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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
In preparation for the likely slashdotting, here are the current results of the poll. Notice the many non-U.S. built vehicles here (you'd think that at least the poster would RTFA, but apparently not).:
Which of these cars do you consider to be the worst?
1975-1980 AMC Pacer
177 votes (11%)
1970-1974 Chevrolet Vega
203 votes (12%)
1970-1972 Citroen SM
28 votes (2%)
1978-1988 Fiat Strada
24 votes (1%)
1983-1989 Ford Bronco II
36 votes (2%)
1957-1959 Ford Edsel
40 votes (2%)
1971-1980 Ford Pinto
233 votes (14%)
1978 Honda Accord hatchback
56 votes (3%)
1971 Mazda RX-2
9 votes (1%)
1979-1984 Oldsmobile Delta 88
30 votes (2%)
1984 Pontiac Fiero
62 votes (4%)
1956-1968 Renault Dauphine
75 votes (5%)
1957-1962 Sachsenring Trabant P50
90 votes (6%)
1981-1991 Yugo GV
567 votes (35%)
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
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
They Are Making Fun Of my dream cars...... :
Mod me down im a newf (wiki)
they never really had problems to really warrant labeling them as 'lemons'
They were just butt ugly.
there are definately other cars out there more fit to recieve "worst car ever"
A SCOda.
Q: What's the difference between a sheep and a Holden?
A: You wouldn't want to be seen getting out of a Holden.
If you are at work, beware of porn ads on the link to the worst slav car. FYI.
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"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
What about the K car? Currently Red Green's car of choice for "case mods".
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
What about the Trabant? With a plastic body, approx 30Hp in a noisy, dirty 2 stroke engine, what's not to love?
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
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.
Pontiac Aztek!
That car is so bad, it must have been hit twice with the ugly stick.
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.
Figures. I have 3 from that list sitting in my front yard. At least I don't have to mow the grass, just move the cars around once a month.
"Derp de derp."
If you like cars, Check out http://cartalk.com/
Cartalk is a *hilarious* and very informational do-it-yourself car-show that broadcasts on some NPR member stations.
Click and Clack are great.
They have all of their past show-recordings in WMA or REAL formats - okay, so that kinda sucks, but otherwise, it's a great show.
I know many people that could care less how good a car looks as long as it gets them where they want to go. Sometimes these cheaper cars are a great value considering how little gas they use.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Where is the Ford Escort? I have personly been in 2 that had the engine catch fire, and have known of two others that caught fire. Meanwhile, the Edsel, quite possibly the ugliest car Ford ever made was a fairly decent car for it's time. As for Pontiac Fiero, I owned one once and had it catch fire while it was parked and being washed in a stall. I had to rewire the /entire/ car. On the other hand it had the best handling of any car I have ever driven.
Those big cars, big engines, sloppy suspension and those looks, oh my word. Hmm, I must catch myself because I do like plenty of yank sports cars. And obviously the Ford GT36 is probably the finest muscle car in the world.
But SUVs, Hummers and those station wagons with wood panels on the side? Oh God, make it stop.
I wish they'd stop trying to bring Cryslers over to Europe too, it's just embarrassing when they sell 3.
Inexplicably, some of these relics still manage to survive.
If you think that's amazing, check this out: the Pinto has its own domain name and cult following.
The coolest voice ever.
Soap box(Milnitsa, ) was a very popular car in the Ukraine, as well as in the rest of the former USSR. Same goes for the rest of the former soviet cars. Of-course the popularity was mostly due to the fact that this car was very cheap and much more accessible than other cars, especially by foreign manufacturers (foreign to the soviet population.) So the soviet cars definetly do not belong on the 'lemon' list, simply because they in fact were really popular among the soviet population.
I am originally from the city where this car was manufactured, the most polluted city in Ukraine, btw.
You can't handle the truth.
I'm thinking about buying a Lada Niva. I've been in love with this car for a few years and now I have the chance, but I'm intrigued by the comment in the article mentioning them as bad cars. I have a few friends who have been owners of this car and, althought not the best car around, they seem to perform really well.
...), 4x4, air conditioning and few gadgets.
The new generation of Nivas comes with a motor that is 1700 cc, inyection motor (I really don't know the correct translation of this spec
Is this car really bad? or is it suffering from bad PR?
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
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 remember my dad got one for my mum when her 15 year old fiat finally gave out, he thought it would be a good deal, (i.e. it was cheap).
