[raddoc]

An amendment to my prior worst car post. New '05 MB SLK350 MT6 which had an awful oil consumption issue at 2 months evident as 1 liter/300 miles. MB denied the issue for 9 months. After MB dealer botched 3 oil consumption tests (each required a sworn statement that I didn't drain any oil) , MB finally admitted to a bad batch of rings in the early 05s (and my getting a lemon lawyer) they replaced the engine and gave me $7500 cash. I traded it the day I got it back on an '07 Boxster S MT6.

[pmcmtnbkr]

I guess I have been lucky with the cars i have owned over the years. my worst would have to be the 87 subaru GXL i owned for no other reason than it was a 4dr automatic baby blue beater i bough off my uncle for 500. I beat the heck out of it for 3 or 4 years it never left me stranded i did routine service and sold it for 500 bucks when i bought my first new car a 93 Honda Civic Si

[Wakka]

99 chevy tahoe SS probably the worst vehicle ive owned. If it has to be a car 2002 Acura TL type S... crappy transmissions in those

[Ericm235]

2006 VW Passat TFSI

I was visiting the dealer every three months and each visit required 2 follow up visits. Short list of problems in the warranty period

AC compressor failure
Steering column immobiliser module failure
Injector failure
Airbag failure
Cv failure
Down pipe broke off turbo
Interior paint/ coating peeled off
Brake pedal sensor failure
Coil pack failure
And more that I don't want to remember


I will never buy another VW EVER.

[DaleHeinz]

Worst car was a 2008 335i. Happened to be a lemon. In the shop about every 2 months. When she ran, well she ran great, but just a mountain of different issues.

[Miata13]

Originally Posted by morphomeman

The SLOWEST car I ever owned was a 1976 Golf/Rabbit diesel.
Going uphill on I90 in the Adirondacks in upstate New York, you had to drop into 3rd gear. It would simply not go uphill in 4th for more than a couple of minutes.
The car was otherwise quite reliable and got amazing mileage for its time.

Our "slowest" was a '86 Subaru GL wagon..5 speed with maybe 80 hp....in 1st gear, mashed the throttle, headed up the Colorado mountains in July with A/C turned off and it was a blistering quick 25mph !. Wife never complained about future vehicles where we paid attention to performance (HP and torque) specs

[MissVito]

Originally Posted by bobkat09

Mine was an Audi 2001 A4 Quattro 2.8. It had transmission problems, suspension issues, terrible brakes, heat/AC that mostly didn’t work at all, wheel bearings that would last about 10k miles, and continuous engine oil leaks. The final straw was when the head gasket failed.

My second worst car was a 95 VW GTI I bought new. That was the first year they were produced in Mexico. The engine and suspension were great. The rest of the car was total crap. I never knew a car could have that many squeaks and rattles.

1986 BMW 325is - a super-lemon. Bought it brand new, jet black w/oyster leather... was a really nice car but, wow, what a lemon - so many things wrong with it and every dealer screwed it up even worse to the point parts were falling off while driving it, shift linkage sheared, 2 transmissions.... BMW gave us a hard time about making things right. Got rid of it after 9 months. Swore I'd never buy a BMW again, but I did in 2014. Got an X5 and has been a great car. Just ordered a 2021 M240i and '21 X5 M50i...hope they'll be good.

[OpusTpa]

Originally Posted by bobkat09

Mine was an Audi 2001 A4 Quattro 2.8. It had transmission problems, suspension issues, terrible brakes, heat/AC that mostly didn’t work at all, wheel bearings that would last about 10k miles, and continuous engine oil leaks. The final straw was when the head gasket failed.

My second worst car was a 95 VW GTI I bought new. That was the first year they were produced in Mexico. The engine and suspension were great. The rest of the car was total crap. I never knew a car could have that many squeaks and rattles.

Hate to say this, but the worst car I've owned was a 2008 BMW 135I convertible (although an older Saab 900 I had was a bit of a mess, too). That was the first year for the 1-series and it was being called into service for recalls and fixes seemingly every few weeks. I loved the car, but it felt like I was driving BMW loaners more than I was my convertible. Also the dealer had a the bad habit of tearing into the car before realizing that they didn't have the parts to complete the project. This was often for minor stuff so the service could have waited until the parts were in hand.

