Your worst/most disappointing car or truck

teejay99 · BELLE RIVER, ONT

Your worst/most disappointing car or truck

Schnitz · MILTON, ONT

Mine was an '90 BMW 535. The thing never ran right no matter what I threw at it. And after speaking to multiple euro guys thats the way it was supposed to be.
The thing had torx screws beside philips screws on the same part right from the factory. No less than 10 stepper motors for the center vent to work. Rear vents only blew fresh (read freezing cold) air.
If you talk to Euro guys this is just how it is and they try and sell you on "the driving experience". What a joke. A Camry with a set of coilovers would be better.
I'll never buy another Euro car.

fatstax · COBOURG, ONT

ford escorts i owned when i first started driving, endless carburetor problems. ass end always sagged due to weak springs.

jarvis1 · COBBLE HILL, BC

New, 1978 Dodge van with everything. The sliding door never worked right. Coming to a stop, the automatic trans would not drop in to low gear. Many trips back to the dealer on Centennial Parkway, Hamilton, did nothing. That was the last new car I bought.

Gazoo · BADEN, ONT

I bought a brand new '88 LeSabre T-type. It was a nice looking car, great car to drive..., limited production...

(The car in the pic is not mine, but identical. I didn't feel like looking for an scanning a picture.)

The day I picked it up at a dealership in Ottawa, beautiful spring day, so I rolled the pwr windows down, drove over a railroad track and heard a rather large "bang" coming from the passenger side. What the hell did I hit I was thinking, so I pulled over, looked at the car, under the car...nothing, so I turn around to have a closer look at the area, nothing...

When I get home, 15 mins. away from the dealers, I try to put the windows back up, and nothing is coming up on the passenger side. The glass fell out of the guides and in the door, confuse

And that was the beginning, the ABS system was absolute junk (1st year model), I replace pads rotors, shoes drums 3 times, in the 80k I owned it.

The harmonic balancer went at 30k, not good on a crank sensor for ignition. I replaced the rad. and fans, alternator, egr valves. The door pulls and arm rest came apart the first year...

And I'm not hard on a vehicle, all that under 80k on the car, when I finally gave it to my father.

teejay99 · BELLE RIVER, ONT

Lucky Father !?

T

hemi43 · ONTARIO

The big 3 really shot themselves in the foot in those years. Today it's a different story and they all build amazing vehicles. Hopefully they will get consumer confidence again, but it will take a long time.

GhostPost · ONTARIO

I think it's very very ignorant yet silly to bash an auto manufacture for one particular vehicle. They all make junk they have all had lemons.

Cars I have owned with no issues other have not been so lucky visa versa. As well cars I owned that people make fun of back then are desirable now and wanted by some.

Only regrets I have are selling the ones I should have kept.

teejay99 · BELLE RIVER, ONT

I completely agree ...Big 3 gave the imports a huge leg up by building a lot of junk , well into the 90's . I was with Ford and cars/trucks were selling well so they didn't foresee problems with sales . When J.D. Power and Consumer Reports were giving low scores for quality , they did smarten up but you can't turn manufacturing around over night . It took a while . Meanwhile a crap load of Hondas and Toyotas were selling and telling everyone how great their quality was compared to the domestics . It worked .

T

58Chev · ETOBICOKE, ONT

Had a 1988 Ford Taurus, 388,00kms that was a BULL (pun intended) never an issue, traded it in for the vehicle mentioned below. Cuz I thought "Hey this Ford was great, let's get another" evileye

1998 Ford Winded Star, off 2yr lease, 50,000 kms
went through three control arms, all broken.
Engine light on for 3yrs, dealer could not get it right, guessed every time I brought it in. Spent what seemed like my life savings trying to fix it.
Transmission blew up right after the warranty ran out (102,000kms)
Mr. Transmission put in a refurb and gave me the codes for the CEL and short list of what to replace to fix it.
Went to the Ford parts desk and gave the guy my list. He says engine light on? You don't need the EGR Valve, we sell about 3 a yr. I bough a PVC Valve and a control valve of some sort and for <$100 The CEL was gone and I could now pass E-tests.

Sold it to a guy out by Peterborough in 04.

That sure did turn me off buying another Ford.

Now I own to imports, well one really, Acura MDX made in Canada, wife DD Mazda3 imported from Japan.

GhostPost · ONTARIO

I worked for one of the big 3 and imports.
I can comment all day long.....

For me. I am a GM guy when it comes to old school to own.
I admire respect and appreciate all makes and models.
But my $ spent will most likely be a GM product.

What's great about the hobby is we can go to shows and cruises and look at all makes.
They all made junk and they all made really cool stuff.

el toro · LONDON, ONT

74' El Camino classic bot new, that POS turned to fertilizer in 2yrs by 79 had floor pan, rear quarters, rockers, cam shaft, rear wheel bearings and radiator replaced.

poncho62 · ADMINISTRATOR

85 Hyundai Stellar....Need I say more......Tyhe friggin thing would go though head gaskets once a year....They still used points in the ignition. I hear they make good cars now, I wont buy one

I am a Pontiac guy, had lots of them...the lemon was a 79 Lemans....nice car, but it rusted out by 1985, frame and all

Fordy Acres Car Farm · DORCHESTER, ONT

I think we can all agree, the tin they used in the 70's sucked. Too bad, because there were a few jewels in an otherwise embarrassing decade for the North American automobile.

Gearhead · ELORA, ONT

I'm always attracted or addicted to junk it seems

I have a love for old mopars...still wrenching on a late 80's GM and love old, weathered iron.

