Worse built car you have ever owned
Discussion
red_slr said:
Range Rover 4.4 V8.
During the course of the 2 years I owned it the thing worked perfectly perhaps for 2 days. The other 720 ish days it was either in the garage or on its way there or broken down somewhere. At very best it was being driven with about 3 active faults.
This is not an exaggeration.
My brother and my next door neighbour both had Range Rover Sports (not the V8) and both were sold within 8 months of owning. My brother called it the ultimate off roader. It was always off road in the garage During the course of the 2 years I owned it the thing worked perfectly perhaps for 2 days. The other 720 ish days it was either in the garage or on its way there or broken down somewhere. At very best it was being driven with about 3 active faults.
This is not an exaggeration.
VX220, no doubt about it.
Never really went wrong mechanically but you could never take it to be washed, the pressure washer phase would soak the occupants due to various non sealing gaps.
The inside of the windscreen would ice over any time it was cold.
The coolant expansion tank degraded unless an aftermarket cover was fitted.
Changing from hardtop to soft top meant realigning the windows and then they'd always rattle and never seal properly again.
The interior trim rattles were never ending.
The stereo fell out under heavy acceleration.
This list could go on forever.
It was a fun car but definitely not screwed together at all well.
Never really went wrong mechanically but you could never take it to be washed, the pressure washer phase would soak the occupants due to various non sealing gaps.
The inside of the windscreen would ice over any time it was cold.
The coolant expansion tank degraded unless an aftermarket cover was fitted.
Changing from hardtop to soft top meant realigning the windows and then they'd always rattle and never seal properly again.
The interior trim rattles were never ending.
The stereo fell out under heavy acceleration.
This list could go on forever.
It was a fun car but definitely not screwed together at all well.
Renault 5 GT Turbo
It once burst a water pipe with the engine off whilst I was polishing it!
Used to break down at any occasion it possibly could and was never shy about letting me down in the worst possible situation.
I can still see the cloud of white smoke in my rear view mirror as the turbo let go, must be easily 20 years ago and I'm still mentally traumatised.
It once burst a water pipe with the engine off whilst I was polishing it!
Used to break down at any occasion it possibly could and was never shy about letting me down in the worst possible situation.
I can still see the cloud of white smoke in my rear view mirror as the turbo let go, must be easily 20 years ago and I'm still mentally traumatised.
Streps said:
The worst is the 2009 Vauxhall Astra..nice engine, weird manual gearbox but worked fine..
The build quality was very strange... the doors just don't make that nice 'clunk' sound and everything felt very tinny.
We used to use those at work, I know what you mean when you say 'tinny'. It used to irritate me on rainy nights when the raindrops landing on the car roof would drum like someone flicking an empty coke can. Oh, and the rubber indicator stalk, what a piece of crap. I genuinely couldn't believe the improvement between the Astra H and the J. The build quality was very strange... the doors just don't make that nice 'clunk' sound and everything felt very tinny.
Worst made car I've ever had was an X308 XJ8 4.0. It never went wrong but it certainly had plenty of cheap feeling parts. Behind the fine veneer of nice seats and a nice wood steering wheel, there were plenty of cheap switches and naff parts (the cloth lower section of the handbrake gaiter for instance).
sjc said:
swisstoni said:
sjc said:
My brand new Tuscan in 2000, literally fell apart around me in 9 months
Mine's 18 years old now and is somehow hanging together.
My 2001 Tuscan was also the pits. Even the windscreen was faulty!
Without doubt, a Volvo S40. Got it brand new in 1997. Got 5 miles down the road and had to take it back due to sun roof leaking. They replaced the sun roof next day, but had stood on the light grey seats and stained them. So it had to stay for a valet - during which time they repolished the car - and got polish all over the black trim which wouldn't come off. So all the black trim had to be replaced. But when I picked up the car, the mechanic had sat on the drivers seat with dirty overalls and the seat was covered in a greasy stain. So the seat had to be replaced, as the mark wouldn't come off.