The final straw was brining it home from service and a brake light services came on so I took it back had it fixed and went and bought an 09 Jaguar XF Supercharged that I loved and was mostly problem free for three years (of course the warranty repairs I did had done were terrifyingly expensive.

I just picked up a 2018 M240i convertible last week so hoping the new model issues have worked themselves out. Btw, is there a new owner thread or do you just go to the official color thread?

Tom

[leftoverture]

When I was young I bought a 1993 Ford Tempo 2dr coupe. Four cylinder, 5 speed. Pretty much everything that could go wrong went wrong. Wheel bearings, clutch self destructed with less than 10k miles, speedometer went out, the list went on and on. I walked into the dealership and pretty much everyone knew me on a first name basis since I was there so often. They brought in the Ford factory techs and they couldn't figure it out either. Finally, the dealer made a deal with me to buy the car back and sold me a Ford Escort. That Tempo was by far the worst car I ever owned, and I've owned close to 60 of them.

[Nightshifter]

DeLorean DMC-1

[TheMirror]

This is easy. My 2003 Subaru WRX sedan, bought new. I must have gotten one that was built at 5pm on a Friday. At @ 15K miles, I had five totally independent buzzes and interior rattles. Combine that with dismal low end torque, a wide-ratio gearbox and lousy mileage and the bloom went off the rose quickly. I did some minor mods to it - better intercooler hoses and Prodrive exhaust, but even with that one day I had to give it every ounce of throttle possible just to keep up with a late 90s CLK430 with four people in it.

Sold it soon after for a new Mazda 3 hatch 2.3 and was immediately happier despite a 50+ horsepower downgrade.

EDIT - Ironically one of the BEST cars I ever owned was a 1997 Subaru Legacy L 2.2 with manual trans. I put 90K miles on it in 2.5 years, and it was absolutely bomb-proof. The 2.2 was known for that. A decade later I stumbled across it in a parking lot in the Cal foothills, it had 200K plus on it at that point and was still going strong. Jekyll and Hyde, Subarus.

[PHEVer]

My most disappointing ride was also my favorite. 2006 Mercedes CLK 500 with only 17k miles purchased at auction in 2019. Absolutely pristine condition. Naturally aspirated 5L M113 V-8. Great GT coupe/ highway cruiser.

The first generation of MB's 7-speed automatic developed a valve body defect that requires disassembly and recoding of the transmission at a cost of thousands. Such a pity.

Adieu and farewell, Benzo. Hello 530e!

[3.0L]

1981 Dodge K-car. Brand new, the suspension sounded like the car had 300,000 miles on it with no maintenance. The whole friggin' dashboard fell out in my lap before 25,000 miles. I had to keep putting in bigger screws to keep it in place (the screws went into plastic!). At about 15,000 miles, a pin dislodged in the manual transmission and I couldn't select 3rd or 4th gears. I was 75 miles from home. I tired of the constant high maintenance and rattles at 75,000 miles and sold it.

[Bonk!]

1986 Blazer S10. A stiff breeze would knock parts off it.

[Outlaw 06]

My worst car was a 2007 E90 335i Sedan - even though it had Sport Package (ZSP) and a 6-speed manual transmission (ZMT), and was even fun to drive for the most part. The N54 engine had numerous high pressure fuel pump (HPFP) failures, and I probably replaced HPFPs annually in that car along with oil changes. The E90 also felt very "bulky" for a 3-Series. My 335i also had other numerous faults: The driver's seat lumbar air bladder fully inflated and failed to deflate one day, so I had to pop it with an awl. The driver's side view mirror went haywire and wouldn't stop randomly folding and unfolding, so I had to cut the wire to the electric motor. I also had two blower motor failures. The list of small (but expensive) faults goes on and on... The E90's steering response and feedback was also noticeably inferior to the E46's. The 335i's open differential sucked too. I was VERY happy to get rid of my 335i! IMO, BMW's 3-Series vehicles have been steadily going down hill since then...

