A car you instantly regretted buying

[FastRich]

Merc ML320

Utter poo. Kept it 2 weeks and flogged it on.

[seefarr]

1) My first car was a hotted up Mk2 Escort which everyone I knew told me not to buy. I did (of course) and within a week as I was pulling away from a toll gate onto a long bridge when something in the shifting mechanism went and it was stuck in first gear with a gear stick flopping around in my hand until I could pull off the motorway after a few miles. It was really reliable for the next few years after that though so all was forgiven.

2) We bought a 2010 F-150 in Canada a couple of years ago ( Reader's Cars Diary) to use for 3 months. I didn't get it above 40mph on the test drive (oops!) and after we'd purchased on the drive home, it developed a massive horrible wobble at speed. It was late in the day in a new country and everything was shut the next day and we had a 10 hour drive lined up the next day. I rang around and someone at a tyre place suggested I might just need to wash off the grit and snow that was probably sitting inside each wheel which ended up fixing it. I also figured out quickly that mostly-bald "all-weather" tyres don't really work in snow. . .

[anonymous-user]

TVRnutcase said:

Not an Instant regret - but it took all of 3 hours..... A Lotus Esprit twin turbo uprated .......

Taking it home - 3 hours and the first ticket...most unfair-----the cop was an absolute petrolhead and the girlfriend was all over him - but no a ticket was still issued (albeit for 20mph less) - I was starting to have regrets - this was not a good sign.

The first of many tickets - ok it was bright yellow - but it should not have been a ticket magnet - but it just collected tickets like crazy....half them debateable - but hey - no tickets in any other car.

Any other car - no issues - but this thing.

I still have the car - but I have been walking for four months - MAY have been justified as 115mph on a 60 - but an absolute backroad with never any traffic - that car is plain bad luck.

Wow and I thought my 2nd wife was bad at blaming everyone and everything but herself for her own stupid actions, but even she never blamed a car for her inability to control her speed or spot police cars.

[Richieboy3008]

Honda S2000. My previous car was a Civic Type R, so I assumed an S2000 was the next logical step. Very disappointed, hardly any faster than the Civic, codt a lot more to run and just nowhere nesr as fun.

[shoestring7]

sfella said:

M135 I currently have, bought in March and can't wait to get rid.

Always a worry when you read this sort of thing about a car you're about to order.

I got made redundant a week after returning form honeymoon, and my new wife was also jobless. The car and bike went, and I bought two ur-Minis, one a cheap POS 998 for me, the other was a supposedly restored 1275 for her. I'd read an article in a car mag about this company rebuilding Minis and went to see them. Left after ordering a car - she loved being able to choose a colour.
Picked it up a month or so later, very shiny but it drove horribly; stalled, crabbed, no brakes. Took it back for the first of many return visits, the last of which was marked by the recent moonlight flit of the Mini 'specialist', leaving their premises deserted apart from the odd hand-tool (which I claimed in compensation).

The POS 998 turned out to be a bit of a cockroach, nothing I could do would kill it, even driving from Cardiff to Windsor with a boiling battery didn't finish it off. I sold it for a Caterham, she practically gave hers away and used the £200 as a deposit for a new Civic.

SS7
PS Then there was the second bottle of Pinot eBay Porsche 924S.........

Edited by shoestring7 on Thursday 30th July 10:05

[Madkat]

Mk1 Octavia VRS. Wanted something with working suspension and cheaper insurance over my MK4 Ibiza Cupra.

Deep down i knew i was making a bad decision but was comitted none the less. Had a string of bad luck with the car and now back in a different Seat hot hatch and much happier again. Despite the Ibiza's planks of wood for suspension and the £1200 insurance and the really not that fast feeling (the octavia felt quicker with a better gearbox and seemingly free'er engine). I still miss that Cupra.

Edited by Madkat on Thursday 30th July 11:37

[JamesHayward]

I try and keep a continuous line of interesting cars so rarely is something not up to scratch. But I suppose for me it was the Saab 9000 Anniversary I bought on eBay whilst hammered. It might have only cost £350, and it was super quick with a remap but there was just something about it I didn't get on with.

Replaced it with a Jaguar X300 and I've been wafting around for over a year quite happily.

[Dion20vt]

Vauxhall Frontera 2.2i sport.....

Bought for a few hundred quid to use as a tow car for my track toy. Every other car i've owned, there's a big circle thingy in front of you that usually dictates what direction the car is travelling.
Not with the Frontera.... It was like trying to steer a shopping trolly laden with a weekly shop, two kids and wearing a pair of shoes that seemed to defy the laws of friction on the supermarket floor.

