Worst car you have owned

[dog]

I'll start

Vauxhall bloody zafira

Obviously a stupid name for obviously a stupid car. The very fact that 'limp home mode' was presented as a positive feature thoroughly condemns this BAMFORD of a machine 

 

 

 

[Wolfie20]

Worst - Hillman Imp - right load of tosh!

Best - Morris Oxford

[uttoxram75]

1 hour ago, dog said:

I'll start

Vauxhall bloody zafira

Obviously a stupid name for obviously a stupid car. The very fact that 'limp home mode' was presented as a positive feature thoroughly condemns this BAMFORD of a machine 

 

 

 

Had a Zafira for 10 years. Had only minor issues with it in that time.

Really useful for kids, dogs and holidays. Only downside was all the family pestering to do airport runs, tip runs and pick up stuff they'd bought because of the room when the seats were down.

Decent family car tbf.

[Alph]

I've had 2 Zafiras. Bad for street cred. Didn't go up hills if you made use of the room. But I loved how big they are inside. Practical. 

Peugeot 207 was the worst for me. Bloody racing stickers on the side when I bought it. Every knob head wanted to race me. No end of problems and the view from it is the worst view you could possibly have. The size of the bloody windscreen column blocked entire vehicles. Tiny wing mirrors and poor view to both front and back. 

[Eddie]

Seat Cordoba.

I bought it brand new in the mid-1990's. I went for it because of the huge boot space, which allowed me to transport loads of bowling balls when I was playing tournaments, national and international championships.

A couple of weeks after I bought it, the dealership went out of business amidst rumours of questionable practices. At which point, the car started developing a series of problems - some minor, others on the face of it quite catastrophic. The first major issue occurred when I was driving along the M42, overtaking a lorry - and all the headlights cut out. A couple of seconds later, I lost all power and somehow managed to coast to the hard shoulder - at which time, the lights came back on and the engine re-started. I drove home very carefully.

A couple of days later, it broke down on Swarkestone bridge. This time, I couldn't get it going again - I ran to the Crewe & Harpur, rang the police (if you know Swarkestone bridge, you can probably guess where it conked out) and got the AA out. The very nice man ran some diagnostics and said "You've flooded it". At 60 MPH, that'd be a first. Anyway, 2 minutes later, I was on my way - only to break down in Kings Newton and then again about 100 yards from home. This time, absolutely no power to anything so I pushed it home (no fun with power steering). As soon as I got home, all the power came back again.

I tried to contact the dealership - and that's when I found out that they had gone into liquidation and my replacement 'local' dealership was now in Chesterfield. I took the car up to them, they ran every diagnostic under the sun and came up with nothing - apart from a problem with the fuse board. Fuses would appear to have shorted out or blown for no apparent reason - swap one out and replace it and everything would be fine. Just in case, they replaced the entire fuse board and all the fuses.

For a week, everything was fine - and then the alarm would go off when I was driving, or the wipers wouldn't work and any one of a hundred other 'minor' ailments, all of them electrical, would occur, but none of them fatal. I contacted Seat UK head office and explained the problems once more. I gave them a catalogue of 29 different 'incidents' that had occurred during the first month of my now not-so-proud ownership of their flagship product.

So they lent me another car while they took mine back up to Chesterfield. The dealership there asked if they could use it as a company 'run-around' for a couple of weeks - naturally, I gave them permission. They started having similar problems - but when they limped back, they could find nothing wrong. In desperation, they stripped the car down bit by bit, re-wiring all the electrics as they went - and finally, they found the problem.

The cowboys at the original dealership had Scotch-locked the burglar alarm system to the earthing strap - which was situated right underneath the accelerator pedal, so the very process of moving my foot - or for that matter, me grovelling around in the fuse box which was underneath the dashboard - was causing all sorts of bad earthing or short-circuiting of just about any electrical system in the car.

After I got the car back, it instantly transformed from the worst car I ever owned into one of the best. I eventually drove 185,000 miles in it in the next 5 years before I traded it in for a Toyota Avensis.

