Cars with inherent faults that stop you buying one....

[buzzer]

I almost bought a BMW Z3M the other day... Found the car I wanted to buy but then did a bit of research on what goes wrong and found that there is an inherent design fault which means the diff mounts are prone to failure... spot welds breaking, boot floor ripping. Yes it can be fixed, but i dint want a car with such a structural defect.. Due to that I decided not to buy a Z3...

So what other cars have such an inherent fault that it put you off buying one?

I don't meant things like Water Pumps on BMW 6 cylinder engines which you can prevent failure with a little preventative maintenance...(Change it at 80K miles!!) I mean faults that are so serious you would not consider buying the car...

[Rawwr]

A lot of people are put off buying any K-Series car due to tales of HGF.

[Marf]

buzzer said:

So what other cars have such an inherent fault that it put you off buying one?

Pulsar GTi-R, inherent weakness in the gearbox casing which results in the input shaft making a surprise appearance out of the side of the 'box when launched in the manner you would want to launch an AWD sports car, above a given power level anyways.

Still, enough to put me off owning one

Edited by Marf on Tuesday 18th May 15:40

[Chris_w666]

Not sure most people that have broken cars post on the internet about them, there are litterally some horror stories about VW Golfs, Porsche Boxsters and 911's, Saabs etc.

But these cars all sell in the 10's or 100's of thousands, and for every broken one on the internet there are 100's of not broken ones being driven by not disgruntled people.

My car has a reputation on a certain web forum for eating clutches, blowing turbos and fouling injectors, the main dealers and my experience tells me these people are in the minority. But when searching on google they will always be near the top.

[buzzer]

Rawwr said:

A lot of people are put off buying any K-Series car due to tales of HGF.

Yup, that's why i bought an Elise with a Toyota engine... and before that a Caterham with a Vauxhall red top engine

[HellDiver]

Alfa 159. Didn't buy one because it was an Alfa, and likely to do a clown-car impression at any time.

[trickywoo]

General engine woes on Porsche 996

[Harry Flashman]

Porsche 996 911 - RMS issues with non-turbo/GT3 models.

BMW E36 M3 - Vanos issues

TVR with speed Six engine - seemingly made of chocolate and oilways designed by a retarded 3 year old.

[S3_Graham]

buzzer said:

Rawwr said:

A lot of people are put off buying any K-Series car due to tales of HGF.

Yup, that's why i bought an Elise with a Toyota engine... and before that a Caterham with a Vauxhall red top engine

ah so you prefer porus head to HGF??

[skyslimit]

An Elise with the K series. It was silly cheap due to the sellers marriage breakdown, and it was a peach.

So I bottled it. So my mate bought it. So it's been fine for the last 20,000 miles of track days and hooning. Arse Arse Arse.

Obviously though, had I bought it, it would have died withing a week.

Thats what I tell myself anyways.

[schmalex]

Modern Alfa's. The front numberplate being set off to one side just looks plain ridiculous imo.

[patmahe]

Why couldn't they have offered this with a normal manual gearbox?

[T350 Al]

Harry Flashman said:

TVR with speed Six engine - seemingly made of chocolate and oilways designed by a retarded 3 year old.

Ten posts in before the S6 came up; surely a new record! Thought it would be at least 3rd!

Flawed early units well deserve the reputation, but despite it's flaws; there's not much better than an S6 at full chat! (Completely unbiased opinion of course! )

[10 Pence Short]

Audi RS6/RS4 suspension issues. The costs associated with sorting that would frighten me a little if you were out of warranty.

[S3_Graham]

double vanos issues on the E36 M3 evo mad me think long and hard, so i trumpted for an S3.

[pat_y]

Cerberas and the rubbish chassis corrosion resistance as standard, the cost of fixing this tends to be quite an eye opener.
Didn't stop me buying one though, damn thing nearly bankrupted me but it was worth it.

[Risotto]

buzzer said:

Rawwr said:

A lot of people are put off buying any K-Series car due to tales of HGF.

Yup, that's why i bought an Elise with a Toyota engine... and before that a Caterham with a Vauxhall red top engine

In my experience, the entire Elise was a design fault, with the exeption of the K-Series engine itself, which behaved perfectly!

At the moment, I've got one car that's infamous for engine problems and another that's known for subframe problems. I've experienced neither.

As someone else said earlier though, since the advent of the internet, anyone with a problem can (and frequently does) post about that problem. The huge majority of owners who never experience the problem keep quiet, so there's tons of anecdotal evidence but all of it is massively skewed!

Edited by Risotto on Tuesday 18th May 16:00

[Harry Flashman]

T350 Al said:

Harry Flashman said:

TVR with speed Six engine - seemingly made of chocolate and oilways designed by a retarded 3 year old.

Ten posts in before the S6 came up; surely a new record! Thought it would be at least 3rd!

Flawed early units well deserve the reputation, but despite it's flaws; there's not much better than an S6 at full chat! (Completely unbiased opinion of course! )

Oh, agreed. But a colleague's 2005 T350C has just grenaded; he has had it for 2 months. I love TVRs. I have owned 2. I will never own a Speed Six engined one.

[buzzer]

S3_Graham said:

buzzer said:

Rawwr said:

A lot of people are put off buying any K-Series car due to tales of HGF.

Yup, that's why i bought an Elise with a Toyota engine... and before that a Caterham with a Vauxhall red top engine

ah so you prefer porus head to HGF??

Ouch! No, I made sure it was the Cosworth cast head!

[Rawwr]

I don't think I'd buy a Zonda because of the price. It's silly little things like that which do it.

Edited by Rawwr on Tuesday 18th May 16:02