I like old fords, can't say I'm big on the new stuff 🤣. The Maverick is a joke, the mach e mustang thing is a joke, the new lightning is a POS. The timberline "off-road" editions are a joke too.
Terrible Cars
- Thread starter HMP
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THIS is a vehicle NOBODY tries to cut off, block merging, or run off the road.
I like it!
This thread has me thinking about making a mechanics PSA thread with the cars to avoid or what to expect from the ones you already have, but dang that would be a long list.
Sounds good, actually.
Maybe it'll spark some threads on general troubleshooting and solutions, too.
Go for it!
Oh, geeze...
The only "bad" thing the Aztek had going for it was its stupid design, and that only from the *ss-end view. For it's time, it at least had comparably decent power and performance, and the interior was pretty good for its time as well. The wheels were a bit small, a product of the frame they decided to build it on (minivan), but given its size it wasn't a killer. Had the back end been styled differently, it wouldn't have had such a sh***y reputation.
I'll stick to just American vehicles here, since foreign vehicles are an entirely different class:
Mustang II. A total embarassment to the namesake. This is the Plan 9 From Outer Space of cars, except the movie was at least so bad it's worth watching simply because it's so bad. The Mustang II was a parental punishment for their piece of s*** kid who wanted a Mustang for their first car.
Pinto. Holy cow, words fail me.
Gremlin. The junkyard couldn't keep up with just the door handles for this car.
Maverick/Comet. JHFC, Ford.
Pacer. Round off the edges of a turd and this is what you get. Kinda like the Gremlin, only uglier.
Chevette. Because Chevrolet just douldn't be left out of the contest for the worst piece of s*** ever produced by an American car company.
Sunbird. Because the Pontiac division of GM couldn't allow Chevrolet to go into this competition uncontested.
Cimarron. Because even Cadillac decided a transvestite verson of the Chevy Cavalier would be a great contestant in the "Let's see how low we can go" competition.
Vega. Style-wise, this car could have definitely made it because it was sharp looking for its time. But GM evidently was handing out cash incentives to their automotive engineers to figure out ways to mass produce the most f***-ups ever in the cheapest way possible while making it look good. Look good, that is, until the metal under the body paint rusted completely away, exposing one of the cr*ppiest engines ever built in a vehicle which literally had problems keeping the wheels from falling off. In fact, the entire front end of the first prototype literally came apart from the rest of the car EIGHT MILES INTO THE GM PROVING GROUND. If people thought the Pinto was dangerous enough, being prone to gas tank fires from rear-end collisions, GM apparently decided to one-up Ford by providing a 2-barrel carburator option that would cause backfires so violent the muffler would split, blowing hot air on the fuel tank, causing it to expand, burst, and ignite. Who needs to be in an actual rear-end collision?
These vehicles are merely samples of an era of American cars which was so bad it has its own name: the Malaise Era. It was an era where America could take the only world class sports car produced in the country (Corvette) and turn it into an underpowered turd bag with a 350 cubic inch engine that produced less horsepower and crappier 0-60 and 1/4 mile times than my old 2005 LeSabre with a 3.8 L engine (183 cubic inches).
It was an era where the answer from every American car company to the energy crisis was "put a POS small engine in every car we make". It was an era where vehicles practically came with pre-rusted body panels. It was an era where the patriotic cry of "Be American, Buy American" was the answer to people people buying more foreign cars because they were sick and tired of buying American cars they had to work on all the time...not "Hey, how about we build some cars that are actually worth a s***?"
It was an era where, year after year Ford would advertise their shoebox shaped pickup as "more aerodynamic than ever", even though you could literally replace any body panel from another Ford truck within a spread of several years of that model because they were virtually identical.
The only reason why trucks didn't have a worse reputation than cars back then was the fact that pickups were primarily viewed as work horses and not the glorified passenger cars many people see them as today. So who cared if they looked like s*** after a couple years of being rained on?
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Oneofsix
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Hahahahaha, I've owned 3 on that list at one time or another.
1975 Gremlin and a 1983 Cavalier for me.
The Cavalier wasn't a "bad" car, but the fact that Cadillac took the same vehicle and called it a Cimarron was an embarassment to what was then a premier luxury car brand name.