Edited November 8, 2022 by Eddie

[RadioactiveWaste]

Hyundai Amica.

£5k for a brand new car with a 5 year warrenty, ok it's basic but surely I can live with it, and i won't ever have to worry about expensive breakdowns....

well, it didn't break down, but it was not a good car to drive, be in, i warped the break disks by "breaking", it had apparently 62 horsepower, but they must've all been astmatic shetlend ponies. When i binned it on an icy road i got "coke can" vibes. But happily the insurance assessor was unaware of the £5k special edition and assessed it against the standard list price of about £6.5k so I got a payout that more than covered the outstanding finance, happy days.

I got made redundant about a month later...less happy days but off topic.

Best was a VW Bora which i never shiud'vd sold.

[Steve How Hard?]

7 hours ago, dog said:

I'll start

Vauxhall bloody zafira

Obviously a stupid name for obviously a stupid car. The very fact that 'limp home mode' was presented as a positive feature thoroughly condemns this BAMFORD of a machine 

 

 

 

 

6 hours ago, uttoxram75 said:

Had a Zafira for 10 years. Had only minor issues with it in that time.

Really useful for kids, dogs and holidays. Only downside was all the family pestering to do airport runs, tip runs and pick up stuff they'd bought because of the room when the seats were down.

Decent family car tbf.

 

5 hours ago, Alpha said:

I've had 2 Zafiras. Bad for street cred. Didn't go up hills if you made use of the room. But I loved how big they are inside. Practical. 

Peugeot 207 was the worst for me. Bloody racing stickers on the side when I bought it. Every knob head wanted to race me. No end of problems and the view from it is the worst view you could possibly have. The size of the bloody windscreen column blocked entire vehicles. Tiny wing mirrors and poor view to both front and back. 

Ok own up. Which one of you is responsible for Abdoul Camara ending up in Derby. 

[Tamworthram]

10 hours ago, Wolfie20 said:

Worst - Hillman Imp - right load of tosh!

Best - Morris Oxford

The first car I had (although technically my mum owned it) was also a Hillman Imp back in the very late 70’s.

I may be totally miss remembering this but wasn’t the engine at the back? and my dad tells me we used to keep a log of wood in the front boot for a bit of weight.

[Ram-Alf]

Vauxhall Chevette, Had it 2 weeks, Went to put petrol in it on my way home from purchase, Get out of the car...and...where's the phucking petrol cap, Looked all over, Boot, Engine bay, The Woman at Asda in the cubicle was pi$$ing herself laughing, I got the handbook out and scrolled through, Ah down the side panel grill between rear window and back seat window...I did laugh ?

Bag of shyte it was ?

[Wolfie20]

49 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

The first car I had (although technically my mum owned it) was also a Hillman Imp back in the very late 70’s.

I may be totally miss remembering this but wasn’t the engine at the back? and my dad tells me we used to keep a log of wood in the front boot for a bit of weight.

The engine was at the back. When I think about that car the thing that first comes to mind was the constant noise coming from the water pump. I spent more to keep it running in the 12 months I had it than I got back when it was sold. Moved on to a 'proper' car - a moggy 1000.

[Ram-Alf]

8 hours ago, Eddie said:

Seat Cordoba.

 

A couple of days later, it broke down on Swarkestone bridge. This time, I couldn't get it going again - I ran to the Crewe & Harpur, rang the police (if you know Swarkestone bridge, you can probably guess where it conked out) and got the AA out. The very nice man ran some diagnostics and said "You've flooded it". At 60 MPH, that'd be a first. Anyway, 2 minutes later, I was on my way - only to break down in Kings Newton and then again about 100 yards from home. This time, absolutely no power to anything so I pushed it home (no fun with power steering). As soon as I got home, all the power came back again.

