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Worst Cars Of All Time Rated
prostoalex writes "Forbes magazine complains that people nowadays do not have a real understanding of how awful a car can truly be. Hence they compiled a list of the worst cars available in the US, or 'lemons' created after World War 2. In the former Eastern Bloc, there are plenty of other choices, including this Ukrainian jewel, as well as many Soviet cars did not make it to the Forbes article."
I never did have to contend with the broken engine block or engine fires or "secret recalls"* which were common with these same cars, I dumped it 2 years after buying it.
* Secret recall: when the customer brings it in for any other service, sneakily check to see if it needs anything on this list fix and take care of it without ever letting them know you did it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Back when my father was alive, he was a doctor. Our policy in our family was to have two cars: one car that was elegant and classy for going to important meetings / etc, and one car that was completely "ghetto" for the purpose of appearing not-so-well off.
The logical choice for car #2 was The Pinto. It was a clunker. It had such a lack of style that it was actually stylish... well... in its own sort of way.
Why would someone want to masquarade as not being well off? Because it's usually not a good idea to driving through Compton in a Lincoln Continental. Even though at the time we were living in Minnesota, this applied but only to a lesser degree.
So tell me... Is a car jacker more likely to jack a pinto, or jack a Lincoln? Hmmm... Blending in is important sometimes.
So yes... the Pinto. One of the worst cars of all time, but still managed to serve its purpose.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Soviet Cars were like trucks in shape of a sedan, they were made to work several years without failure, what makes than awful to drive.
You mean all the cars of the last 2-3 decades aren't the "worst" autos of all time? I mean hell they don't last more than 8-12 years or so anymore if that. A nice 1974 Chevy 3/4-ton pickup if kept clean (to mitigate fender rot) will outlast any new GM truck hands down. The old adage "they don't make them like they used to" is sure as hell true in my book.
I was working as a contractor, one of the permanent hires was new from college, thought he knew everything, took no advice and asked for none, but sure gave it out. I had a 1986 MR2; this was 1988. He came in one day bursting with ego and pride and told me he had bought a Fiero. I looked at him in amazement ... why did you buy that piece of shit? He was startled, said Isn't that what you have?
Idiot had bought the car strictly based on what he thought I had. No research, no test drive, nothing.
My MR2 now has 330,000 miles and runs like a champ, still shifts at redline like it couldn't be happier.
Infuriate left and right
I drove a Yugo as a delivery guy out of high school for an auto parts place. The owner had bought a fleet of them becuase they were so cheap. Within 3 months every single one had a major failure ( engine blew, tranny seized ) and he junked the entire lot and bought Ford Escorts.
They're intentionally built ugly. Echo, Element, the new VW van, you name it, they're made to appeal to people who want a "quirky" vehicle that will "stand out". These people don't want a generic Bronco-shaped SUV or cab-forward sedan that they can't find in a parking lot. Of course, like many trendy "quirky" things (eg Lisa Loeb's glasses, trucker hats), most other people hate them.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Yeah, I know, for the secret agent in all of us, who can resist...
Trabant: The car that comes with it's own built-in smoke-screen generator!
Pinto: Able to vanish in a ball of fire at a moment's notice
Fiero: Able to spin 180 degrees for those surprise evasion manuevers
Bronco II: Able to roll over and play dead, fooling pursuers!
But who can ever forget the arcane Dodge Dart?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Agreed. Noted automotive journal Forbes? I think not. I'd love to own half the cars on this list! I'd love to have a Citroen SM, a rare example of fine French engineering. The Fiero was marketed as a commuter car because Pontiac wasn't allowed by Chevy to market it as a sports car (at GM that honor goes exclusively to the Corvette). Half their bitching re: the Olds 88 was about the Cadilac V4-6-8, which was never offered on any Olds; the other half was about the Olds diesel, which was offered on more than just the Delta 88. In other words, Forbes doesn't know what they're talking about.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
The RX-2 is a beloved classic and very desireable today. Really, "bad fuel economy and emissions" -- who cares? They were quick stock, and you could port the 1.1l or 1.3l engine yourself to the point where it would make more power than v8's of the day.
