Worst car I have ever driven....

[anonymous-user]

An early 80s VW Golf with a Pierburg carb on it, fking thing would cut out as you were going along, pull over, turn the key and away you go again, poxy thing.

[fido]

I have had a rental Renault Captur 0.9 for a month. When i switched back to the MX-5 (albeit a BBR fettled one) i kept blipping the throttle and launching off at lights! The difference in throttle response is practically the entire range for modern vehicles. All the turbo trickery required to extract useful torque from a tiny engine totally kills the driving experience. I suspect this is the reason that new budget cars feel so terrible. Otherwise the Captur felt pretty good for an MPV.

[CoolHands]

Dr Doofenshmirtz said:

So to summarise: Small Vauxhall cars are slow and a bit pants.

it sounds like that + all Peugeots

which confirms my assumptions perfectly.

[Cal_0]

Johnnytheboy said:

Kia Picanto hire car:



Absolutely awful on Spanish motorways, felt like it was going to go in an entirely different direction to my preference. Terrifying.

My wife just got rid of her Picanto. Bordering on dangerously slow with the 1.1 petrol engine joining motorways etc but the thing drove straight as an arrow and the only thing it needed in about 5 years was one replacement calliper.

Now, the Kia Rio I just got shot of - fantastic 1.5 crdi engine but everything else was absolutely awful and cost me thousands of pounds over a few years.

Never driven one but I’d imagine a non turbo diesel would be the worst only experience was driving a Passat with an intermittent turbo boost! Now that’s scary when you trying to pull on to a roundabout

Edited by Cal_0 on Friday 8th March 13:35

[AC43]

drjdog said:

The worst car I've ever driven was a Fiat 126. Presumably that was better than a Fiat 500 since it was the upgraded version. Unless you have an Abarth tuned version with an open bootlid, I cannot imagine how people enjoy owning vintage 500s. They are ghastly.

I can't really think of the second worst, because that Fiat was so much worse than everything else I've ever driven.

I presume you haven't tried a Morris Minor or a 70's Beetle then? Wecome to the 50's.........

In terms of more "modern" "cars" that are st dynamically I'd thow in the Suzuki Jimny and the Nissan Terrano.

And in terms of the only car that actally made my wife vomit I give you the Toyota Corolla Verso. It handled like a sailing boat in a hurricane and had one of the most hateful clattery diesels I've ever had the misfortune of hearing. Made the whole tinny bodyshell vibrate shudder and resonate.

Edited by AC43 on Friday 8th March 13:48

[Strong Horse]

I had a 2005 Corsa C with the 1.0. I hated that car, the camshaft snapped due to a manufacturing defect just before I received the recall letter. Eventually the engine developed bad compression after a lively 6,000 RPM blast down some A roads. Just had new oil as well.

No sound proofing
Loads of understeer
No steering feel
It even had warm starting issues where it would start running on 2 cylinders.

Awful car. They say people are always fond of their first cars but I hated that.

Sold it to a garage and bought a 12 year old Focus from a surgeon with full main dealer servixe history. The Ford never set a foot wrong.

Its true other road users bully you when you drive a red corsa. It was a world apart when I got the focus.

[coppice]

AC43 said:

I presume you haven't tried a Morris Minor or a 70's Beetle then? Wecome to the 50's.........

In terms of more "modern" "cars" that are st dynamically I'd thow in the Suzuki Jimny and the Nissan Terrano.

And in terms of the only car that actally made my wife vomit I give you the Toyota Corolla Verso. It handled like a sailing boat in a hurricane and had one of the most hateful clattery diesels I've ever had the misfortune of hearing. Made the whole tinny bodyshell vibrate shudder and resonate.

Edited by AC43 on Friday 8th March 13:48

'ere , I loved driving my mate's Moggy 1000 . Great steering, slick gearchange and rattly , if willing A series. Beetles ? An acquired taste - the engine made an absurd wheezing regardless of throttle opening and gained momentum very s l o w l y. Felt bullet proof though .

I'd pay good money to see the reaction of some younger posters (who think a modern Renault or Pug is the automotive nadir) if they drove a horror like a well used and ill maintained Austin Cambridge with buggered synchro , a screaming diff , an engine needing a decoke, unservoed brakes pulling right and a column shift...

[patmahe]

Interesting to see so many mentions of Vauxhall here because my first thoughts were of two Astra's I hired from two different eras.

The first was around 2005, a 1.4 petrol that couldn't pull properly up a reasonable incline, maybe something was up with the specific car I had but it felt woefully underpowered to me.

The second was a 2017 diesel version, that after some mildly enthusiastic driving on the way home had smoke pouring from the brakes to the extent that I got the hose out and sprayed them out of fear they might go on fire.

For comparison our Kia Picanto regularly travels the same route, driven in the same fashion without issues.

Overall the build quality on these Vauxhall's always seemed slightly below average and they don't seem to respond well to anything other than the most boring style of driving. They are well equipped and have a lot of safety gear as standard though.

An honourable mention has to go to the Chevrolet Spark we once hired, struggled to top 50 mph on the motorway, but then I didn't have very high expectations when I hired it.