Dangerous!

plus it was so gutless I sold it on within 3 weeks!

[Acidrop]

Audi S4 B8. Had it two months and hate it with a passion. Up for sale and can't wait to get back in a BMW.

[Otispunkmeyer]

Brompty said:

lickatysplit said:

its amazing how many on here are german Motors.

not many Jap machines

Right, here we go then: Mazda 6 diesel estate.

Nice looking and nice to drive actually. However, drank oil almost as fast as the diesel and it's 'special' (expensive) oil otherwise the engine seizes. Finally went to We Buy Any Car after three of the four injectors packed up on holiday: I was quoted more than £3000 for the repair alone. Every problem I encountered I looked up on line to find a raft of other owners with the same expensive issue. Mrs B. told me in no uncertain terms never to buy a Japanese car again.

So now have a Volvo S40 (currently running a close second to the Mazda)

Never buy a japanese diesel car again... Their petrols are great IMO, but diesel really isn't their thing.

[fatjon]

Impreza, vile plasticy piece of crap with an engine that was designed to produce 90HP in a mud plugger and with the mechanical design for that power level but with a laggy turbo slapped on it and all mated up to a gearbox so flimsy that you really need spare in the boot. Bloody awful car in every way except it was very chuckable. That by no means made up for it being utterly st in every other way. I hated it so much that I fitted it with a tow bar and relegated it to being only used for towing a massive trailer full of horse crap twice a month. It was the one they used in Top Gear S1 I later found out which possibly explained some of its problems as it had been expensively Stigged the sold on to some motorsport company who tweaked it I believe, and not for the better.
It was followed closely by a Jaguar X Type which brought a whole new meaning to depreciation, supped like a 3.0 and performed like a middle of the road 2.0. I loathed that car within a week of buying it spanking new and lost over 20 grand in 3.5 years.

Currently running a Cerbera 4.5 weekend car which I should hate as it's been raping my wallet for years but for some reason I just love it most of the time, except when I hate it.

[Tonsko]

Was carless, due to writing my beloved Mk2 Escort van off. Toying with the idea of buying an MGB GT, BRG, soft top and hard top included, newly rebuilt goldseal 1.8 engine, suspension, gearbox etc. Fellow selling it was 2 miles from my parent's house too. However, was living in Bristol at the time, and my previous car had been mildly vandalised on my street. Couldn't face the stress of leaving it there to be trashed. ANYWAY. Was persuaded by parents to buy a 1.3 VW Jetta Mk1, as it was cheap. The GTIs and such look ok, this one however, it just looked like a lada. Hateful thing. Gearbox was shonky, brakes horrible, interior was utter pap, loud on the motorway etc. The last straw was when we went to a free party in Wales, parked it on a steep hill around 11pm. As I pulled the handbrake on, there was a loud *PING* and the bolt holding the cable to the lever snapped, leaving it flopping freely. As I was quite young, I didn't know what else to do, and was despairing a little, and then someone said to just leave it in gear, which sorted it. I was still half expecting to find it wrecked at the bottom of the hill later on, but the compression held it ok.

Sold it to buy an Audi 80 sport. Loved that thing, but she was expensive - it wasn't that unreliable, but I had loads of scrapes in it, to the extent where she acquired the nickname 'The Bismark' as no crash could finish her.

[ducini]

Jam12321 said:

Mk4 Golf TDI - Bought it for the economy, regretted it by the time i got home. The dash started to rattle immediately and i found myself thinking about selling it by the time i had hit the motorway.

I feel you pain. Got mine after looking a lots and somehow picked the worst one. Regretted it pretty soon after but now I'm stuck with it for the foreseeable future as I've just bought a house and have no spare cash. Maybe the bigger regret is not dropping the house deposit on a piece of exotica instead; I'm sure I could have lived out of it.

[Turbobanana]

Hillman Avenger (yes, I am that old): looked cool in dark blue with a gold stripe - years before Subaru stole my colour scheme - and Rostyle wheels. Whilst avoiding a Transit van the right front chassis outrigger fell out with the rest of the car which led to "interesting" handling characteristics.

Alfasud 1.5Ti: went well, sounded like the apocalypse but was made of tissue paper. Caught fire on the way to Snetterton when the cloth the previous owner installed as a temporary spare wheel well dropped onto a hot exhaust.

Golf GTI Mk1: bought because I really wanted another and because it had the best interior I could find. Turned out to have an MoT failure sheet longer than the M1 (my favourite item: 3 broken coil springs) and rapidly found itself on eBay.

There are many others - these are the lowlights.

