What's your worst vehicle ownership experience?

[CarBob08]

Most people have had that one vehicle that was just horrendous and needed crazy amounts of repairs, here is my story. What is yours?

Worst car ever! 2018 Subaru Outback
The car had nearly 25 defects in the time I owned it. But worse than having defects was having dealers and manufacturers treat me so horrible when I was trying to get the car fixed. I would bring the car in with a number of problems only to have them say "Subarus don't do that", then I show them the defect and they still make up excuses, "you must be driving it wrong". This happened at more than one dealer and is definitely a behavior they must be taught. I filed for lemon law buyback after 4 repair attempts on coolant loss and transmission disengagement. Of course they refused to even entertain the thought that one of their cars could have a defect. I have being dealing with lawyers to get resolution, but that will probably take years.
So don't fall for their advertising and best to just stay away from the brand. They really don't offer anything special that you can't get in another manufacturer anyway.

[NYC-SE]

2010 VW Golf. Hands down worst car related experience of my life. And it wasn't anything compared to other VW horror stories I have heard about. I will never buy another VW.

[kimona]

1987 Nissan Stanza GXE. Bought this car new. Absolute LEMON. Everything went wrong with it. Dealer experience was a bloody nightmare! Sold it with only 10K kilometers on the clock and lost about $7000. Bummer.

I actually test drove a Nissan Rogue Sport about 2 years ago and although I liked it, I just couldn't imagine buying another Nissan...ever.

[zoidberg444]

My first car that i owned. It was a 2001 Fiat Punto 1.2L 3 door hatchback with 58,000 miles on the clock. I was a bit of a n00b back then with cars and i needed a car to get to work and didn't have much money. I thought it would be a decent little runner for a few years with mileage like that and the car was pretty clean both inside and outside.

How wrong was i. It was going wrong within the first month of owning it. The windscreen wiper linkage failed. It did when we had awful rain. So driving back in the dark with torrential rain was a fun experience. I got that fixed cheap by the seller in "good faith". Then a few months after that it had starting problems, putting a new battery in it seemed to improve it. Did it a few times from then on intermittently though. I seem to remember the check engine light coming on but i never got round to getting the code read. It still drove. I seem to remember having to have the coil replaced. Then it was ok for a little while. Then i was having terrible stuttering while braking. I think the ABS was engaging. I took it to a garage and had a service and a bunch of work done on it. They actually managed to fix the braking issue. Although i was advised it looked like my head gasket was failing and there was oil running out from between the head and the block.

Then i think i had starting problems with it again and it ended up needing a new coil. Then it behaved for a few months. Then it became virtually useless. It would just refuse to start. Sometimes i managed to just about get it going and it really did feel like there would have been no chance if i hadn't got it going that time. I think in the space of a few months it went in several times to have bits replaced (coil pack, O2 sensors). It was misfiring. I think i had the crankshaft sensor replaced. I had the AA out 7 or 8 times in the space of a month. Every time it was setting codes for the coil packs and they kept replacing it. One time i had to get towed home, the AA bloke couldn't do anything to get it running except on starting fluid and the next morning at the garage it started up fine. It even went to the Fiat dealership who said they didn't know. I was told they could do any number of things to it which totalled to several thousand pounds and there was no guarantee it would fix it. So i scrapped that piece of shit at 70,000 miles. I had it 14 months and did 12,000 miserable miles in that turd. God knows what it cost me in that time.

That was the end. Someone my mum knew inherited a car from a relative and sold me her Yaris which has never left me walking even if i have had to take it in for the odd repair over the years (waterpump/exhaust/alternator). Been driving that ever since. Not long after i brought it i drove it up to Northumberland and was up there for a week and then that summer i went down to Cornwall in it for 2 weeks and both times i was bricking it a bit because my Fiat wouldn't have made it even an hour up the road. Took me a while to trust cars again.

They say FIAT stands for fix it again tomorrow. I would say that's accurate.

I have no intention of driving anything except 90's/00's Toyotas/Hondas for the rest of my life.

[suprf1y]

1984 Rabbit diesel.

In 21 years of commuting it was the only car ever to strand me, and it did it 6 times. It actually broke down on me 4 times on one vacation trip in Northern Ontario.

I since and before have owned several other VW's that were very good cars.

I was in the rally scene here in Ontario for a number of years, where there are a lot of Subaru's, and saw first hand how bad they are.

[Whiplash]

95 Eagle Talon TSi AWD.
I took really good care of the car, proper maintenance while I owned it. But as soon as 1 thing was fixed, something else broke. In the cars defense, I don't know everything the previous owners did with it, but when I had it inspected it looked good... The car was great when it was working properly.

[suprf1y]

They were really easy to make fast, and even easier to make unreliable.

[Leegamer]

All my cars have been pretty reliable. Knock on wood.

[KALISPEL II]

Everything that I drove before my Yaris was either a Honda or Acura. None of them were duds, but my first Acura Integra (a manual white special edition trim, with the white alloys) acted weird a few times & the engine just turned itself off (lost all power) while I was driving. Pretty scary the first time that it happened & I was going over 55 mph during the night at the time. Once I came to a stop on side of road, it restarted up just fine. It only happened randomly a few times over the 2-3 years that I had it, & the dealership never could pinpoint what was causing it. Weird stuff. My manual 2000 Honda Accord EX sedan gave me the most problems during ownership, but that was because I kept it for 15 years & put 200K miles on it, & any problems started after around the 10 year, 140-150K mark. It just aged out, more or less.