[3.0L]

Originally Posted by Miata13

Our "slowest" was a '86 Subaru GL wagon..5 speed with maybe 80 hp....in 1st gear, mashed the throttle, headed up the Colorado mountains in July with A/C turned off and it was a blistering quick 25mph !. Wife never complained about future vehicles where we paid attention to performance (HP and torque) specs

My slowest car was a 1971 Mercury Capri 1600. I loved the looks of the car, but the mandatory Federal/California emissions controls really screwed up an otherwise pretty good little engine. In California, the 1600cc pushrod engine made 69 HP, giving the the car a raging top speed of 89 MPH.

When I had the engine rebuilt at 96,000 miles (one cylinder had very low compression) I had the English Cortina GT camshaft installed. From there, I installed a new intake manifold and the matching 2-bbl Weber carburetor and tubing headers. Theoretically, this brought the engine up to the European Cortina GT 1600cc standard of 88 HP. That might not seem like much, but it made a huge improvement in performance.

[BrettKA7]

My N20 328i was definitely the worst car I've ever owned. I came to expect a 'ding' every time I turned the car on complaining about a new problem.

Definitely the last time I'll purchase a first-model-year again.

[Mike F.]

Originally Posted by 3.0L

My slowest car was a 1971 Mercury Capri 1600. I loved the looks of the car, but the mandatory Federal/California emissions controls really screwed up an otherwise pretty good little engine. In California, the 1600cc pushrod engine made 69 HP, giving the the car a raging top speed of 89 MPH.

When I had the engine rebuilt at 96,000 miles (one cylinder had very low compression) I had the English Cortina GT camshaft installed. From there, I installed a new intake manifold and the matching 2-bbl Weber carburetor and tubing headers. Theoretically, this brought the engine up to the European Cortina GT 1600cc standard of 88 HP. That might not seem like much, but it made a huge improvement in performance.

Damn, another Capri driver! My first car (other than the '62 Sedan Deville that my grandpa gave me) was a '72 Capri with the 2 liter engine. Not fast but that was probably good as that car taught me the concept of brake fade, as well as lots of other stuff. Learned how to heel-toe on it when the deceleration valve (?) went out and the only way to keep the car running when braking was to simultaneously goose the throttle. Lots of other stuff went wrong on it but I learned to fix a lot of stuff because of it. Finally sold it to the kid across the street when the bell housing broke. I have a lot of fond memories of that car.

I don't really have a "worst car". Went from the Capri to a 1980 Celica, which I swear would have run for a year with the oil drained out of it, it was that bombproof. From that to an '83 Celica GTS, which was comfy and fun enough to drive. Then to a '90 Eagle Talon AWD, which was eye-opening and a real blast.. Then an '88 325is, then a well-modded '96 328i and then the current '06 330i. I guess out of those, the 330 is the closest to the worst car. Not great looking, not all that fast, not nearly as connected to the road as the 328. It's still not a terrible car but it doesn't compare all that well to the others. Maybe because I expect more out of a BMW than a Toyota Celica.

[morphomeman]

Capri stories! Mine was a '74. Damn, what a beautiful-looking car, much prettier than Mustangs of the same era. But it was slow, even with a manual transmission, did not handle particularly well, and was prone to having parts fall off it (like all Ford products I have owned over the years).
I did drive it cross country, with a wife and a Dalmatian, neither of which I have anymore.

[3.0L]

Originally Posted by morphomeman

Capri stories! Mine was a '74. Damn, what a beautiful-looking car, much prettier than Mustangs of the same era. But it was slow, even with a manual transmission, did not handle particularly well, and was prone to having parts fall off it (like all Ford products I have owned over the years).
I did drive it cross country, with a wife and a Dalmatian, neither of which I have anymore.

We kept our Capri for 14 years. By then, the paint (blue) was faded, the dashboard was cracked, the door window sills were cracked and the upholstery sported various shades of blue replacement panels.

Drive train wise, I replaced the clutch several times and the drive shaft 3 times, plus had the 4-speed gearbox rebuilt once and of course the above mentioned engine overhaul and minor hop-up.

I liked the car, but it seemed that something always needed attention.