[cullenster]

POS Mercedes C180 (1994). It was just within my 4,000 euro budget. Bought it from a couple who hadn't bothered valeting the car, so the rear seats still had stains from where their kids had spilled all manner of liquids (I hope 'spilled'). Brought it home, parked it outside the house and when I went to start it four hours later, thing wouldn't even turn over. Turns out alternator was fked and this nice married couple hadn't bothered to tell me. When I called them back they basically said 'your problem now'.

Got rid of it before I paid off the car loan, bought a Volvo S80 instead and loved it.

[JockySteer]

Gandahar said:

Bought a 991 GT3, filled it with gasoline and trimmed my 'tache and went out for a drive in the canyons. Had no torque whatsoever. Got out dragged by a Plymouth Valiant being chased by a Peterbilt tanker. Shucks.

Ronin.

Your GT3 was broken or a citigo in disguise then - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oeTMuqNQvw

[turboslippers]

Golf GTI Mk4 tiptronic - Imagine the dullness, lethagy and hippo like wallowing of a normal baggy Golf GTI and then add on a power sapping and never-woken-up slush box. (Jap import)

I bought it because the missus wanted a 5dr auto runaround to replace our 3dr GTi. I told her they never did an auto mk4 gti but then, miraculously, I spotted this ultra rate import on on ebay with just 60k miles. She was delighted...

Won the auction and got train from Essex to Manchester to pickup. Uneven panel gaps, marks on every wheel, panel, bumper, interior stinking of smoke and wanli tyres should have sent me off to purchase a single back to Essex. Nah, come all this way and couldn't go home and admit to missus I'd got it horribly wrong so I bought it anyway....and she loves it???

On the plus side, as it's been 'pre-ruined' I never have to worry about her putting a scuff on the bumper or kerbing the wheels. I also turn a blind eye to the fact the interior is a bit like a litter bin with water bottles, make up, food wrappers etc piled up in the foot wells....

Sad to say we still have it and it's currently partially abandoned in the work car park. I took it home the other day after 1 month just in case separation had made the heart grow fonder. It hadn't, it's still a hateful drive...

Ben

[Fishy Dave]

Mr Tidy said:

Surprised you prefer the M roadster to the Si Coupe given the relatively "floppy" nature of the Roadster shell, but each to their own!

Edited by Mr Tidy on Tuesday 28th July 01:45

Only a week into ownership but a trip to the 'ring and Spa has shown that the Z4M Roadster chassis is plenty rigid enough, no detectable scuttle shake, stiffer than my wifes Boxster S, happy.

Worst car was my Elise S1 with Audi conversion. Sold my 911 3.2 (why oh why!?) with a lust to go racing again. Bought a trackday'd Elise with quoted 280bhp, chucked cash at cage, seats, extinguisher, all the usual racing bits needed. Then realised the intake temps went sky high on track, the brakes were marginal, very difficult to modulate the throttle, handling was scary with lift off and power oversteer at will caused by the heavy iron lump over the rear wheels, plus electrics which took many days to put right and bypass burnt connectors. Had to de-tune the map to make it more sensible to drive, spending far more time in the workshop fixing problems than I ever did using it. Various dnfs with only 1 finish in four races where I trundled round in the rain just hoping to get to the end without meeting the scenery. The cars only saving graces were that it was quite pretty to look at, the engine was tough despite being cooked when the water pump failed and my god it was a fast car in a straight line.
I have no doubt that Elises are brilliant little cars, but I would have been better off with a K/Honda/Duratec for track work. One year into ownership I sold for the biggest loss of time and money I've experienced, made worse by the continual rise in the value of the 911 I sold!

Still, it's led me to the Z4M which I have to say I'm loving.

Dave

[gck303]

phil4 said:

Toyota Prius, my first ever brand new car... bought when I was doing a long slog weekly along the M4/M25, thought some MPG and lack of congestion charge would be nice.

But that quickly changed, and as a normal car, well it had some nice gadgets but: It was really S-L-O-W... Waaaay too much body-roll. Horribly plasticky interior. Seated too high up. I'm sure there were redeeming features, but I can't think of any right now.

We have one as a second car. We really rate it. Why?

They are a bargain.

i) They are really very inexpensive to buy used. They are much less dearer than a comparitively aged auto Golf.
ii) They don't go wrong. At least ours has not.
iii) Tax. Minimal road tax and half price parking permits.

[sunsurfer]

TITWONK said:

...bought a second hand engine on ebay for 180 quid, drove the 85 miles there, loaded the engine in the van, drove home and spent the next two days completing an engine swap. got to that exciting turn the key moment and guess what? the fking engine was seized solid and would not budge! ...

That was painful. Not much you can do except laugh about it!