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."

Comments

Personal Experience: Fiero

[ackthpt]

I saw the Pontiac Fiero at an autoshow and immediately fell in love with it. It appeared a sound design with potential. The bitter reality was it was well engineered, then passed through the hands of bean-counters who shopped around GM for cheap parts to build this car with, to keep it under $10K. Result, 2.5l 4cyl with a red-line of 4,500 RPM, spun out easily, parking brake froze on a regular basis (I often drove to work burning the brakes until they freed up) and shifted (4 spd) like a transmission designed by space devils. The last straw was a broken headbolt at 30,025 miles, 25 over warranty. The company response, not to be unexpected, i.e. our cars are only good for warranty mileage, after that they could completely collapse and we don't sweat it. With an engine that redlined at a mere 4,500 RPM, and had a shut off, too boot, a broken headbolt sounded like a defect. That they left it to me to pay for was the height of comtempt for the customer. Not for the product, but for the way the company failed to stand behind it, I could never trust them with my $$,$$$ again. Too bad, I still think the car wasn't really all that bad in concept and could have been saved by a company that didn't run away from their products.

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.

Re:Personal Experience: Fiero

[breon.halling]

This was moderated "Insightful"?!?!?! WTF? Hasn't anyone ever seen this?

Re:Personal Experience: Fiero

[swordboy]

Funny you mention the Fiero... I am a Michigander who happens to live just across the street from Pontiac. I fell in love with the Fiero. However, it wasn't the bean-counters that caused me to fall out of love with the car. It was GM themselves.

Ya see... GM's bread and butter is the Corvette. The Fiero was finally something that could displace the 'vette as the image car. And the big wigs didn't want that to happen. So they crippled the car with mediocre performance by allowing only mediocre parts like those from the Chevette. However, the engineers did get to design the hell out of the car (not that it would ever be used for anything but show purposes) and one day, they had Getrag whip up a transaxle for one of GM's V8s. They put the combo in a late model chassis and quickly took it out to the test track in Milford. If you'll notice, a V8 has no trouble fitting into one of these cars. It was designed that way...

This test car was unstable and ended up killing the test driver. GM used this as an excuse to kill the Fiero program. A few years ago, my brother was working at GM Powertrain Headquarters in Pontiac and stumbled across the old Fiero design studio - it hadn't been touched since they closed the doors more than a decade ago. He said that it was so much like a time machine that he spent the rest of the day in there.

Chrysler ended up buying the transaxle property from Getrag and using it in their Maserati TC. The tranny is near bulletproof if you can get your hands on one.

Re:Personal Experience: Fiero

[El]

The real question is: in which vehicle have more people died from embarrassment while driving? Whether you die in flames, or simply never get a second date because you pick women up in a Yugo, either way, you're pretty much taking your genes out of the gene pool, aren't you?

Ah, the Pinto.

[DarkHelmet]

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.

The Holden

[So Called Expert]

In New Zealand, there was a joke about the Holden that went something like this:

Q: What's the difference between a sheep and a Holden?
A: You wouldn't want to be seen getting out of a Holden.

Avoid if you are at work...

[flogger]

If you are at work, beware of porn ads on the link to the worst slav car. FYI.

Forgot One

[CavyDriver]

Pontiac Aztek!

That car is so bad, it must have been hit twice with the ugly stick.

MIne :-)

[A nonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Russian: LADA

[roman_mir]

another old anecdote:

A soviet drove his Lada(01) to Munich and it broke at some point there. Some Mercedes driver offered his help and used a rope to tie the cars together to pull Lada to the nearest mechanic. On the way a Volvo decided to race the Mercedes, and apparently the Merc. driver forgot about Lada at its back.

Later local newspaper had a headline: Lada participates in a race! A Mercedes and a Volvo were seen to race each other on the autoban, but apparently a Soviet made Lada was seen chasing them from behind and honking the horn, so that the two cars would move aside and let it through.

Yugo joke

[Mr_Icon]

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..."

Re:LADA Niva

[Tandoori Haggis]

These vehicles were great little workhorses. I recall the old ones (they were exported around 1979?)which looked rusty (before they started proofing them against road grit/salt) but had been driven through through forests on rough tracks and were none the worse for it.

Reviews on this vehicle seem to conclude that it is a very capable 4 wheel drive vehicle, provided that you accept its limitations. It was designed for rough unmade roads/ sub-arctic tundra rather than highways/motorways.

I suspect that because they were cheap, they tended to be neglected. Also some folk expect limo ride in a cross country hack - its for getting from A to B.

No, this vehicle is more like a poor mans Land Rover, yet I suspect its may be easier to live with, provided you can get the parts, look after it and use the gears appropriately.

Here are links to reviews on the Lada Niva for you:

http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/motors/cars/lada_niva_1_ 7i /_review/109486/
http://www.ciao.co.uk/Lada_Niva_ _5154699
http://www.carsurvey.org/review_18955.ht ml
http://www.reviewcentre.com/review20585.html
http://www.preloved.co.uk/reviews/review.cfm?produ ctID=132

Sounds like its a hit with reviewers.

Here is the search input string I used:

http://s22.ixquick.com/do/metasearch.pl?cmd=proc es s_search&startat=10&language=english&qid=-1&query= Lada+Niva+Review&cat=web&rl=NONE&lui=engli sh

Good luck and have fun.

Speaking of Eastern Europe - the almighty TRABANT

[uglomera]

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 :)

Poorly written - several grave errors

[PHPhD2B]

The Citroen SM is stated to have "air and water" suspension ... totally incorrect. The SM had "hydro-pneumatic" suspension, which the writer apparently assumed to mean air and water.

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.