As far as being reliable, they were no worse than any other early 70's car.
For one of the older MKI (85-88), expect to pay around $1k for one, unless it's been well taken care of in Cali (ie: no rust, etc..). You will not be disappointed.
Aww.. c'mon whats not to like about the Aztek?
?
looks pretty good by this review.. "Although from the outside, the Aztek looks like an overgrown child's toy, Inside it's very claustrophobic. The driver's seat is fenced in by cup holders, change holders, penholders, and an ashtray the quickly converts into a fifth cup holder should the need arise."
Starsucks
Actually in the JD Power Associates Quality Survey, American made cars largely outdid European cars in quality this year. Lately Europeans cars have tended to be absolute junk.
I had an 86 Fiero and all the problems you described. At the young age of 65,00 miles, the highly touted GM Iron Duke 2.5L engine broke a piston skirt and shelled a piston wall in Eastern Missouri. Amazing that factory a factory air filter would allow the pistons to become so worn that quickly.
All the Big Three cars in the last 20 years I have driven have gone through over 10 engines, many transmissions, drive shafts, axles, etc... Compared that to my foreign made cars, which was a single worn CV joint replacement on a 155,000 mile Honda Accord. One import could have replaced several of my American cars. That could have saved the money over the years to buy a nice house.
Buy American? I don't want to encourage crap like that being exported and giving us a bad name.
Dodge Darts live forever! That was the great thing about them.
And of course, putting a 440 in them made for some insane sleeper cars... See some insane Darts....
The worst thing about them is they wouldn't die, so you'd never have an excuse to get a better looking car.
Fellowship 9/11
Hey, how can you knock the Vega??? Now here is a car that once you dropped a 350ci motor into it the freaking thing wouldn't quit! Yea it would break rear axles every week if you kept putting your foot down, but what a fun car to drive! Junkyards had parts for these things like you would believe... the yard I frequented had a seperate section just for them. We had a blast putting these things together for the dragstrip. Used stopsign channel for the subframes, and once we found out you could put a Monza (remember the Monza??) rear end into the thing (much stronger than the stock Vega rearend) then all bets were off, it was "foot to the pedal time" ALL the time! Sure my fingers were greasy all summer and I spent more time under the hood/under the car than I did driving/racing it, but WOW, what a summer that was! Wish I still had one...
"Trusting every aspect of our lives to a giant computer was the smartest thing we ever did.." Homer Simpson
> I wish they'd stop trying to bring Cryslers
> over to Europe too, it's just embarrassing
> when they sell 3.
in case you're implying that the problem is american design philosophy - it's not the manufacturers, it's mostly the consumers. for some reason, there are some americans who like large, ungainly vehicles with brutish styling and uneccessary horsepower. it only makes sense that local mfgs follow suit.
but there are just as many who buy japanese and european makes.
in europe (as you should know) american manufacturers release completely different models becuase the market is totally different. ever seen a german ford taurus wagon?
if the manufacturer could dictate to the market, then surely (german-owned) chrysler would be more successful with their stock models.
that being said, there are plenty of people in europe who like ungainly, brutish american cars. there is a large, loyal chrysler-jeep following in europe.
Why does Forbes need Ford's permission to run a picture of the Bronco II?
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
But you can do soem hella crazy things with em...
http://www.design1systems.com/
the northstar swap is my favorite...there's a guy around here that owns one and damn is that thing fast as hell...
X-Body cars, the Cimmaron by Caddy was by far the worst transgression were notorious at times.
Ford's Tempo & Topaz also developed bad reputations for oil seals.