That started 2 and a half years of hell Ended up with 7 pages of continuous faults: clutch failure, rust, brake calliper seizure, 400 miles to a litre of oil (new piston rings fitted and ended up at about 800 miles to a litre - garage had to supply me with 5 litre cans of oil to let me do a run from Edinburgh to Cardiff and back! When they repaired the rust on the roof (this was after they fitted the third sunroof) the accidentally broke the rear windscreen. When the replaced it, they got black adhesive all over the rear parcel shelf, which wouldn't come off. So anew parcel shelf......................
Never gone near a Volvo since and never will. HOw I managed to cover 30,000 miles on 2.5 years I'll never know, as the car was in the garage 1 week in every 4!
That started 2 and a half years of hell Ended up with 7 pages of continuous faults: clutch failure, rust, brake calliper seizure, 400 miles to a litre of oil (new piston rings fitted and ended up at about 800 miles to a litre - garage had to supply me with 5 litre cans of oil to let me do a run from Edinburgh to Cardiff and back! When they repaired the rust on the roof (this was after they fitted the third sunroof) the accidentally broke the rear windscreen. When the replaced it, they got black adhesive all over the rear parcel shelf, which wouldn't come off. So anew parcel shelf......................
Never gone near a Volvo since and never will. HOw I managed to cover 30,000 miles on 2.5 years I'll never know, as the car was in the garage 1 week in every 4!
blaupfeil said:
I'm surprised to hear about various Hondas...
Have another, 2007 Civic 2.2 diesel, bought at a couple of years old, clutch failed at 20k (a common issue with the 2.2 diesel known to lots of people apart from those at the Honda garage), wiper motor failed, problem with the rear bench seat not clipping in, various problems with the dash (it showed an outside temperature of -70 degree at one point, not bad for a spring day in the Midlands). I became so apathetic about it that when it was hit by another car who then did a runner, I didn't bother getting it fixed. I only bought it because SWMBO didn't want me to get the Alfa as a Honda would be more reliable...
1998 Vectra, company car so less than a year old used to 'blip' the throttle itself up to about 3-4000 rpm, quite embarrassing in traffic but I could get out of the car and it'd keep doing it so the frowns from the drivers around me would turn into much laughter... The garage would 'fix' it so that it then wouldn't even tick over and the engine would die when you went to change gear, then fix it again resulting in it blipping the throttle itself...
toon10 said:
My brother and my next door neighbour both had Range Rover Sports (not the V8) and both were sold within 8 months of owning. My brother called it the ultimate off roader. It was always off road in the garage
As with the Renault Scenic, I guess one of the things about iffy quality control is that sometimes, by pure chance, a good one slips through the net.One of my colleagues had a 2008 RRS 3.6 TDV8 which he picked me up in one day back in 2015 to go to a meeting. I thought immediately what a nice car it was, and how well it seemed to drive. I glanced over at the odometer, and had to do a double take - 240,000 miles!
Naturally I asked him how it had been, and he remarked that he wanted something comfy and relaxing to do 30k ish a year in, was offered a deal on this as an ex-demo with a few thousand miles on it. He'd read the horror stories, but loved the look of it, and the way it drove, so decided to take the chance. He reckoned apart from the autobox starting to play up around the 150k mark - solved by a double gearbox flush at a ZF transmission specialist, and the usual high mileage suspects (the odd bearing, bush and balljoint), it had pretty much not put a foot wrong. Routine servicing at the local LR main dealer, (always on time and with no expense spared), and it seemed to need not a lot else. The engine had never been apart, turbos were original, and it went very well indeed. Still felt remarkably tight inside as well.
I do know it had barely done a short journey in its entire life, which probably helped, but even so, you'd never have known it had done more than a tenth of that mileage, from the passenger seat at least.
Don Roque said:
We used to use those at work, I know what you mean when you say 'tinny'. It used to irritate me on rainy nights when the raindrops landing on the car roof would drum like someone flicking an empty coke can.
