oil like crazy, the headliner came down at one point, and it had no power. Complete pos. May they all rot in hell.
 

boyd

Member
Feb 19, 2012
356
1
18
Honda Element. Bought it new and it ran like a champ but the headlights were bad so I retrofitted with a HID system (not a plug and play but the full assembly) but never felt comfortable. Can't say exactly why I hated it other than it just never felt like "me". Owned for 9 months and swapped out for a range rover sport.
Friend bought a new Caddy Eldo diesel; Under warranty it was in the shop at least half the time. After it went out of warranty he put 20 grand of his own money in it. He was scared to ever drive it more than 30 miles from home. So then he traded it for one of those v-8 Caddys that ran on either 4-6 or 8 cylinders that thing was barely better than the diesel. So then he got one of those Caddy Cateras it was just a cheap Chevy. Now he owns a Lincoln town car with over 450,000 trouble free miles. His wife got hit by another car. Demolished that car barely hurt the Town Car.