What is the most unreliable car you have owned?

[Waugh-terfall]

richtea78 said:

Waugh-terfall said:

I can beat that! Mine was changed at 8yrs/61,000mi then broke after just 6months/2,000mi

Brilliant, did it do much damage when it snapped? Mine fked pretty much everything it could!

Thankfully not, mainly to the wallet with a £600 repair bill.. The garage that fitted it wrong got it back in PX for a 2nd old 207. Poetic justice.

[nismo48]

Had quite a few cars and in general were reliable as A to B hacks..
There are a couple though which were truly awful and never went a week
Without grief..A mimosa yellow Dolomite Sprint with 60k on clock..
Went through clutches and drank water like a Hippo..!
A 1975 Lancia Beta 1600 Coupe(only...! 6yrs old) when bought but just
About all the electrical parts failed or refused to work properly..and lots of Rust..!!

[F i F]

1963 105E Anglia, used to eat starter motor bendixes for breakfast with consequent dire effect on the flywheel ring gear,
Distributor drive broke and piece jammed in the gear on the camshaft stripping some teeth off that,
Continual fuel starvation and crap in the fuel system needing carb strip downs at side of road.
Tin worm got it in the end.

The worst new car ever had was an 89 G Mk2 Cavalier, that committed the ultimate sin of failing to get me to my destination on many occasions in the three years and 120k miles I had it. Although got my own back on Vauxhall as on one occasion we pulled onto the dealer forecourt in front of the showroom late on a Friday evening to see the flashing amber beacons of the AA tow truck illuminating the horrified faces of the staff during a customer evening.
It was a real Friday afternoon car, reckon by the time it went back so many things had been changed on it that it was loosened up and ready for another 120k.

No French stuff so maybe in comparison it's been a reliable history. The Italian stuff has been not bad.

[beatngu]

Not had any unreliable cars that have caused me to breakdown or caused too much hassle, but from the cars that i've owned the Alfa 147 was the most unreliable. All down to the electrics, random bulb warning messages, VDC automatically breaking at speed..(this was extremely intermittent so hard to track down)

I also don't like the fact that the ARB on the Alfa has to be replaces as a whole, you can't just replace the bushes. So quite costly!

Of course the above was magnified by the fact it need most of the front suspension doing so seemed worse then it was.

That said, the 147 is a fantastic car & i loved driving it.

Fiat electrics from what i remember..?

[Maximum bobs]

Edited.. I read the thread title wrong & thought it said "reliable".

Edited by Maximum bobs on Wednesday 7th September 00:32

[Fun Bus]

StottyZr said:

I like how BMW hasn't been mentioned yet (just bought one)

As Astra Dan pointed out, BMW has been mentioned twice. Once by me. I've spent nearly £2k in a little over 18 months on non-preventative or routine maintenance - I still need to spend more to get it 100%. Rear-diffs are made of polystyrene by the way - my car has had two within 20k miles.

[jsanford]

1990 VW Corrado G60 has to be the winner for me. My brother also had one and his list is very similar to mine.

Car was seven years old when I bought yet, yet to maintain it for three years cost well over the price of the car:

metal tab in ignition key slot broke, so the key couldn't engage the ignition switch at all
electric radiator fan broke, making extremely amusing noises as it did so
sunroof cables broke
both exterior door handles broke
moving rear spoiler broke
gearshift cables snapped, x2 -- I once drove out of San Francisco to a repair shop stuck in 4th gear.
engine mounts failed (the cause of gearshift cables breaking)
hood release cable snapped
coolant hose shaped like a smoking pipe failed, replacing the coolant hoses was US$700+ in parts alone and a month wait
wiring to the O2 sensor ran next to heat shielding, which wore away the insulation, exposing live 12 volts to ground. This would intermittently short out and stall the car and blow a fuse while driving around.
supercharger needed rebuild at low miles
various interior plastic bits just fell off, the snaps having broken, requiring special orders from germany

My brother's car also had a failure of a rear stub axle, it sheared off and left the wheel, hub, and disc flopping around in the wheel well.

If that's not enough, I couldn't find anyone to buy it even with everything working great. I sold it for something like US$1500 ten years ago, and it was never registered again...

These days the fun car is a Lotus Elise, and while it definitely requires attention to keep it together, it's nowhere near as insane as the Karmann built Corrado. What in the world was VW thinking when they bought Karmann...

[acf8181]

Easily a golf vr6.....you name it, it broke!

Though a brand new punto runs it close as it used to have a gearbox let go about once a year!

[K50 DEL]

I used to run a fleet of 40 or so cars in an old job.
By far the most unreliable were the Renault Lagunas and Espaces that we ran with the 1.9 and 2.2 DCi engines.

The Lagunas used to break down so often (usually with blown turbos) that I had a special deal going with a local mechanic for their replacement.

Everyone working for the company hated them and there were huge sighs of relief all round when I got rid (mostly on e-bay for pennies) and replaced them with the (then) new shape CDTi Astra

[Verde]

Peugeot 505D (I believe). In the U.S. Absolute POS. Couldn't start in the cold, could not make it up a hill if it was any way slippery, interior started to disintegrate promptly after purchase, paint could not be polished and wax would disappear from the finish in mere moments. Engine seemed to lack any amount of 'turbo-ness' creeping up 65 mph hills on the interstate in the right lane with the slow trucks.
I was a fool to buy a French automobile. Even while signing for the car there were voices in my head saying, "No, don't. It's French and all of their cars suck!" I should have listened to um, myself.