I had this on my first car, an MG Metro. I actually miss it, a couple of times just sat in the car listening to the rain was quite relaxing.Worst car I had - Pug106. Absolutely awful, bits that didnt fit, wrong parts fitted. Cost me more fixing than it cost to buy. But it did have parcel shelf speakers that were cool back in the day
2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:
sjc said:
swisstoni said:
sjc said:
My brand new Tuscan in 2000, literally fell apart around me in 9 months
Mine's 18 years old now and is somehow hanging together.My 2001 Tuscan was also the pits. Even the windscreen was faulty!
sjc said:
I had lots of manky old sheds but none were really badly built, just knackered. You also had to manage your expectations with 10 year old french hatchbacks that were cheap when they were new.
For the poster who mentioned the XJS I both agree and disagree. The loom and connectors were dreadful, even in the very last cars,but by the 90s the general assembly was really quite good. Up until then they felt like the patchwork quilt that all pre Egan Jaguars were though; rather than feeling like the car was one artefact travelling along they always felt like a jumble of crap all moving approximately in the same direction at more or less the same speed.
In terms of really poor quality assembly I'm going to submit for consideration the Jaguar XE that I had as a pool car for a couple of months. It wasn't unreliable at all, despite frequent warning lights on the dash, but I don't think there was a straight and even shutline on the entire car or a piece of trim that didn't rattle and feel nasty. It gave no confidence whatsoever that the mechanicals had been contstructed with the sort of care and consideration you'd want.
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 6th April 22:00
My car history is quite short, and comprises of a Rover, 7 Honda’s and a Vauxhall. And the prize for worst build quality;
Okay, it wasn’t a fair fight. I should have said this particular Vauxhall was built in Norfolk, by Lotus (VX220). So doomed from the onset.
I did three road trips across Europe in it. It broke down not once, or three times, but roughly 7 to 8 at a guess. Everything minor-ish, ABS modules failing, brake hoses splitting, engines cutting out repeatedly (loom of doom). Calipers seizing on, the lights pointing at the floor (by themselves), the starter button not working.
It got to the point where I knew how to fix every issue, and after 9 years, I’d had every common fault going. The routine was to scan the road looking for the next apex, check the speedo to make sure I wasn’t going in too hot, followed by a quick glance to see which warning lights had decided to appear from no where.
Thankfully back in a Type R now...
Okay, it wasn’t a fair fight. I should have said this particular Vauxhall was built in Norfolk, by Lotus (VX220). So doomed from the onset.
I did three road trips across Europe in it. It broke down not once, or three times, but roughly 7 to 8 at a guess. Everything minor-ish, ABS modules failing, brake hoses splitting, engines cutting out repeatedly (loom of doom). Calipers seizing on, the lights pointing at the floor (by themselves), the starter button not working.
It got to the point where I knew how to fix every issue, and after 9 years, I’d had every common fault going. The routine was to scan the road looking for the next apex, check the speedo to make sure I wasn’t going in too hot, followed by a quick glance to see which warning lights had decided to appear from no where.
Thankfully back in a Type R now...
Years ago I had a TVR Vixen, I think maybe from the days when you could self build? The wiring was a nightmare, start tracing say a yellow and green wire and it could be joined at any point by any colour wire. Someone had fitted Jag XJ6 size Wolfrace alloys (those were the days), I found out the car stuck to the road like the proverbial only at some point the uj on the steering rack worked loose, turn gently no probs otherwise the proverbial again.
C4 Corvette (glutton for plastic cars, maybe I should try a Reliant?) was horrendous. Exposed screw heads on a dashboard made from plastic Airfix would reject, every item of trim would eventually work loose. God I’ve got old, used to love that car but couldn’t live with that build quality now!
C4 Corvette (glutton for plastic cars, maybe I should try a Reliant?) was horrendous. Exposed screw heads on a dashboard made from plastic Airfix would reject, every item of trim would eventually work loose. God I’ve got old, used to love that car but couldn’t live with that build quality now!
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff