Worst Cars Of All Time Rated 1017
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."
Personal Experience: Fiero (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Ah, the Pinto. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Soviet Cars (Score:2, Interesting)
Last 2-3 decades (Score:5, Interesting)
MIne :-) (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
I agree.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Shoebox Factor (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ahhhh... (Score:2, Interesting)
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?
Re:results (Score:3, Interesting)
The Mazda RX-2? WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as being reliable, they were no worse than any other early 70's car.
MR2s rule (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Forgot One (Score:4, Interesting)
?
looks pretty good by this review [popealien.com].. "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."
Re:Aren't all American cars in this category? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:My first car was a used 84 fiero (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Ahhhh... (Score:3, Interesting)
And of course, putting a 440 in them made for some insane sleeper cars... See [bigblockdart.com] 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.
Da Vega (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Aren't all American cars in this category? (Score:3, Interesting)
> 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 No Bronco II? (Score:3, Interesting)
Fieros may suck stock.... (Score:2, Interesting)
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...
Others, like any GM X-Body (Citation etc) (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Ah, the Pinto. (Score:2, Interesting)
"These days, everybody's talking about the Hyundai, and the Yugo. Nice cars, if you can afford them, but for those of us whose name isn't 'Rockefeller'...."
Re:Personal Experience: Fiero (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [getrag.de] 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 [v8archie.com]. 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 [maserati-indy.co.uk]. The tranny is near bulletproof if you can get your hands on one.
Speaking of Eastern Europe - the almighty TRABANT (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re:Aren't all American cars in this category? (Score:2, Interesting)
How do you explain the pig-nose on a BMW?
And their website (bmw.com) has goofy, fake drop-down lists and is slow.
Re:Speaking of Eastern Europe - the almighty TRABA (Score:3, Interesting)
We were in a Russian made Lada [autohopper.com] 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.
Re:Personal Experience: Fiero (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The pinto.... (Score:4, Interesting)
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...
GAZ-21 (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:The pinto.... (Score:2, Interesting)
People blame the Pinto, but really they should blame the company.
Fieros (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Citroen Maserati SM (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Trabant & Yugo (Score:1, Interesting)
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
Re:Trabant stories (Score:1, Interesting)
It didn't have a fuel pump, so the tank had to be on top of the engine
Re:MIne :-) (Score:3, Interesting)
I didn't really respect Toyota (after sing a Corolla get accordianed in a low-speed crash) and went with Pontiac
Translated:
I didn't respect toyota when I saw their bottom of the line car get trashed in a low-speed crash, so I went and bought a car made out of plastic and second-rate parts.
I once asked my boss, "If Fieros are such pieces of shit, why don't we get more of them in the shop?" His answer "NOt that many people were stupid enough to buy them."
The jaws of life won't get all the fiberglass shards out of your skull when you get in a low-speed crash. SHoulda bought the 'yota. ;)
Disclaimer: Not only did I used to be a mechanic, I was also a junk-yard parts puller, so as a matter of fact, I did get to see cars covered in blood, and Fieros didn't show up as well as many many many other cars.
Re:Personal Experience: Fiero (Score:3, Interesting)
Makers love those high carbon gripless tires. They get their fuel economy up for the window-sticker on the car, but they don't grip worth a damn.
The Michelins have a little bit thicker sidewall and better materials in the sidewall. You will eventually clip a curb at some point, or brush up against them parking, hit a deep enough pot hole that the strength of this will matter. It's not something most people pay attention to when buying them. I learned this lesson the hard way. Had some excellent gripping Goodyears with sidewalls that couldn't take life on the unmaintained streets of St Louis. The factory installed Firestones didn't fair well at all either, nor did the two I had replaced under warranty at very low miles.
I'm not real thrilled about the high carbon content in most of the new tires. Gets better mileage, but wont grip as good. The converse is, good sticky tires wear quick. If you can push your thumb down full force and leave a print, it's plenty sticky enough to stop you. If you can't, you are taking chances with your life. A set of sticky tires every 40K is cheaper than: #1 Doctors #2 Reconstructive Surgery/Physical Therapy #3 Body Work #4 Increased Insurance Premiums #5 Funeral Services #6 Guilt From Hurting Others.
If you have a truck that has some serious weight in it or a full size van & you really want a good tire, Commercial tire makes excellent tires. They are nearly indestructable, can be retreaded a couple times, come with the best warranty in the business, you can get them grippy or in fuel economy mode, and they have the toughest sidewall I've ever seen in a tire. They pass the perfectly smooth seamless test. (Just run your finger across it.) They also cost twice as much as anything else on the market, but worth it if you drive 80K a year. Almost all of the big fleet transport companies use them on their vans (DHL, Airborne, Fedex, UPS..etc). You pay more up front, but the TCO is lower over the long haul. They ride a bit rough though.
Re:LADA Niva (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, and the Lada Niva has more ground clearance than a Landrover.
Renault? (Score:2, Interesting)
1985-2000 Ford Taurus (Score:2, Interesting)
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.