Chrysler was just plain bad. Having to use the K-platform under about everything they offered. If anything they were the styling idiots of the 80s. Amazing turn around for that car maker. Still love Iaccoca's introduction of the mini-van where the door handle came off in his hand.
The also missed the Renault Alliance and Hyndai (sp?) Excel ? Their first car was atrocious.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
How could no one mention the TRABANT? My family owned two of these, it was the only car we could get back home without waiting for a decade for a government permit. It was made of cheap carton, really plastic, had 26 horsepower on 2 cylinders, and it totally sounded like a blender in distress. The gear shifter was made of aluminun which wore off every 10000 miles or so, it was a standard replacement like the oil.
:)
There are many Trabant fans in Europe now, some clubs even, which are preserving this true icon of the communism era. I myself have so many memories of this car, including the ones of being made fun of because my father owned one. But it was cheaper than the russian cars (even that is possible) and many times it was more reliable.
Ah, the Trabi
as a European - I pretty much consider all American cars as being pretty amusingly bad.....and those looks, oh my word.
How do you explain the pig-nose on a BMW?
And their website (bmw.com) has goofy, fake drop-down lists and is slow.
Table-ized A.I.
My family were driving across the eastern German border one overcast day, so roads were slippery. The entry to the gate was paved with stone so it was especially slippery.
We were in a Russian made Lada and as we stopped for the gate, a Trabant behind was apparently unable to slow down and slammed into the back of us.
Damage on the Lada amounted to a small 5 inch dent.
The Trabant? The entire front was shattered. The poor woman wasn't able to drive it away.
Don't know how people ever got into those things. As kids, we were able to kick in the sides of an abandoned one with not too much effort.
Yeah I did a report on the Pinto case for my Engineering Ethics class in college. I'd always heard that those things blew up right and left. I looked online and there were all kinds of articles about it. And then I noticed they were all a mass of circular references and they all refered down to the famous Mother Jones article (which my prof had provided) as the sole "real" source. Not one article I found added more evidence than from the "insider" sources Mother Jones supposedly unearthed.
I think I really pissed off the prof when I concluded that Ford may very well have gotten a bad rap for that one. Yeah I found a couple real cases (and the court docs as well) but I'll be damned if I could find any other record of the hundred or thousands of exploding cars that the "advocates" would have us believe. It seems like someone else would have noticed and written it down eventually...
Is GAZ-21 a good car by today's standards ? No. It's an old, old car made in the 60s. But it still was a great car for its time, especially considering the enormous challenge of making any kind of car in the USSR.
>|<*:=
People blame the Pinto, but really they should blame the company.
The 19 year old punk across the street has two of them, both have been stripped down to nothing and built back up.
I have to say I'm hellish impressed with the engineering of them, it's the closest the US has ever come to building a Ferarri - certainly not on looks, but in power and handling. Stock they're less than ideal ecpecially with the 4 banger, but the V6's are pretty nice and the 88 suspension or modded earlier suspension is more than capable. The low polar moment of inertian from a true transverse mounted mid engine placment gives lotus like agility. If you drove one you'd understand.
Plus the engine bay is big enough to drop anything in - Quad 4, Northstar V8, Hemi, even a 454 fits with no modification to the engine bay.
The dash is awful; Like most GM interiors it looks like "Star Wars by Mattel" and frankly I've yet to see any GM dash that didn't look retarded.
The problems with the first batch of Fieros were predictable. The first year of any car usually sucks badly.
The car was killed because by 92, according to Pontiac's develoment schedule it would ourperform a Corvette, and that's not allowed.
They go cheap these days. $300 gets you one you can work on and with not much effort have a daily driver. Really good ones barely get 10X that.
IMO they're one of the neatest cars ever to come out of the US.
Need Mercedes parts ?
This car is on of the great car of all times. Is it a car you can get in and just dive. No, hell no and fuck no. The cam chains need constant attention. You'd better have access to a good Citroen or avaiation mechanic to keep the complex hydraulics in order. And they rust. Badly.
