most unreliable car

[falkster]

No I didn't but it felt like it at the time. It had 3 gearbox issues which resulted in full rebuilds and 2 headgaskets.

I both loved and hated that car!!!

Swore i'd never buy another French car - until last week!

[poing]

falkster said:

No I didn't but it felt like it at the time. It had 3 gearbox issues which resulted in full rebuilds and 2 headgaskets.

I both loved and hated that car!!!

Swore i'd never buy another French car - until last week!

Now you see that is unreliable! Unless you were doing a LOT of miles

[Jimbo.]

Maserati 3200GT. By. A. Mile. Assuming if course it could run for a mile without the engine light coming on AGAIN, or the engine going into limp home mode AGAIN, or the fuse for the indicators and electric windows blowing AGAIN, or the central locking going haywire AGAIN. And this is before you factor cost into the equation...

[pits]

edo said:

MGF

I had one of those pull out on me the other day, almost went up the arse of him, then he booted it to try and get away from me registering my displeasure with him and his engine exploded, showering my car in oil and coolant

[kazino]

When I went to buy a TVR, we were meant to test drive three cars, the first caught fire whilst we were driving, the second there was a catastrophic failure of all electronics when we , on the third the engine wouldn't start.
Best way to ruin my dream of TVR ownership

[Kiltox]

Negative Creep said:

Xavier259 said:

IIRC the Renault Laguna MK2 supposed to be pretty unreliable

Don't many traders flat out refuse to take the diesels?

Pre 2005 cars were tremendously unreliable - especially the diesels. Vast improvement for the 2005 facelift - my 07 2.0 petrol was largely hassle free but suspension components still made out of cheese though and it had some pretty damn expensive work done by the dealer at 3 years old and 16500 miles.

[JasonSF]

Golf vr6 for me. It spent half it's life being repaired. Total rubbish.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

This thread proves that they all make duffers occasionally!

[Jasandjules]

nelly1 said:

Jasandjules said:

Well, my old TVR 350i would be less than 10k... And it was certainly the most unreliable car I've ever owned.

Didn't stop you buying another one though, did it?

Of course not!! And another after that too.

That's the draw of TVR.

[bazking69]

Xavier259 said:

IIRC the Renault Laguna MK2 supposed to be pretty unreliable

Thats being quite polite about it too!

From personal experience, I've actually found German cars the most unreliable.

[jamiebae]

If you talk to people in the trade then the cars to avoid are as follows (you may notice a theme here...)
Laguna mk 2
Megane mk 2
Espace mk3
Espace mk 4
Freelander 1
Range Rover P38
Peugeot 307
Citroen C4

All have various assorted faults, usually electrical except the Freelander which has several major mechanical design flaws.

Of course older and poorly maintained exotica will be unreliable but it's hardly the same thing as a Laguna which blows it's ECU and body control unit up because the battery goes flat.

[jonah35]

kazino said:

When I went to buy a TVR, we were meant to test drive three cars, the first caught fire whilst we were driving, the second there was a catastrophic failure of all electronics when we , on the third the engine wouldn't start.
Best way to ruin my dream of TVR ownership

another TVR point here

seems the 3200 maser could be the worst though?

anyone disagree

[benzito]

I've looked through the thread and don't think I've seen alfa's mentioned!?

They are hands-down the most unreliable car for under 10k, the costs for repair will be less than tvr's and massa's, etc though.

I had a 156 a few yrs ago which had countless problems, it is still to-date my favourite car however

[jonah35]

benzito said:

I've looked through the thread and don't think I've seen alfa's mentioned!?

They are hands-down the most unreliable car for under 10k, the costs for repair will be less than tvr's and massa's, etc though.

I had a 156 a few yrs ago which had countless problems, it is still to-date my favourite car however

ahh good point

i remember being in an alfa 166 years ago and the bonnet just started to disappear and then a whole got bigger in the bonnet. pulled over and within about 5 minutes the car was a burnt out shell.

good looking cars, sounded good but you don't see many about nowadays. wonder why1

[johnpeat]

Ah, anecdotal evidence...