Glad to see the big three pick up their socks. Too bad it almost ruined 2 of them. Ford weathered the storm

-- Edited by Gearhead on Tuesday 28th of January 2014 05:52:39 PM

hemi43 · ONTARIO

What a difference a few years makes. That's if you believe all the bankruptcy BS.

Autoweek-Best-of-the-Best-Corvette-and-Silverado-winners.jpg

427CARL · CLINTON, ONT

I have had over 120 cars since 1967

The 1988 1990 1992 1996 1998 Grand Caravans were the best

except for the 07 Suburban we have now, which is a absolute delight to drive.

my 1969 Mustang and my 1977 Pontiac wagon were the rusty ones (starting in 1st 6 months)

I have been blessed with some nice working cars.. I do my own service In 46 years I have NEVER taken a vehicle back to a dealer

sasquatch · NORTH BAY, ONT

It's been 54 years since i started driving, and i can't say i ever had a lemon or a bad vehicle. Sure things broke down, wore out, which was natural.
Over that time i owned 2 Fords and Two Dodges, the rest were all GM trucks and cars.
The rustiest i ever owned was a 73 GM one ton truck (with the 8ft box,), and a high mileage 66 GM pickup that the cab mounts rotted off enough that driving in winter over frost heaves the horn would blow due to the cab flexing up and down. Lol
The box sides on the 73 were paper thin and totaly perforated. (recycled metal they claimed.) With regular maintanence all of them ran well and were quite reliable.

oldkoot · BROCKVILLE, ONT

Oh the 70's, remember them well as I worked owner relations at one of the big 3, joke then was " the rust went in before the name went on"

toomuchjunk · S/W ONTARIO

In 1995 we bought a new Pontiac Grand Am. It was a real nice loaded car. By 2001 the car was spotless not a mark on it anywhere,
but the cowl was rotted out of it. If it rained you had to bail the water out of it.
TMJ

shag766 · FOXBORO, ONT

i remember shopping for a new car for the wife at the time, deceased now, and i was at a ford dealer do to the taurus she had was not bad. there was a 87-88? g-t mustang 5lt 5spd sitting there and i had heard that they were little power packs after the years of guttless stuff. after the test drive it was mine, well hers. it felt good feeling like you had power again but what i should of done was think a bit. it was a t-top car which turned it into a huge problem with wind noise and water leakage. way to much torque for a uni-body t-top car. i can't remember the amount of times it was back to the dealer and a couple of times they shipped it to someone else to fix it, not. by the time they had resealed, bigger rubbers, it, the thing was looking goofy and never did seal up. about the 2.5yr mark she had a bad accident north of kingston, hwy 38. luckily she was ok but bruised and they wrote the car off. thank you, gone.
- i have bought some more new cars and several new trucks for the business with only one truck being a p-o-s. 2006 f550 power stroke. they went from the proven 7.3lt to a 6.2lt? engine and it was junk. before the 160,000km warranty was up they put in 8 injectors one at a time and 2 turbo's. about the 185-190km point 2 lifters let go and chipped the cam, no warranty. i put 2 new lifters in and traded it back to a ford dealer for a stirling. your turn. other than my 2 oldies the only ford i have now is my 2000 f350, bought new, with 260k's on it. i was getting 600,000 plus km on the 7.3's so my old girl will be with me for awhile. the cabs and chassis's would wear out before the engine's with only one injector change about the 400k mark. for guys who have one, 7.3, and it needs an injector with anything over the 350k mark, do your self a favor and do them all at once or you will be doing it one at a time till they are all done. just saying!
-anyway thanks for the vent and this is a true quote for sure, "Only regrets I have are selling the ones I should have kept."

Keeper · OSHAWA, ONT

Hands down the 2004 Dodge Intrepid. Though most of this can be placed squarely on the utter disdain we got from the dealership.

It drove nice, got decent mileage for a big car, and was pretty comfy.

But we could not keep brakes on it and other small little issues that popped up.

Around 8,000km thats right 8,000km we started getting a shudder when braking. Took it to the dealership and it needed a complete brake job, pads and rotors all around. Was told "The car is driven hard" so its not a warranty issue, its a fricken Intrepid! They wanted $1000 to do a brake job. I promptly told them to put the tires back on and park it in the lot.

Then it would not shift into gear, again according to the dealership not a warranty issue, the shifter cable was replaced by me at my cost, problem solved.

Brakes went again at about 19,000.

After 1.5 years, we traded the damn thing in on an HHR. And then got raped on the trade.

I will never buy another Mopar product based on this experience.

-- Edited by Keeper on Wednesday 29th of January 2014 07:18:04 AM

Modfather · VICTORIA HARBOUR, ONT

X 2 Keeper I bought a brand new 94 Intrepid ES. Fun car to drive went like stink and very comfy with the es package. I had brake issues window rattle in the back and lots of plastic interior pieces just falling off. The warranty was almost non existent and the dealer would not help. I kept the car for two years and dealt it on a Safari Van. I would never ever buy from that particular dealer again and certainly not a new Chrysler product.

Cat in the Hat · BRANTFORD, ONT

1974 Gremlin.......need I say more?.

Absolute POS made out of left over beer cans and a sewing machine for a motor....

Rust.....clutch problems.....no heat.....brakes.....just a pile of poop

JPB · AYLMER, ONT

Since driving I have had sixty two cars. Two Fords,one I H Scout and one Nissan p/up.The rest have All been GM! The worst was the Nissan pick up.