But, if you expend the effort to keep one in good nick you get a comfortable French car with a killer Italian engine and spaceship looks even 30 years later. They still go for big bucks today.
Citroen hydraulics are well understood, just not by very mant people. Like many rare and low production cars this one takes some effort to keep it going but is, if you're a car freak, very much worth it.
The lack of the pre 92 Ford Explod^Hrer on this list with its unfixable front end and flimsy head/gasket problems demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt the writer doesn't have a clue about cars. The SM has no inherent desugn faults, the Explod^Hrer had several. Sheer, dangerous JUNK.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Bet, you haven't heard of this one: :))) ;))))))
:)))
The material of which Trabants are made of contains cotton and other organic stuff. And organic stuff is good when we talk about food, right? Well some owners found that out in the hard way, as their cars were eaten in thier backyards by piggies
Definetly not a car for a country life!
There are even songs written about it
And how would you feel if you were driving BMW, and you got outraced by an Trabant? Seen it wiyh my own eyes, an ordinary awfull looking trabant powered by an Renault 5GTurbo engine!
And Yugo is yet another story. As I live in the country it was (and unfortunelly is) made, I see quite a lot of theese. And you can buy new carburetor for the price of music CD. The bad thing is you probably need a collection to satisfy your needs
Cheers!
HILL
hill@galeb.etf.bg.ac.yu
The fun thing about the Trabant was that the gas tank was under the hood with the engine.
;-)
It didn't have a fuel pump, so the tank had to be on top of the engine
Oh, and the Lada Niva has more ground clearance than a Landrover.
Coming from mid-Europe, I had I chance to familiarize myself with all kinds of cars from both East and West. By far the most honest criteria would be price/performance ratio, considering the expectations! Yugos from Serbia are probably an all-time favorite no matter how you bend the criteria. There are also very useful production anecdotes available (which may be of use to those how favor outsorcing to 3rd world $5/hr typists, point being "nobody can pay me poorly enough to match the lousy work I do...") Leaving that aside, two points have to be made: - many east-european cars were not as disastrous as the "non-aligned" Yugo and their performance was well within the expectations, knowing their pros and cons, and of course considering the price. Lada Niva is a good example of a simple work mule, easily repairable and robust that will do well. Skoda Favorit, was somewhat different: a great story of improvement. On the other hand, there were always Fiats (and many more brands, already listed) that were below any reasonable expectations (see the anectode in the beginning of the Michael Moore's Stupid White Men about the brand new VW Beetle or the (Microsoft-related?) stories on BMW's first iDrives in the 7 series). These days, with customer care programs and selling/marketing tools in place, you have to be especially careful about cars that are advertised as having character and image, which is often a substitute for lack of performance - small Peugeots and Renaults being the big spenders, the way I see it. The German auto club (ADAC) statistics seem to be a pretty good source for car reliability. We may have a new star on the horizon of the worst cars ever, and (my bet) it will be a Renault, with ("closed source") allmighty electronics done the French own way breaking down cars to a halt on every corner.
I can't believe this car didn't make the list. My 1989 had over 500 TSBs, including a design flaw which caused two major engine fires. Many of these cars also had the infamous faulty ignition cylinders. Then there's the infamous transmission. In 1991, the Ford Taurus with the 3.8L V-6 had the most complaints filed with the NHTSA than any other car. Even SHO owners were not immune to poorly designed suspensions and fuel systems, though that engine and transmission were quite reliable considering it's high performance level - but then it was made by Yamaha. Even as late as 2000, there were problems - one friend of mine had to have the entire main wiring harness replaced after a series of malfunctions revealed the car was one of thousands that were miswired.
I remember when Ford used to claim "Quality is Job #1". Good thing they dropped that slogan. I will never never never buy a Ford car, nor any of these jived-up yuppied trucks they sell. Give me a good ol' bare bones Chevy F-1/2/350 anyday.