My most unreliable car was a Honda - if you'd owned this car, you'd never EVER have had another Honda.

Thing is tho - most people have Hondas and they're fine - and that applies to all the other cars too - sadly...

[johnpeat]

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

This thread proves that they all make duffers occasionally!

What confuses me tho, is that when someone makes a duffer, they always REALLY go to town...

I realise you have to factor in 2 things

1 - some people are pickier than others and will complain about stuff that other people just ignore
2 - once a car has 1 fault, you tend to find others to get fixed at the same time (that you'd have ignored otherwise).

Still tho, it seems that there's going to be a 'friday afternoon' car for everyone - sooner or later!

My Honda didn't piss-about in the faulty stakes.

Alarm - would go-off randomly - including when you were driving it - and yes, it immobilised the car when it did...
Engine - "pinked" constantly - sounded like death if you gave it beans - performance crippled as a result
Brakes - front brakes needed skimming at 8K and replacing at 12K despite those being motorway miles!!
Gearbox - syncho failed on 4th at 18K - rebuilt and was failing AGAIN at 25K when the car was written-off
Rust - on bodywork within 12 months!

So that's electrical, mechanical, braking and bodywork problems and all "non-ignorable" faults - in ONE car.

When they're making cars, do they just cram all their 'blonde moments' into a single end-product?

[theironduke]

kazino said:

When I went to buy a TVR, we were meant to test drive three cars, the first caught fire whilst we were driving, the second there was a catastrophic failure of all electronics when we , on the third the engine wouldn't start.
Best way to ruin my dream of TVR ownership

Pah...when i collected my Chim i took it out for a test drive and then went back to the sellers house with a huge smile...handed him a jiffy bag of notes, jumped in MY TVR and...nothing...ahh the world of heat soak

[kazino]

Will have to own one, one day when I big enough to work on a car properly.

theironduke said:

Pah...when i collected my Chim i took it out for a test drive and then went back to the sellers house with a huge smile...handed him a jiffy bag of notes, jumped in MY TVR and...nothing...ahh the world of heat soak

[MartyPubes]

From personal experience, every Jaguar I've owned has had a host of faults, ranging to the niggly to the catastrophic. I haven't owned one newer than 2001 though, and only two X300 XJs and an XJ40. Might have all been in my head but I never really 'trusted' them.

Based on internet/pub lore it has to be the P38 Range Rover though? Even the biggest Range Rover fans don't seem to try the usual Alfa/Rover/TVR fanboy trick of claiming excellent reliability, and instead admit they're pretty shocking but have other merits.

[varsas]

I think you'd have to go a long way to beat a Triumph Stag. The engine was poorly designed(1), and poorly made(2) from sub-standard parts(3). On top of all that people (and mechanics) didn't know how to look after cars with alloy heads, and the service manual neglected some fairly important information.

(1) There was no header tank, so any leak immediately began to drain the radiator, and cooling system was designed so that the water pump was very high up, so the slightest leak would uncover it. You need a spanner to check the level and even then it's tricky. When it does over heat and the heads warp, the angled head bolts mean you can't remove the heads without first removing the bolts...very tricky when they have corroded into place (which they will because the head bolts are steel and the heads are alloy).

(2) The head gaskets were re-specified by the purchasing department to a much lower quality, cranks were not properly hardened.

(3) It was not uncommon to find brand new engines with the cooling channels full of sand from the casting process.

On top of that you have all the normal 1970's Leyland 'quality' but even by those standards the Stag was terrible. It wasn't uncommon for engines to last less then 2 years when brand new.

I'm sure individual people have had unreliable cars but, but to be fair if it's an older model it may have been mistreated. Surely there has been no other car, mass produced in fairly recent times, with the unreliability of the Stag from new?

Perhaps the NSU Ro80 challenges?

Edited by varsas on Sunday 21st August 18:58