"Worstest" car you ever owned?

[mongooz]

Yeah, dude....that's rough. Unfortunately, I think Chrysler is kind of famous for this kind of shit....piss poor quality control/design. I think the newer Jeeps are better than the older ones, but apparently not too much if you still have 3 years left on it. What year is it?

We drove one of the new "Baby Jeeps" with the stupid looking cross tail-lights (Renegade, maybe?) up to Quebec City in October. It was a rental we got while my truck was in the shop due to some fucktard backing into it in a parking lot. Anyway, brand new. 2400 miles on it. Let me just say I wasn't real impressed. I shit you not, on the highway, with the windows closed, you could hear the wind whistle through the windows. Squeaks all over the place, rattles, just lots of shit that should not happen to a car with 2400 miles on it. It was actually pretty comical.

it's a 2009 and there are complaints about this problem all over the internet. but apparently not enough people have been killed by the problem, so no recalls to fix it. what a lovely society we live in when profit is more important than lives.

 

[Coralkong]

it's a 2009 and there are complaints about this problem all over the internet. but apparently not enough people have been killed by the problem, so no recalls to fix it. what a lovely society we live in when profit is more important than lives.

My son has a '99 Jeep Grand Cherokee. I'm not bitching about it, because it has over 200K miles on it and is going to have some issues, but to your point, do a Google search on '99 Jeep Grand Cherokee fuel tank.
Chrysler put a plastic fuel tank up under the rear bumper, suspended in a metal bolt-on housing. Problem was that if you were rear-ended, your truck could blow up. Jeep refused to replace the shielding with a heavier gauge steel shroud, because it would cost more. I think a couple of people (including whole families) died because of it.

 

[Guitar Heel]

1971 Super Beetle. It was beautiful, and I'm still nostalgic when I see one, but what an absolute piece of shit. I should have realized that it was the color and shape of a lemon...

 

[Knox in Box]

My son has a '99 Jeep Grand Cherokee. I'm not bitching about it, because it has over 200K miles on it and is going to have some issues, but to your point, do a Google search on '99 Jeep Grand Cherokee fuel tank.
Chrysler put a plastic fuel tank up under the rear bumper, suspended in a metal bolt-on housing. Problem was that if you were rear-ended, your truck could blow up. Jeep refused to replace the shielding with a heavier gauge steel shroud, because it would cost more. I think a couple of people (including whole families) died because of it.

You think they would have learned from the Ford Pinto. My family owned 3 of those and 4 AMC Gremlins growing up.

I never owned one and I was too young to know the heartbreak.

 

[VoidTerraFirma]

Chrysler has been known to cut corners. It's always been that way.

 

[2112]

Steverino's thread had me going with some of the stories.

So what was the absolute worst shape, rust bucket, unsafe death traps you ever drove?

I once bought a 1977 Audi 100 for 600 bucks that was covered with Moss but seemed solid enough, washed it off with a pressure hose and I swear, the moss was keeping that thing from rusting. The very next day the exhaust ripped off before the first resonator and sounded like an army deuce and a half driving through town. The sunroof got stuck in the open position a week later and one of the front brakes seized up while open which made hard braking situations a hairy situation. The carburator also had a penchent for getting stuck at high throttle towards the end. We owned it for about six months and before it was over I couldn't wait to get it to the junk yard.

Or Renault 25 also had a problem with the suspension that when I would brake hard with my wife in the passenger seat it would jump on that side as if the brake rotor was warped. Never did it with any mechanic or myself there, only my wife which made getting it fixed damn near impossible. We tried new rotors, New shocks, nothing worked. I had a fire when something behind the dash shorted out but it quit burning on its own and never came back, and we had to drive around with a second distributor cap because it would gather condensation and get fouled up every two weeks our so depending on the humidity level. All of a sudden you'd be driving, any time of the day and it would start sputtering and spitting and I'd have to jump out with a screw driver and change it out, take the old one home dry it out and clean it up.

So what about you guys?

First: 1977 Audi? Could you have just bought a dog turd and driven that? My grandmother had one of those cars, it was bought for her by my uncles as a "gift". (Yeah, some gift...).

It caught fire a few weeks after it was given to her and Audi acted like it was a once in a blue moon situation.

Yet...