Yes, I'm back! :eek: Lost access to my old Yarisworld account somehow. It is tied to an old email that I don't use any more, & I lost my stored password when I upgraded my PC & reinstalled Windows 10. All my passwords are normally stored in my KeePass password manager - but not my Yarisworld one apparently, lol. Whoops!

[justanotherdrunk]

Yes, I'm back! :eek:


glad youre back

[zoidberg444]

Everything that I drove before my Yaris was either a Honda or Acura. None of them were duds, but my first Acura Integra (a manual white special edition trim, with the white alloys) acted weird a few times & the engine just turned itself off (lost all power) while I was driving. Pretty scary the first time that it happened & I was going over 55 mph during the night at the time. Once I came to a stop on side of road, it restarted up just fine. It only happened randomly a few times over the 2-3 years that I had it, & the dealership never could pinpoint what was causing it. Weird stuff.

I seem to remember hearing Civics/Integras of that vintage had a main power relay which would go wonky. Not good.


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[bronsin]

I bought a 1969 VW Bus when it was11 years old with a blown engine, thinking to rebuild it. I had it towed 20 miles to a house I was renting. Then I found the engine mounts on the frame were rusted out beyond repair. :cry:

The Bus sat in a garage until I was laid off suddenly. I had to pay to have it towed away at a time I could scarcely afford it. :cry::cry:

[kevinj93]

Holden (Chevrolet in other countries) Captiva Diesel.

Seemed like every time it went in for normal service, more things were found that needed replacing. The story would than be "That part is not available separately, you need to replace the whole assembly". We very rarely got a service under $2000.

There was a problem supposedly with the Body Control module. The wipers would start on their own, and you could not stop them. or they would not work when it was raining.

Finally got rid of when my wife declared "I'm sick of this. I want a Toyota Camry." We now have a Toyota Aurion (V6 Camry elsewhere) and a Yaris.

[IllusionX]

Drove a Lincoln Navigator 2012. That thing is absolute nightmare. Things that broke include the electric foot step, rear wiper, air suspension pump..

Then a 2006 Smart ForTow CDi. AC kept leaking. It was impossible to find where it leaked. Then went beyond 100,000km and started having issues with ABS/speed sensor and ESP.

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[myfirstyota]

I had an '84 2 door dodge aries back in tha day. Cool lil car that got a lot of looks believe it or not.

Would only run on petro canada gas. Any other brand and it would die after 1/4 tank and not start for 1-3 days....yea i dont get it either.

After 30 min of driving in the rain on the hiway, it would loose so much power you would be flooring it to do 80km/h. Totally lost on that one too.

Clearly it had fuel issues. I don't miss carburetors.

[rikkki]

I think, the worst was KIA Ceed , dont know why.
I got it at a very reasonable price, but many times I regretted about my “luck”

[aimeusdietger]

Volkswagen Golf 2008...i had to get a new engine after (https://allinclusivepackageholidaystokenya.co.uk/tour/3-day-masai-mara-safari-from-nairobi/) a while (https://allinclusivepackageholidaystokenya.co.uk/tour/4-day-masai-mara-safari-from-nairobi/), kept breaking down, i even repainted the whole car at some point,,yeah,,and did some window works too.

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[CB900F2]

2001 Honda Accord V6 .. Had the notorious bad transmission .. Went through 3 transmissions under warranty.. Sold t and bought my 2008 yaris ..

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[bradbowl]

My first car was a 1987 Ford Thunderbird (which of course I had painted sparkly blue). That thing left me stranded all over northern CA. We eventually found out it was a "control module." It also had a bad catalytic converter and my dad had to drive down the interstate 80 miles to come pick me up at some small town rando gas station and drive the thing home terrible exhaust fumes.

But the worst experience was a 2015 Kia Optima SX-L (the top trim) that my parents bought brand new. Around the two year mark, the thing would not start at random. People on the forums complained of the same experience but the dealership would not fix the issue since it never broke during their quick test drive. And then the e-brake would engage randomly as well, further stranding us. Even worse, the years immediately before 2015 had to be recalled due to having stray metal bits in the engine causing catastrophic engine failure (which Kia denied for many years). Ended up trading it in for a Honda CR-V.

[tinabee1967]

2004 5 speed Honda Civic. I wanted to love it, but it had a fugly interior and needed suspension mods badly. It was the equivalent of having a good looking boyfriend with no brains. I did not like the gearbox shifting experience. AND it had the beginnings of the infamous input shaft bearing noise. Got rid of it within a year.

[CB900F2]

2002 Honda Accord V6 ..... Had the "will fail" automatic transmission due to clutch pack material blocking all internal filters... went through three transmissions under extended warranty, and the last one was it... traded it in for my 2008 Yaris(new) , and the Yaris still running like a champ and looking like new with 220,000km

[justanotherdrunk]

the Yaris still running like a champ and looking like new with 220,000km

thats 136K miles !!!

nice

:w00t:

[BIGTAZ351]

Probably the WORST vehicle I have ever owned as far as reliability...1983 AMC Concord Wagon...It had ICE COLD A/C though...but the car that is a death trap in the winter even with Altimax Arctic Snow Tires... 2002 Ford Focus Wagon...40mph and a dusting of snow, and the car's rearend is swaying back and forth like a tail on a goldfish! Either one of my Yari, same tires, 55mph like "What Snow?" Everyone I talk to had same issue with those Foci.