:o)
:o)
Well, they got it home and found out one of the tires had a slow puncture...so before we could go out in it for a test drive, that had to be fixed. And that was just the start of it.
Over the next 7 years that car had so much money spent on it just to keep it going through Control Technique (the belgian M.O.T.) that the decision was finally made to get my mum a new car. So my parents went to the V.W. garage and she decided to get a polo, at which point they found out that if they took the LADA to the scrapyard they would give them more money for the car than the V.W. dealership would give as a part-ex. Yes, it was worth more as scrap!
Reminds me of all the old lada jokes we used to gall my dad with,
Q)Why do LADA's have heated rear-windscreens?
A)To keep your hands warm whilst you are pushing it.
I also remember the first aid kit that came with the thing had phials of Ether in it...good thing my mom never crashed!
OTOH, that polo has been going for well over 10 years and shows no sign of dieing yet.
Ah, happy days!
I am NaN
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!"
But the real question is whether it is a car at all. In Hungary, if said, say, that you arrived at a party by car, but in fact travelled in a Trabant, your statement would be considered misleading at best. These things were not really considered cars.
The brother of a friend of mine (yes, this is a friend of a friend story) drove his Trabant from Hungary to Amsterdam in the 1970s, where Trabant's hadn't been seen before. Whenever he returned to his parked vehicle, there was always a small crowd around wanting a closer look and asking if he'd built it himself.
There is a joke (told back in the days when they made Trabants) about some Saudi sheik who'd heard about some car built in one of those northern European germanic countries (Trabant was produced in East Germany) that was so special that it took them years to build one for you (in socialist economies it was typical to wait several years between ordering a car or Trabant and it being available for you to pick up). So this sheik thought that he would order one and had one of his secretaries send away for it. Since he'd paid in real money, the vehicle was shipped immediately. It arrived and the sheik was happily puttering around in a local village when he saw a friend of his and shouted out, "Hey, Abdulla! Look I ordered a car that takes years to make from one of those nortern European countries, and they sent me a paper model that actually runs!"
I won't go into what carrying on a converstation was like in one of those things. I would say that it would be like carrying on a conversation on a lawn mower, but the lawn mower probably has a more powerful engine.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
"Editor's Note: Forbes.com was unable to obtain permission from Ford to use an image of a Bronco II from the 1983-1989 model years. The Bronco above is a 1980."
This is a bigger screwup than this editor's note leads one to believe. The Bronco and Bronco II are two completely different vehicles. The Bronco was based on theu fullsize Ford F-150 pickup, where the Bronco II was based on the compact Ford Ranger pickup. The Bronco was produced before, during, and after the time the Bronco II was produced. The two-door Bronco II was effectively replaced in the early nineties by the Ford Explorer, while the Bronco continued up until about 1997 when it was replaced by the four-door Expedition.
While the Bronco II was prone to rollover, the regular Bronco never had such issues.
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
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.
After a bit of a google found a great page on all time stupid cars
Australia has had it's fair share of lemons like the Holden Camira, Leyland P76 (which at the time, both won Car of the Year)
When I was in Europe, 92-94, the running joke was the Skoda. Yet, in the UK there was an Skoda owners club, that built these cheap cars from Prague into serious rally cars. With little enough down to get a durable car that just needs some love and attention, almost anything is possible. The Chevy Nova taught most of us in Michigan that, back in the 70's
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
The Edsel 1857-59
The Edsel was the ultimate DOA car, but contrary to common opinion, this was more a function of market segmenting and changing tastes than of purely bad styling. And of course it doesn't help that it was ugly. The vertical front grille of the Edsel looked like a big nose that divided the otherwise relatively conventional front of the car, and the front and back styling made even the 350hp V-8 version look slow. By the time Ford decided to restyle the Edsel in 1959, the car's sales had slid off a cliff and that was the end of Edsel.
1989-91 Chrysler TC Masarati
There were a whopping 52 service bulletins (many requiring recalls) for this bastard-child car born of an unfortunate need by Maserati for ready cash and Chrysler's willingness to turn a LeBaron into a Maserati. Not only was a 3.0-liter V-6 a criminal concept for a supposed Italian exotic (putting out a pathetic 141 horsepower), but so was the American sheetmetal. Then there were the many mechanical nightmares from blown clutches and engines to leaking roofs. This car cost double the sticker on the LeBaron and broke twice as often. After all, it was Italian, right?