Oneofsix
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74 Pinto
85(?) T-1000 (Chevette in Pontiac clothes)
82(?) Mustang ll
That's just the ones on your list - I also had a 70 Opel Kadette, even though it was a s-box, it was fun to drive.
85(?) T-1000 (Chevette in Pontiac clothes)
82(?) Mustang ll
That's just the ones on your list - I also had a 70 Opel Kadette, even though it was a s-box, it was fun to drive.
Chuckman
Senior Member
Noooo!!
The Spider? The X1/9? I love those. Wouldn't want to pay for maintenance, tho.
biganimal
Well-Known Member
Lol!!!
I owned a 73 maverick with a 302 & factory 4 speed. Fast as hell but weak front suspension.
Also a 73 Gremlin with a 304 that would burn the rear tires to the bursting point.
A 74 Pinto with a 302 auto $ factory air. Very dangerous vehicle on wet or snowy roads.
Bought an 82 Pacer for a winter rat with a 258 straight 6 that I rear ended a 83 Monte Carlo at about 75 mph. The Monte rode home on a rollback but the ugly ass Pacer was driven home the next day after replacing the radiator in KFC parking lot.
Yes the mid to late 70’s were terrible when it comes to cars and the 80’s were even worse.
I owned a 73 maverick with a 302 & factory 4 speed. Fast as hell but weak front suspension.
Also a 73 Gremlin with a 304 that would burn the rear tires to the bursting point.
A 74 Pinto with a 302 auto $ factory air. Very dangerous vehicle on wet or snowy roads.
Bought an 82 Pacer for a winter rat with a 258 straight 6 that I rear ended a 83 Monte Carlo at about 75 mph. The Monte rode home on a rollback but the ugly ass Pacer was driven home the next day after replacing the radiator in KFC parking lot.
Yes the mid to late 70’s were terrible when it comes to cars and the 80’s were even worse.
Chuckman
Senior Member
We had a 76 AMC gremlin, canary yellow, manual 3-speed. It was passed down to me, it's what I drove in high school, college, and until...1994 (I think) when I bought a new car. I despised it. rebuilt the carb I don't know how many times. Had to spray ether in to get it to start half the time.
Crazy thing is, I would love to have it now, just to tinker and play.
I'm a d***. I couldn't resist asking this guy "So, when are you going to put the finish coat over the primer?"
Somewhere, buried amongst some old pictures, is a picture of the hood orniment I put on my '75 Gremlin...Spike, from the movie Gremlins.
This is a pic of the same Gremlin I found. I reamed his butt out with a drill and mounted him on my hood using a piece of 1/4" all thread.
20 year Navy veteran, ladies and gentlemen.
Snoopz
Well-Known Member
Friends had these...but
One had a "Hunger Orange" Pinto 302-V8, Tubbed and Auto. Big Fat Tires under it. Street Car that sucker flew.
Another had a Pearl White Vega SB Chevy, Auto, Tubbed and that thing flew
Both of them were all over the road if you "nailed" it, with street tires
Anybody remember Motion Performance Big Block Vega's
-Snoopz
My '75 Gremlin was dirt brown in color. I remember a buddy of my suggesting I paint it to look like a Nike high top sneaker! Would that I was that talented!
There were people who raced Gremlins. Either they put V-8s in them, or they got the Super X, which had the 304 cubc inch V-8 in it. Then AMC realized this engine had the same footprint as their 401 cubic inch V-8, so they made a few with that engine (401-XR). To be sure, there was a Gremlin following, and some people were quite happy to shoehorn V-8s into them on their own.
Motor Trend has an article about the Gremlin titled "Terrible Cars That Weren't Terrible: The AMC Gremlin". I'll put a link at the bottom.
I couldn't help but laugh as I read that article. Sorry Motor Trend...but the Gremlin WAS terrible on many levels! What makes the article funny from the very get-go was its comparison to the Vega and Pinto, and while talking about how AMC kept the price down with things like 4 wheel drum brakes and a three speed transmission with no first gear synchronizer.
They talk about the base 3.3 liter straight six it came with, then went on with a straight face to say "It also offered an optional 3.8-liter six, and drivers found the extra power comforting."
Mine had the 232 straight six (3.8 liter). Quite frankly, I did not call the 18 seconds it took to get up to 55 mph to merge onto the highway/interstate a "comforting" level of "extra power".
