Worst riding car you've had/been in?

Worst riding car you've had/been in?

Author
Discussion

BroadsRS6

785 posts

40 months

Sunday 2nd May 2021
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Mini Cooper S on 20 inch alloys. Totally horrific.

993kimbo

2,978 posts

186 months

Sunday 2nd May 2021
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cerb4.5lee said:
I remember having a E92 330d SE(on 17" wheels) years ago as a loan car, and the ride was lovely(soft and compliant) in comparison to the E90 330d M sport(on 18" wheels) I had at the time.
Well there you go.

aaron_2000

5,407 posts

84 months

Sunday 2nd May 2021
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2007 X3 3.0sd M Sport with the factory tow bar. I don’t think it was specced with springs or dampers, just solid metal rods.

cerb4.5lee

30,804 posts

181 months

Sunday 2nd May 2021
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993kimbo said:
cerb4.5lee said:
I remember having a E92 330d SE(on 17" wheels) years ago as a loan car, and the ride was lovely(soft and compliant) in comparison to the E90 330d M sport(on 18" wheels) I had at the time.
Well there you go.
For sure and the smaller the wheels the better in terms of the ride. What I didn't like though with the SE in comparison to the M sport was how much the SE rolled around in the corners. It felt like I was driving a boat with how much roll there was in the corners! You just can't win I reckon.

djohnson

3,435 posts

224 months

Sunday 2nd May 2021
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My wife’s x5m, for an SUV it drives astoundingly well but the ride is as rough as a rough thing.

Syndrome280

276 posts

112 months

Sunday 2nd May 2021
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Golf R Mk7 pre-facelift, specifically with non-DCC suspension and 18" wheels.
I got one on loan for 3 weeks when my Mk3 Leon Cupra ate its engine, which had DCC and while it rode "sporty" it was nothing particularly harsh unless you put it in Cupra mode. The Golf by comparison was comically stiff, when going over a small dip in the road that the Cupra would glide over the Golf let out such a colossal thud I thought something must have broken or buckled.

Just to buck the current trend for this thread the best riding car I have had is an Audi RS6 (4G generation), but it is on the standard RS air suspension not the dynamic coil overs.

mybrainhurts

90,809 posts

256 months

Sunday 2nd May 2021
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Paul671 said:
mybrainhurts said:
My Celica GT4 WRC...she's a bit lot crashy....smile
Modified? Haven't owned a GT4 in about 15 years, but I remember my old ST205 riding like a magic carpet on OEM wheels/suspension/bushes.

After fitting coilovers and various other bits it rode like a shopping trolly down a flight of concrete stairs though.
Yes, that...hehe

davidc1

1,547 posts

163 months

Sunday 2nd May 2021
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2012 clio 200 cup. Pogo down the road. Crazy hard.
Never settled.
The 197 cup i had before it was much better in this regard.
Need to go back to more sidewall in general !

BroadsRS6

785 posts

40 months

Monday 3rd May 2021
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Is suggesting my dad's 1957 BSA 500 Gold Star cheating? Cryste that thing is just about suspension-free!

MC Bodge

21,708 posts

176 months

Monday 3rd May 2021
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It is interesting that, despite the terrible ride, manufacturers produced these cars (the same ones keep being referred to) and people bought them in large numbers.

I wonder what the design brief for the S-line cars is/was? "Just fit large rims and make the suspension low and hard"?

Mars

8,729 posts

215 months

Monday 3rd May 2021
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X5 was incredibly bad. Caterham was significantly better.

Al U

2,313 posts

132 months

Monday 3rd May 2021
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My F30 330D M Sport rides pretty badly, I expected it to be stiff but it's really quite poor over badly rutted roads. This would be fine if there wasn't so much body roll in the corners.

I think if you have to put up with a crap ride but you have a car that corners nice and flat then that's ok, but mine seems to have the draw backs of both with none of the benefits.

Yes it is on run-flats and I have heard the ride improves on non run-flats but the fronts needed doing and I wasn't going to shell out for a full set of 4 non run-flats and be left with 2 run-flats to flog.

Desiderata

2,393 posts

55 months

Monday 3rd May 2021
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Firmest ride- Mini Scamp kit car. It had standard Mini suspension, wheels and tyres, but was less than half the weight of a standard Mini. It just skittered about the road as if the wheels were welded directly onto the body. It only started to feel like it had suspension when it was loaded 4 up with some of my bigger mates.
Worst handling- FSO Polonez1500. Had one as a hire car once for a weekend but refused to drive it after the initial journey. Made alternative arrangements for the rest of the trip and abandoned it.

verssus

55 posts

136 months

Monday 3rd May 2021
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Citroen C2 VTS

cologne2792

2,128 posts

127 months

Monday 3rd May 2021
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MC Bodge said:
It is interesting that, despite the terrible ride, manufacturers produced these cars (the same ones keep being referred to) and people bought them in large numbers.

I wonder what the design brief for the S-line cars is/was? "Just fit large rims and make the suspension low and hard"?
From experience, I assume it was, " It's bad. Let's make it worse "

Boxbrownie

172 posts

116 months

Monday 3rd May 2021
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GT40.......rode worse than our Super Saloon Riley Elf racer smile)

Garvin

5,194 posts

178 months

Monday 3rd May 2021
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My mates Mk3 Ford Cortina GXL - so softly sprung with the lightest of damping resulted in queasy sea-sickness on most journeys!

V8forweekends

2,485 posts

125 months

Monday 3rd May 2021
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2005 Audi A3 Sport. Not even the S-Line.
Short wheelbase, very stiff springing and hugely over damped too. I didn't really notice on the short test drive, more fool me, but the awful awful ride was really wearing. The handing was nothing special (it's basically a Golf after all) so it's not as if I'd sacrificed ride for handling. Audi can make decent riding cars but that A3 wasn't one.

nipsips

1,163 posts

136 months

Monday 3rd May 2021
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I’ve got two cars, a B7 A4 S-Line - and a newish 308 SW diesel.

The two are leagues apart and really highlights how badly the A4 rides, but also how badly the 308 handles.

A compromise between the two would be lovely, however considering the 308 spends its life on the M25/M20 or in London it’s pretty much perfect, and as the A4 is a weekend car I can forgive the harshness.

tberg

579 posts

62 months

Tuesday 4th May 2021
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The worst car I have ever ridden in by far was my friend's Nissan GTR! He asked me to accompany him to look at a couple of De Tomaso Panteras at a dealer about 45 minutes away. (After driving my Pantera, he decided he had to have one). Not only was the GTR's suspension horrible, but the transmission clunked so badly it sounded like it was falling out of the car, and the terrible noise intrusion into the cabin was nearly unbearable. In fact, the ride was so bad that a} I told him I would never sit in that car again, and b) I was so shocked at how bad it was that I started reading car magazine reviews of the GTR from that year (2013) and other years just to see if anyone else had noticed. In nearly every review the terrible ride and the terrible transmission as well as the noise was mentioned, but the reviewers were so enamored with the performance, they just didn't care. What a piece of crap. Nissan out to be embarrassed that they could release a car so unrefined that my 50 year old Pantera feels like a Rolls Royce in comparison. I made my friend drive my 11 year old 185,000 mile Jaguar XKR afterwards and he even commented on how bad the GTR was. Fortunately, he sold it soon afterwards when he received his new C8 Corvette.

GOOD RIDDANCE!!