1959-1969 Chevy Corvair
Sure, the nifty-looking Corvair had some good points. Like a Porsche 911, its engine was air-cooled, and resided in the back, to provide extra rear-wheel traction. Too bad its flat-six engine biased the weight of the early cars so far aftward that the steering became very light at highway speeds; and it sure didn't help that the gas tank was mounted up front, so if you did wreck--Ka Boom! If only the design had been better executed. Bummer. (Watch out, here come the nasty letters from all those Corvair fans!)
1969-77 Ford Maverick
There were four-door Mavericks and two-doors. There was a Mercury version called the Comet. There were vinyl-topped models, too. What they had in common was that they were built on platform designs heavily prone to rust (this was the early days of unit-body cars) and weak-kneed in-line six engines. But the cars were cheap and therefore, popular, especially in the gas-crisis years. Not that we think the Maverick is necessarily as bad as what came afterward--the abysmal Fox-platform Futura/Fairmont, and the Grenada, which was still based on the Maverick platform, and so carried forward all the bad-handling traits and massive rustability to boot.
1980 Chevy Citation
With a 2.8-liter V-6 and front-wheel drive, this was GM's attempt to take on the likes of Honda and Toyota. GM also shared this so-called X-body setup (of the Citation) with Olds (Omega) Buick (Skylark) and Pontiac (Phoenix). The differences were basically in body style, not fundamental mechanics. Naturally, because the cars looked futuristic and because they got decent mileage, the Citation and its brethren were a huge hit (800,000 Citations sold in 1980). But to meet demand GM let quality slip, so problems like faulty brakes and steering plagued Citations and led to a steep drop in quality--and sales.
1986 Cadillac Eldarado
In a desperate attempt to reach a younger demographic, Cadillac revamped its classic Eldorado to look less like a classic Caddy road yacht and more like a two-door version of the ill-conceived four-door Cadillac Cimarron. Demand for the new Caddy fell (big surprise), and only a year after introduction production sank to just under 18,000 units. Did it matter that you could get a V-8 in the Caddy and not in the other GM look-alikes? Nope. It took another 16 years of awful versions (2002 will be the last year of the Eldo) but the decline all started back in 1986.
1982 Renault Fuego
In the early 1980s American Motors Corporation (before it was absorbed by Chrysler) and French-maker Renault teamed up to make some really awful cars but none as bad as the Fuego. Thankfully, the relationship died out--and today AMC no longer exists and Renault hasn't set foot on American shores since. Th
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"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
From very personal experience: the Chevy Chevette (pronounced "shove-it").
I had a 1980, purchased used in 1981. In the five years we had it, it had
1 broken spring
1 (or was it 2) dead starters
1 dead alternator, and
2 (TWO) transmission rebuilds, one of which was paid for by a class-action lawsuit.
Designed cheap (not inexpensive), built cheap, disposable.
mark "will *NEVER* buy another GM product
without a *free* 10 year warranty
on *everything*"
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.
Why is it that computers and other goods get cheaper but car prices continue to rise?
Cheap ass plastic, inferior paint that just barely coats the car.
How come the Japanese cars use better plastic?
Maybe we should export all manufacturing of American cars to India.
Please don't tell me all the R & D justify's the prices.
By the way I drive a Ford Taurus SHO.
...the thieves probably figured (somewhat correctly) that since the other cars were nice, new and expensive they would be harder to break into. Your 1998 shitmobile would, however, be easy to break into and simple to hotwire (no immobilisers etc.).
:o)
Now, if you had blended in and had a nice car, there wouldn't have been so much to mark yours out.
If you got it back, they didn't steal it to sell, they stole it to commit a crime in (joyride or as a gettaway vehicle).
As the parent poster said, it's all about blending in!
I am NaN
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
Reference
The second case, the one in Elkhart Indiana, happened less then 5 miles from where I live. That case is the one that made the pinto famous, and is especially bizarre.
In 1978 U.S. Highway 33 between goshen and Elkhart was 3 lanes - one going each direction, and a center lane that was for passing, turning, or whoever wanted to be in it at the time. Head on collisions happened on occasion, and a project was being weighed by the state on whether or not to widen the road. It was being blocked in part by the railroad company that owned the tracks the road follows, and in part by local businessmen who owned the property on the other side.
So along comes this poor girl, who puts the gas cap on loosly after filling up her Pinto's tank. She then gets on to 33... she sees the cap fall off, and decides to stop and get it. On a road with no shoulder, and no where for following traffic to go except into the aforementioned death-trap of a center lane.