Running out of merging room trying to get up to speed so you wouldn't get killed was as exciting as finding out in the rain that you had no brakes until the brake shoes built up enough friction heat to dry the drums out.
And let's not forget that there was a reason everybody knew how to work on cars back then...because you HAD to know how to work on them to keep them running and in one piece. I cleaned out the local junkyards on door handles alone for mine, because the cheap pot metal they made them from was always breaking. I always carried a spare exterior handle for both doors in the car and could change one out in about 10 minutes.
AMC Gremlin: A Terrible Car That Wasn’t Really Terrible
History has been unkind to the AMC Gremlin, but the truth is that the strange-looking subcompact was a great little car for its time. It’s a terrible car that wasn’t actually terrible.
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biganimal
Well-Known Member
Quote
“And let's not forget that there was a reason everybody knew how to work on cars back then...because you HAD to know how to work on them to keep them running and in one piece. I cleaned out the local junkyards on door handles alone for mine, because the cheap pot metal they made them from was always breaking. I always carried a spare exterior handle for both doors in the car and could change one out in about 10 minutes.”
I had similar door handle problems with not one but two Chevrolets. I lived on the shores of Lake Ontario and it got very cold in the winter and the cold played havoc with car doors.
One morning I was headed to work and it was -9*, I grabbed the door handle of my ‘73 Impala to open it. Next thing I know the door is still closed and the damn handle was disconnected from the vehicle and in my hand!
Pissed off but still need to get to work I grabbed the passenger side door handle only to be holding that one too.
Long story short; I went to the wife’s 74 Caprice and proceeded to break the driver side handle off that car too.
I ended up tenting the Caprice and fired up the salamander heater under the tent for half an hour, after which the door on the passenger side thawed enough to open. Off to work I went and was only 2 hours late.
Started parking one car in the garage every night thereafter.
“And let's not forget that there was a reason everybody knew how to work on cars back then...because you HAD to know how to work on them to keep them running and in one piece. I cleaned out the local junkyards on door handles alone for mine, because the cheap pot metal they made them from was always breaking. I always carried a spare exterior handle for both doors in the car and could change one out in about 10 minutes.”
I had similar door handle problems with not one but two Chevrolets. I lived on the shores of Lake Ontario and it got very cold in the winter and the cold played havoc with car doors.
One morning I was headed to work and it was -9*, I grabbed the door handle of my ‘73 Impala to open it. Next thing I know the door is still closed and the damn handle was disconnected from the vehicle and in my hand!
Pissed off but still need to get to work I grabbed the passenger side door handle only to be holding that one too.
Long story short; I went to the wife’s 74 Caprice and proceeded to break the driver side handle off that car too.
I ended up tenting the Caprice and fired up the salamander heater under the tent for half an hour, after which the door on the passenger side thawed enough to open. Off to work I went and was only 2 hours late.
Started parking one car in the garage every night thereafter.
Hey — I had a Vega wagon. — it was slightly special that took a GM insider to approve the build sheet.
it started as a GT and we added the cosworth motor which was only supposed to go in the sedan And the 4 sp trans.
A few days after we got it, the suspension was modified with different A frames, heavy anti roll bars, new springs, adjustable shocks, and wider tires. It was Fun to drive — but not as much fun as our Alfa Romeos.
The 2010(?) Chevy Cruz I bought as a commuter car was the biggest piece of crap I’ve ever owned. By a WIDE margin. After buying this POS new I lost track of all the issues I had with it. Here’s a few that I remember.
Intermittent lose of the power brakes at very low speeds because the vacuum line wasn’t put on completely/correctly. That was a big hit backing out of the driveway in the morning the first couple times it happened. Couple trips to the dealer for this one.
“Car is overheating” warning comes on for no reason and puts that magnificent vehicle into “limp mode”. Thankfully this happened in town, but it did result in lots of foul language out of me driving 5 miles an hour to get home. Magically disappeared the next day when I needed to get it to the shop.
“Car is overheating” warning comes on for an actual reason this time, but that tends to happen when the water pump goes out in a brand-new vehicle. For good measure it decided to dump all the coolant on the pavers in my driveway. Awesome.
..and on and on.