[neiljohnson]

Kind of cheating but 2 Escort Rs turbos

Between them over 4 years

15- 16 gearboxes
20+ clutches
4 turbos
2 head gaskets
2 injection metering heads
3 engines + one rebuild
unknown amount of fuel injection relays (cause of engine rebuild & 1 engine replacement)
lots of engine mounts
1 fuel computer
2 amal valves
4 exhausts
lots of welding to holes in sills floors & cross memebers
fuel tank
exhaust manifold gaskets once a month
turbos required restudding every other month
intercooler
charge cooler pump
3 radiators
a few water pumps
2 Wiring looms 1 after a fault that meant you had to remove a sidelight bulb to turn the engine off!!!
3 fan assembleys
2 gear linkages
various hoses for boost & coolant
6 alternators
10+ starter motors
Loads of other stuff


I could go on like this all day but just to add some of it was my fault the gearboxes were 2nd hand & once i bought a proper uprated gearbox & clutch i had no more problems with them just had to have the bulkhead reinforced as the enigine kept ripping itself out the mounts

I loved both cars dearly despite having the bonnets up every day!!

[chrisgtx]

R reg vectra turbo diesel. Utter crap, lots of vacuum sensors that always sent it to limp mode. Hatefull to drive too.

[PumpkinSteve]

MK3 Clio, broke down a few times with electrical faults and was only two years old at the time. Also had a MK5 Golf which did not break down but bits did stop working at an alarming rate after the warranty period was up. I've stuck to mainly Japanese cars ever since.

[toon10]

H Reg Calibra. The only car I've ever owned which actually died rather than me trading it in when I was bored. Had all sorts of issues.

52 plate V6 Mondeo. For a car that wasn't an old shed when I got it, I spent a fortune on sub frame bushes, broken suspention coils, etc.

On the flip side I owned a Honda Accord 2.4 Exec for 4 years without a single thing going wrong. I tell a lie, the bulb under the heated seat buton on the passenger side went. People say that cars with all the toys cost a fortune as there is more to go wrong. Not always the case.

I've not had the BMW long enough to know how reliable it is/will be.

[Negative Creep]

Golf GTI mk2. Handbrake cables, water pump, battery, starter motor, distributor, rust, rear discs, gear linkage, stripped sump thread, 3 idle control valves, speedo cable, engine smoking badly..........i hated that thing with a passion and has put me off VWs for life

[ehonda]

I've obviously led a charmed life.
Mk1 Clio 1.8 RSi, broke down once in 2 years. Melted the distributor cap. I loved that car.
Clio 172 - No problems in 2 years. I loved that car.
Fiat coupe 20v Turbo - no problems in 3 years other than some of the switchgear disappearing inside the dashboard. I really loved that car.
2 x lotus elise - Never an issue, until I had the SC on sale or return with a dealer and it's radiator went. I never saw the car again though so didn't affect me. I loved the mk1 135, but never really gelled with the SC
Disco 1 V8 - Only the drivers door and boot could be opened from the outside, leaked like a sieve when it rained. It cost a fortune in maintenance, but it never let me down. I really, really loved that car.

My Capri 1.6ls and Mk2 1.1 popular plus escort, would have been the most unreliable cars ever if WD40 didn't exist.

[r1ch]

Peugeot 307 hdi. Electrical nightmare, its was slow enough without the limp mode that i was constantly getting. My 25 year old 205 puts the 307 to shame in terms of reliability, but the previous owners didn't look after it.

[StottyZr]

Fun Bus said:

As Astra Dan pointed out, BMW has been mentioned twice. Once by me. I've spent nearly £2k in a little over 18 months on non-preventative or routine maintenance - I still need to spend more to get it 100%. Rear-diffs are made of polystyrene by the way - my car has had two within 20k miles.

I thought the rear diffs were pretty bullet proof? This isn't common is it? Nevermind two

[Fun Bus]

First at around 70k miles. Another fitted which went at 85k miles. The first was the original and I will admit the second was not brand new so I do accept my statement is slightly flawed because of this, and second-hand stuff is always a risk. The car it came off was sound (albeit accident damaged), the diff was confirmed as being sound by the specialist who looks after my car and is the only person I trust with it. But no, that went too.

[5potTurbo]

Not me, but a mate of mine, who bought a brand new C63 AMG earlier this year.

So far he's had:
- new front discs and pads under warranty, since the original pads split into 2 pieces on either side of the disc and ruined the discs too (€7,500 - warranty)
- the garage called him yesterday to tell him they found "some engine faults" in it's 1st full service (I guess it's now about 20,000km "old") and it needs a NEW engine! (I've no idea how much that will cost!)
ETA: Mercedes have confirmed AMG will supply new engine, all in supply & fit under warranty = €40K!

Edited by 5potTurbo on Wednesday 7th September 13:25