What is the most unreliable car you have owned?

[RVVUNM]

Intresting topic and full of French cars, but has anyone else noticed how many times VW feature.
My worst ever car was a VW Polo 1.9TDI Sport, in the one year I had it no less than five visits to the garage and it was only a 50k car.

[Fun Bus]

RVVUNM said:

My worst ever car was a VW Polo 1.9TDI Sport.....and it was only a 50k car.

Christ! You must have had some options fitted to that then.

[GreenMan]

Not mine, but my father had a 1990 Carlton 2.0 estate that was an absolute nightmare. Pretty sure it had a whole family of gremlins living somewhere behind the dashboard as the electrics seemed to have a mind of their own. Most amusingly/alarmingly, the electric windows operated as-and-when they felt like doing so (often entirely unbidden), and the stereo would switch itself on and off (and change volume) as you went along. As a child, there was something deeply disturbing about travelling in it in the dead of the night on a remote road, family dozing while Dad drove, only for a couple of windows to start going up and down and the stereo to suddenly blast out at 120dB.

The dealer never got to the bottom of it, and it's put me off Vauxhalls ever since.

On the other hand, the 3 Renaults we had (2 Espaces and a mk 1 Clio) were all impeccably behaved over a combined total of nearly 200k miles!

Worst of the cars I've owned - Golf IV v6 4motion: it ate coil packs and MAF sensors for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

[sjabrown]

My 2005 Honda Accord tourer is the least relaible car I've had, and that's comparing it to 2 205 GTIs!! In 2 years its had 1 rear brake caliper, 2 wheel bearings, 2 O/S rack ends, the anti-roll bar keeps loosening, one clutch, numerous bulbs blowing (headlights, brake lights, interior lights), other brake calipers stripped cleaned and rebuilt. It's yet to leave me stranded though....

[Robster60]

Espace wins hands-down, with an engine management system that developed faults every 3-6 months, including once driving over the Alps

Sadly it was a company vehicle so had to stick with it for 3 years

[rb5er]

1999 Fiat punto from new. Problem after problem. Luckily in warranty so not problems that were costing me money.

[Jw Vw]

Fun Bus said:

RVVUNM said:

My worst ever car was a VW Polo 1.9TDI Sport.....and it was only a 50k car.

Christ! You must have had some options fitted to that then.

[Dapster]

Sorry to follow the flock but I have to add to the list of French rubbish, in my case an '89 Citroen AX GT bought in the mid 90's with only 30k ish on the clock. I fancied some cheap speedy wheels due to the escalating insurance on my beautiful Mk 1 MR2, so I misguidedly swapped the Toyota for this heap of shyte.

In the following 2 years I replaced the disks, clutch (twice), front wheel bearings (one of them went twice), fuel pump and sender to the guage, engine mounts and a lot more. I also had a never-to-be-traced fault on the dash, a creaking left door and leaking sunroof. It was also starting to rust on the wing. The final straw was when the rear hatch fell off when a hinge sheared leaving me with no rear tailgate as I was about to leave the car in an airport car park for a week. Unfortunately it was still there when I got back.

I never dared add up the costs but I reckon a V12 XJS ex-minicab with no history would have been cheaper to run...

My current car, a 6 year old Audi A4 has only gone wrong once. However, it needed a new gearbox which cost me over 3 grand.

Edited by Dapster on Thursday 8th September 10:40

[blueg33]

Most unreliable

Mk1 Ford Escort Estate - always needed something fixing, MOT's were always worrying times

Current fleet

2007 Audi A6 - major breakdown when new (electric fault) and faults with MMI. All sorted under warranty and 100% relaible for the last 3 years. 75k miles

2007 Subaru Outback - Totally reliable so far. 50k miles

2000 TVR Tuscan - I have only had it a year and it has need niggles sorting eg strange dash display due to a loose earth. It hasn't let me down though, has a few age related things to sort.

[SuperHangOn]

Mine are very predictable.

Least reliable was a Range Rover P38. Suspension, hvac system and engine all broke. What made it so bad was it left the worst until last- I wasted hundreds fixing the suspension/hvac for the engine to implode a month later (cyl liner problem). Rebuilding the block would have cost thousands so I had to sell at spares/repairs for a whacking loss.

Most reliable was a Lexus GS300. Nothing at all went wrong. Absolutely nothing.

[axgizmo]

2002 Xsara VTS - Never again!

[Darlo74]

Golf GTI 16v Mk II

Great car... when it was working!

[Futuramic]

The most unreliable is the only car to ever strand me at the side of the road. It was an E reg Volvo 740 GL. I spent lots on preventative maintenance just because everything was so easy to do. I bought lots of parts and did all the labour myself. I digress. The electric fuel lift pump seized whilst accelerating on to the Copdock roundabout. In rush hour. I managed to steer into a funny escape lane thing and remained there for five hours. Great. It was taken first to Ipswich, then to Colchester on a recovery truck. Then from my house to a garage on yet another beaver tail. I thought the poor old girl was dead. Immaculate body and no life. I was quite upset when she left for the second time. But a new pump later and she was re-born. Still going too, in another's hands.

It also had a haunted radio; whilst on the subject of electrical gremlins. The head unit was original; with a rotary tuning dial and mechanical presets. I would try to pick up modern stuff but at night the thing would start to crackle and then there would be Orchestral Manouvres in the Dark. Try again and radio one would dissolve into Gary Numan or Abba. Poor thing just wanted to go home to a decade where it was acceptable.