At this point, this thing was breaking down/screwing up so much that it was causing problems at work and I’m on a first name basis with the service guys at the Chevy dealer and asking about their kids’ baseball game. I’m a pretty calm dude but when one of them couldn’t understand why I was frustrated, I kind of lost it. “I’ll tell you why I’m upset. Pull up the entire history on the vehicle since I purchased it here”. He did and I believe (and I may be remembering it incorrectly) there were five pages of records of visits/things that had gone wrong. The look on that guy’s face….
For the grand finale, the POS was dropped off at the shop yet again, so I walked across the street right then (literally) to the Honda dealer and traded it in on a Civic. Was straight up with the guy and said, when I get that &*#@ out of the shop I’ll bring it over and you can have it.
F that car.
Intermittent lose of the power brakes at very low speeds because the vacuum line wasn’t put on completely/correctly. That was a big hit backing out of the driveway in the morning the first couple times it happened. Couple trips to the dealer for this one.
“Car is overheating” warning comes on for no reason and puts that magnificent vehicle into “limp mode”. Thankfully this happened in town, but it did result in lots of foul language out of me driving 5 miles an hour to get home. Magically disappeared the next day when I needed to get it to the shop.
“Car is overheating” warning comes on for an actual reason this time, but that tends to happen when the water pump goes out in a brand-new vehicle. For good measure it decided to dump all the coolant on the pavers in my driveway. Awesome.
..and on and on.
At this point, this thing was breaking down/screwing up so much that it was causing problems at work and I’m on a first name basis with the service guys at the Chevy dealer and asking about their kids’ baseball game. I’m a pretty calm dude but when one of them couldn’t understand why I was frustrated, I kind of lost it. “I’ll tell you why I’m upset. Pull up the entire history on the vehicle since I purchased it here”. He did and I believe (and I may be remembering it incorrectly) there were five pages of records of visits/things that had gone wrong. The look on that guy’s face….
For the grand finale, the POS was dropped off at the shop yet again, so I walked across the street right then (literally) to the Honda dealer and traded it in on a Civic. Was straight up with the guy and said, when I get that &*#@ out of the shop I’ll bring it over and you can have it.
F that car.
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RedneckFur
Smith & Wesson is a religion of peace.
Of all the cars I've owned, none of them have been particularly bad. My 1999 Chevy blazer was the one that needed the most work done to it, but even then, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Alternators, fan motors, wheel bearings. Items that can wear out between 80K and 200K miles. There at the end, the computer for the engine was going bad, the AC was broken again, and the driver's side door was on the verge of falling off, so I traded it in for $1000 bucks. Aside from the computer though, it always ran great. That blazer was the only chevy I've owned. All my others have either been Ford's or Nissan's.
What in the blue blazes is that on the front of the Fiat? Tool trays for Tony to fix it again?
It’s called a wicker bill, and it’s as dumb as it looks. Basically a fake front spoiler for increased downforce.
I spend a lot of time at car shows and races for my work. Show car people put crap on their cars they think makes it look fast, while fast cars only have what they need on them.
The wickerbill is the perfect example of this. Ask a show car guy why he has one, it’s for downforce. Ask any mile racer (highest MPH at the top of a mile) and they’ll tell you that a wickerbill will rip your front fascia off at about 180-185.
F150 Rank
I don't see this happening on that Fiat.
Huh! I like my Fix It Again Tony tool tray explanation better!
Had a 1980 Chevette.
Bought it at an auto auction for $275 with 180k already on it.
I put another 150k at least on that car.
Replaced the floor 3 times as it came with a Flintstone special, clutch, tires, brakes…
Ran decently for the mid 1990’s, was absolute girl repellent.
Bought it at an auto auction for $275 with 180k already on it.
I put another 150k at least on that car.
Replaced the floor 3 times as it came with a Flintstone special, clutch, tires, brakes…
Ran decently for the mid 1990’s, was absolute girl repellent.
Jeep= JUST EMPTY EVERY POCKETTo me, this falls in that "I-own-a-Jeep-so-I-must-buy-EVERYTHING" category.
Sadly, a lot are there. Thankfully there's some folks like Qball, and others, who are not and have theirs just looking right. No stupid crap like a hood scoop that, lets be real, is not functional