And along comes a van. A van driven by a a doped up moron hit the car. The van had a modified front bumper made from heavy wood. And the gas cap still had not been placed back on to the Pinto.
Boom, no more Pinto.
Fast forward to the state prosecutor filing against Ford, and the highway Department quietly expanding the road while the prosecutor had them distracted. (The road is now 5 lanes, two each direction, and a center lane that occasionally sports a head on collision. It also has rest stops every 150 feet, and signs to point them out).
Yes the car had a flaw, but the case that made it famous is suspicious at best. The blame could easily fall on the girl for stopping. It could fall on the doped up driver of the van. It could be blamed on the highway department. The prosecutor managed to blame it on Ford.
The Trabant has an interesting place in economic history. Once the Berlin Wall fell, economists could examine the books of the Trabant factory. Of course, manufacturing businesses work by taking raw materials and adding labor to produce a finished product, and if the value of the finished project doesn't exceed costs, they lose money. That's not uncommon, but with the Trabant, the value of the car was *less* than the value of the raw steel, glass, plastic, etc. used to make it, not even counting the labor! I love the irony of East Germany disproving Marx's labor theory of value by producing a "value-subtracted" product ....
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
As the ex-owner of a Chevy Vega, I can say with authority that this list is nowhere near complete. The worst car ever built has to be the Porsche 924.
Lack of power was only one of its negative attributes. The body panels over your legs rusted and let in rain water. The exhaust system would shake itself apart. The headpipe, catalytic converter, and resonator all tore themselves apart from vibration. The cast iron exhaust manifold actually split longitudinally from the shaking. The cooling system was designed with the radiator lower than the engine, so it would constantly develop an air bubble and overheat the engine (and eventually crack the engine block). And oh yeah, the driver's door fell off. Literally!
The nickname I gave my Porsche 924 was "two-dollar whore", and it must have liked the name, because it had me calling it constantly.
A man enters an auto parts store and addresses the mechanic:
"I'd like a pair of windshield wipers for my Yugo."
The mechanic looks at him thoughtfully, then says:
"Sure, sounds like a fair trade..."
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
Any list purporting to be the "Worst Cars of All Time" that doesn't include the 1977 Chevrolet Chevette is missing a major example. My friend's father bought one as a commuter car, and it made it 22,000 miles before the floor rusted out beneath his feet at highway speed! (In Houston, so, no, salted roads were not a factor.) Oh, and Chevrolet said "tough" when he complained since it was out of warranty.
A clever person solves a problem, A wise person avoids it. -Einstein
I'm surprised they didn't mention this. For those who don't know (they weren't exceedingly popular), this was Subaru's answer to the mullet-car craze spurred by the Ford Ranchero, GMC Caballero, and Chevy El Camino. Picture a malformed Justy with a pathetic attempt at a truckbed welded on.
Then there was Dodge's entry, the Rampage, sort of a K-Car for Journey fans. But I think the Brat has even that beat.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
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
The same design team must have doen the current crown vic, as Dallas has lost several police officers from rear impact/blow up accidents.
There are a number of recalls... And last I heard Dallas and sereral other cities are suing Ford over this.
In fact the suspension was hydraulic/pneumatic, the hydraulic fluid was oil, not water, and the gas for the pneumatic system was nitrogen, not air.
As someone else pointed out, the picture for the Bronco II slide shows a Full-Size Bronco, which was a completely different vehicle than the Bronco II. This would be like showing a Chevy Caprice in the Chevy Vega slide. How difficult would it be to get permission from someone owning a Bronco II to use a picture of it for the article?
Article claims the Edsel didn't sell because it had too many features and was thus too expensive, and also because it was ugly. The Edsel failed because it was a bad car - major quality problems and prone to catching fire.
Furthermore they claim in a stab at the rotary engine that Diesel engines had problems in early life. What on earth are they talking about? The Diesel engine was invented about a century ago. European cab drivers have been using Diesel engines for decades upon decades ... Trucks, and tanks, and construction machinery, and what else uses them.
I could go on, but I won't. This is a very poorly fact-checked article.
--I am Sun Tzu of the Borg. Resistance is feudal.
Known defects include stalling when making a turn, catching fire, unexpected acceleration, wheels falling off, etc. And Ford doesn't have enough $$$ to pay all the claims, so they try to blow you off. That's why the morale problem at Ford is so well-known.
WARNING: Some people might find the following joke offensive. If you are one of those people, you should stop reading now.