I seem to remember that the only time I saw Audi 100's was with charred front ends from the engine fires that would mysteriously break out. On all of them. In the mid-70's Cerritos, Ca. passed a law that banned Audi 100's from being driven, parked or even thought of in that city.

Just to bring any Audi in required a 60 day quarantine but trying to bring in a 100 was tantamount to chemical warfare. Any and all responses to combat this were ok'd by the authorities. Encouraged even.

Renault. 25.

'Nuff said.

 

[2112]

1984 Mustang LX. It was my dads car and he gave it to me when I turned 18 to go to college. NOT a good year for Ford.

My wife bought one brand new with a special order paint job. It was a notchback V-6 with fuel injection.

It sucked from the first day she took possession of it. As she was driving the car from the dealer it started hesitating. This would come and go and lasted until the day we traded it in on a Honda in 1992.

Come to find out later it was the fuel injection. Cannot tell you how many times I talked to a service center at ford about, maybe, perhaps, please, replace the fuel injection...

Always met with deaf ears.

A few years after we sold it my wife told me that she chose that car over an SVO turbo. She chose the LX because she did not like the looks of the NACA duct on the hood of the turbo...

Coulda had a classic, instead I get crap...

 

[Knox in Box]

First: 1977 Audi? Could you have just bought a dog turd and driven that? My grandmother had one of those cars, it was bought for her by my uncles as a "gift". (Yeah, some gift...).

It caught fire a few weeks after it was given to her and Audi acted like it was a once in a blue moon situation.

Yet...

I seem to remember that the only time I saw Audi 100's was with charred front ends from the engine fires that would mysteriously break out. On all of them. In the mid-70's Cerritos, Ca. passed a law that banned Audi 100's from being driven, parked or even thought of in that city.

Just to bring any Audi in required a 60 day quarantine but trying to bring in a 100 was tantamount to chemical warfare. Any and all responses to combat this were ok'd by the authorities. Encouraged even.

Renault. 25.

'Nuff said.

I had no idea, it was 1999 and we were desperate for any transportation. To paraphrase Stephen King "Sometimes dead is better".

We were actually happy to get the Renault up and running again.

God, I've been so lucky with my current car. (2002 Ford Galaxy 2.3 LPG conversion that I can't seem to kill if I would try)

 

[2112]

I had no idea, it was 1999 and we were desperate for any transportation. To paraphrase Stephen King "Sometimes dead is better".

We were actually happy to get the Renault up and running again.

God, I've been so lucky with my current car. (2002 Ford Galaxy 2.3 LPG conversion that I can't seem to kill if I would try)

Mostly I am just giving you a hard time. I think that we could take most car manufacturers and find horror stories that told us just how bad these cars are.

Hell, Renault has never had a real good rep for dependability here in the states yet if I were given an opportunity to purchase an R5 Turbo I would have to give it serious thought.

Even after the experiences with my wife's Mustang I still like those cars. My Aeroshit era, and the negative dealings with Ford (that my wife and I have had), will not prevent me from giving serious consideration to buying either a Fiesta ST, Focus ST or a turbo Mustang.

The car I drive now, a 2006 Honda Civic Coupe (bought new) is on its second motor due to a casting defect in the original engine block on those cars. I would still consider a Honda.

 

[Knox in Box]

I'd be curious about a mustang that I almost bought in 1991 with the straight 4.

I know, horribly underpowered and therefore not a true Mustang. But I have the later version of that 2.3 litre powering my Ford Galaxy and like I said before that thing is bulletproof. I doubt the older ones are though.

 

[GDSmithTX]

79 VW Scirocco. I had to replace the fucking starter on it like six times, because it was bottom-mounted and every time rainwater would get a little high, the starter would die. I got so good at it I could change out the starter in 15 minutes without even getting under the car.

 

[Steverino]

I'd be curious about a mustang that I almost bought in 1991 with the straight 4.

I know, horribly underpowered and therefore not a true Mustang. But I have the later version of that 2.3 litre powering my Ford Galaxy and like I said before that thing is bulletproof. I doubt the older ones are though.

The nicest, unmolested and cleanest Fox bodies were the 4cyl models. No one beat the crap out of them.

 

[Prages]

My worstest car is a toss up between a '99 Pontiac Montana:

And a 1996 Subaru Legacy Outback:

I swear, on a quiet night, you could hear both of them rusting.