 

I know every nook and cranny on this historic bridge/causeway, Travelled it for more than 30 years, You didn't break down at the knuckle breach at the Stanton end did you? where only 1 motor can get through...2 if you're at walking pace ☹️

An Historical Monument that's got more bends in it than a bendy thing, And it's been widened 3 times, I've seen plenty of broken wing mirrors over the years, I can see it now...in days gone by when it 1st opened in the mid 1700s, Farmers taking their sheep to market and others bringing their unsold sheep back...a huge plethora of wool coming together ...all those sheep ears on the floor ?

[Gone]

Renault Scenic (04 plate I think), had these coil things in the engine that used to fail at least once every two months. Also had a digital dash, that one day decided to just turn off so I had no indication of speed. When it came back on the mileage had increased by about 90k ? (I was driving from Derby to Ilkeston) this happened several times before Renault exchanged it for me, at which time It stated I had done over 400k miles in about 3 weeks. It was a known fault with Renault and they had to set my clock back to the previous service mileage when they replaced it. Absolute bag of s*** that car, couldn’t wait to get rid. 

[FindernRam]

Austin Allegro with its square steering wheel. But the crowning glory was being overtaken by a back wheel when braking for traffic on the M1! With Hydrolastic suspension didn't even feel the wheel come off. The nice laughing policemen kept singing "Three wheels on my wagon and I'm still rolling along!"

Apparently I wasn't the first they'd seen. Although outside warranty it was fixed for free and I sold it straight after.

[Wolfie]

More recent than most but Mrs Wolfie had a 12 plate Alfa Romeo Giulietta lease car. Gorgeous looking in bright red & lovely to drive, with a "Sport" mode that would throw you back in your seat. Lovely car...

....until it was about 2 1/2 years old, when seemingly most of the electrics developed a life of their own & bits started to fall off. I know Alfa's have never been renowned for reliability (though they're probably better now - I have no idea) but I would say it was my worst car just for the disappointment of going from being proud of it on the drive and then hating the fact you didn't know if it was going to get you home that day and wondering where on the A1 that the rear wiper had fallen off.

[Boycie]

Land Rover Freelander.  How that car got into production with all the known design faults I’ll never know.

That early model put me off Land Rovers ever since, I even sneer at Range Rovers, all tarred with the same brush for me unfortunately.

[WhiteHorseRam]

Rover 45. Total Crapola.

[Parsnip]

33 minutes ago, Boycie said:

Land Rover Freelander.  How that car got into production with all the known design faults I’ll never know.

That early model put me off Land Rovers ever since, I even sneer at Range Rovers, all tarred with the same brush for me unfortunately.

Range Rover P38. 

I don't want to talk about it.

[Archied]

3 hours ago, Unlucky Alf said:

I know every nook and cranny on this historic bridge/causeway, Travelled it for more than 30 years, You didn't break down at the knuckle breach at the Stanton end did you? where only 1 motor can get through...2 if you're at walking pace ☹️

An Historical Monument that's got more bends in it than a bendy thing, And it's been widened 3 times, I've seen plenty of broken wing mirrors over the years, I can see it now...in days gone by when it 1st opened in the mid 1700s, Farmers taking their sheep to market and others bringing their unsold sheep back...a huge plethora of wool coming together ...all those sheep ears on the floor ?

And where Bonny prince Charlie turned back to Scotland after those treacherous French double crossed us,,,, never mind , Nicola has an eye on it now

[Ram-Alf]

6 minutes ago, Archied said:

And where Bonny prince Charlie turned back to Scotland after those treacherous French double crossed us,,,, never mind , Nicola has an eye on it now

?

There was a run on the £ in London as 8000 marauding Scots were on their way south, Stopped off at Swarkstone, Highland leaders met with the Bonny lad at the Exeter Arms and voted 3-2 to turn round and go home as an agent provocateur said we're sending troops north...we weren't.

Charlie never wore a kilt, Tartan troosers ?were his order of the day and died a pi$$ head in Italy

Never trust a Frenchman

All ended in tears at Culloden 

I heard Charlies worst mode of transport was a Ford Dobbin...not very fast, Just 1 horse power ? 

[Mucker1884]

dcfcfansforumthingy would like to thank all those taking part in this thread.

 

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