Q: What's the difference between a Mercedes Benz and a Yugo?
A: You couldn't catch Princess Di dead in a Yugo.
Mmmm.. Donuts
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.
With out a doubt, the hands down worst car ever is the Conynero. Just listen to its jingle! Can you name the truck with four wheel drive, Smells like a steak, and seats thirty five? Canyonero! Canyonero! Well, it goes real slow with the hammer down It's the country-fried truck endorsed by a clown Canyonero! Canyonero! Hey, hey! Twelve yards long, two lanes wide, Sixty five tons of American pride! Canyonero! Canyonero! Top of the line in utility sports, Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts! Canyonero! Canyonero! She blinds everybody with her super high beams She's a squirrel-squashin', deer-smackin' drivin' machine Canyonero! Canyonero! Canyonero! Whoa, Canyonero! Whoa!
There are a couple of cars on the list that may deserve to be there but some of the facts have gotten lost in the lawsuits and the press. Edsel has become synonymous with lemon and some of the reasons were detailed. Over time we forget that it was a new line and was sold by dealerships that had been happily selling Packards and Hudsons for years. Those were quality cars that couldn't command the volume of sales to compete. The Edsel was ok but still basically a dressed up Ford and not at all what the newly recruited sales force considered an excellent car. The Olds diesel probably wasn't one of GM's finest efforts but circumstances and overly ambitious PR also share some blame. At about the time it was introduces there was a shortage of diesel fuel and fuel suppliers were literally scraping the bottom of the barrel, or tank, if you prefer, to meet the demand. When that happens you get impurities from the bottom that under normal circumstances would never see the light of day and certainly not the tank of an autombile. The Stanadyne-Roosa Master fuel system tends to be unforgiving of poor fuel, usually costing an entire engine with the failure. Some people got along fine with the GM diesels. They were people accustomed to using diesels and who had a reliable fuel supply to burn in them(farmers, construction firms, etc.) They also knew that in spite of the company claims that the diesel should operate just like a gasser some extra attention was needed if they were to be reliable.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
>|<*:=
I can't believe it, my family had TWO different cars on this list, the Olds Delta 88, and the Fiat Strada. /--\ oh man it was a sight.
The Strada we owned for about a month. A new Fiat dealership started up, my dad got involved with their financing company so he got a deal on a Strada. But the car basically fell apart in less than a month. I remember pulling on the door handle, not realizing the door was locked, and I pulled the handle right off the door. The engine started smoking and blew up within a couple of weeks, it had massive transmission problems, my dad took it back to the dealer and told them to shove it.
My mom owned the Olds, it was an aging rustbucket and had continual problems. The muffler rusted through, we took it to a repair shop and they told us it was a good thing we never took a long trip, because the hot manifold was lying too close to the gas tank, it could have blown up at any moment. The car finally died one day while I was driving it, I was backing out of an angle parking spot and the front suspension caved in, leaving the front wheels both pointing inward about 30 degrees, like this:
Yep, both of those cars were pieces of crap.
Ford Pinto (Score:-1, Flamebait)
Surely anything with Lucas electronics in it should be near the top of the list!
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
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 ?
Q: What is the purpose of the resistors on the rear windscreen of a Yugo?? A: So your hands wont be cold when you push it... Q: What is a Yugo on a mountain??? A: A mirracle !!
Roses are red, violets are blue, most poems rhyme, but this one doesn't...
hehe.
It may get worse than that:
Friend of mine drives around with another friend. He had to stop at an intersection, his friend behind just did not. So they made a crash with a Lada Samara (small 2-door hatchback) in front and a Ford Escort from behind. Guess what? The Lada was not even dented, the Ford was totally ruined in the front, engine damaged - not recoverable.
Lesson learned: Lada may be low tech, but it's durable like the proverbial panzer. Oh and it heats up in less than 5 minutes in even the coldest (-20C) winter we'd ever experienced.
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.
The problems with emissions were understated - at the time of the RX-2, nobody really gave a shit about emissions except some nuts in california. What did the RX-2 in was low-end performance. Rotaries stink for torque in the sub 5k rpm range. Mazda finally introduced turbo on the RX-6 and more popularly on the RX-7. Poor sales killed the 7 in the 90's, but Mazda kept doing research and we have the RX-8 which is a damn fine engine, and clean to boot. The problem is the stigma of needing turbo is hurting sales, and Mazda is still waiting to introduce a RX-8 Twin Turbo.till this summer.
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.