[imck]

sparkyhx said:

mikecassie said:

Vauxhall Mokka, rental car I had for 1 week. Terrible in just about every way and I would never say to anyone to get one, it had no redeeming features that I could find.

I had one for a week in Belgium - wasn't a good experience although mine had the added disadvantage of power sapping auto gearbox.

I had a 1.4 Turbo 4x4 Manual hire for a couple of Weeks.
Wouldn't buy one but it was pretty reasonable to drive in a straight line around Town and on the Motorway.
I quite like the 1.4/1.5 Modern Turbos I have driven in the last few Years.

1.0 Ecoboost (Focus and B-Max) pretty good but seem to be lacking a bit top end IMHO.

Worst one was a Fiat Punto or Bravo 1.2.
Wouldn't Rev (very un-Fiat like) and going up hills took a run up/planning.

[Brett748]

For me it has to be a 2013 Volkswagen Passat 2.0TDI pool car we had at work. I just simply hated the thing, the interior was horrifically bland, traction was pathetic coming out of corners and the subjectively the thing was just nauseating to drive.

In second place was a 2016 Vauxhall Corsa 1.4 courtesy car I had when somebody hit my Astra VXR Nürburgring, it was so slow, barely any more economical than the Astra VXR and devoid of any driver pleasure. The Apple CarPlay was superb mind.

I’ve also had a 2 Series Active Tourer from BMW when mine was in for service, it wasn’t a bad car but having front driven BMW felt strange.

[hutchst]

Not quite a car, but hands up all those that drove a 1970s Leyland Sherpa van and lived to tell the tale.

[Gojira]

hutchst said:

Not quite a car, but hands up all those that drove a 1970s Leyland Sherpa van and lived to tell the tale.

Once...

That was more than enough, and I went back to driving Massey-Fergusons

[D-Angle]

hutchst said:

Not quite a car, but hands up all those that drove a 1970s Leyland Sherpa van and lived to tell the tale.

Sherpas are basically oxcarts with an engine. Which makes them kind of charming, albeit terrifying. You tune out the fear after a couple of years in them.

[st4]

Worst - for sheer disappointment value a V10 S6. Great engine, horrific understeer.

[Pan Pan Pan]

Vauxhalls have always been an odd one for me, because I have always quite liked them in the past, but some of the Vauxhalls I have used, have been notably awful enough to colour my view of them now.
I had an Astra as a courtesy car and whilst I think Vauxhall styling has improved of late, the car was an odd handling, gutless, but fuel guzzling t*rd which had silly features like a light running around the centre console (why would people need a light to know where the centre console was?)
The indicator stalk / mechanism on Vauxhalls is so bad, there were times I wanted to rip it out of the steering column, and throw it out of the window. On an insignia, it had scroll down screens on a cenre console, where one had to, scroll through several screens to either turn on the wipers (why wouldn't a simple steering column stalk control be better? or adjust the heater / screen demist functions.
I remember a Vauxhall add which stated the car in question was a.... Wait for it! a Phenomenon ! and that they had made over one thousand improvements to it over the last model, I had to agree it was a phenomenon, that a major car manufacturer had produced a car, that needed over a thousand improvements made to it over the preceeding model! !
That said the company I worked for had some of the old Astravans for general use, and like Clarkson once said, they are one of the fastest things known to man

[anonymous-user]

bmw 320d, seems it is god status on here, but found cheap plastic inside, and a normal driving experience, big let down.

[st4]

Thesprucegoose said:

bmw 320d, seems it is god status on here, but found cheap plastic inside, and a normal driving experience, big let down.

They’re a very bland car and quite small, unrefined and yet cost a lot

Typical eurobox junk

[Francis85]

2012 WV Polo. 3 cylinders. Noisy and terrible handling.

[Dark85]

sparkyhx said:

I had one for a week in Belgium - wasn't a good experience although mine had the added disadvantage of power sapping auto gearbox.

I've just had a week in Tenerife driving a Zafira with, presumably, the same awful gearbox. It's really not a place suited to any automatic (extremely hilly) but I thought it'd be fine as automatics have improved a lot in recent years but my God it was awful! It reminded me of the dim witted piece of junk we had a Toyota Camry in America some 20 years ago; hateful thing.

[GTI16V]

AC43 said:

drjdog said:

The worst car I've ever driven was a Fiat 126. Presumably that was better than a Fiat 500 since it was the upgraded version. Unless you have an Abarth tuned version with an open bootlid, I cannot imagine how people enjoy owning vintage 500s. They are ghastly.

I can't really think of the second worst, because that Fiat was so much worse than everything else I've ever driven.

I presume you haven't tried a Morris Minor or a 70's Beetle then? Wecome to the 50's.........

In terms of more "modern" "cars" that are st dynamically I'd thow in the Suzuki Jimny and the Nissan Terrano.

And in terms of the only car that actally made my wife vomit I give you the Toyota Corolla Verso. It handled like a sailing boat in a hurricane and had one of the most hateful clattery diesels I've ever had the misfortune of hearing. Made the whole tinny bodyshell vibrate shudder and resonate.

Edited by AC43 on Friday 8th March 13:48

I'd suggest your wife should hand in her driving licencedp