Worst vehicle you ever owned

[AKRISONER]

This is a funny thread stolen from the bass boat central forums. There’s some great ones from the guys that owned cars in the 70’s and 80’s

90’s fords also seem to be legendary. My family had a 96 explorer that my brother dubbed the 96 exploder 

Bunch of guys talking about gremlins (I mean what do you expect)

my personal one as you all already know is my current 2016 ram eco diesel. What’s yours?

[fisherman7]

1981 Ford Escort. At one point it was leaking every fluid imaginable!

[Dan668]

I know all about those explorers, have an 02 exploder. Between me and the original owner, it must have had every imaginable problem. I thought the 4.6L motors were pretty reliable, but I blew one up. Now the transmission is starting to go.

Looking to grab a new Ram shortly. 

Edited December 29, 2019 by Dan668

[lew]

I've been buying cars & trucks, mostly GM products & mostly new for the past 53 years and have had everything from Corvairs to Rivieras and & pick-ups and can honestly say the only bad one I ever had was a brand new 2018 F150 Lariat with the 5.0 that had to have a new engine installed after only 10,000 miles and then the new engine also turned out to be bad after the 1st day.

Ford wanted to give me another engine but I refused, dumped the truck and bought a new '19 Lariat with the EcoBoost motor.

Cost me a few dollars but my dealership gave me a deal I couldn't refuse and now I'm a happy camper again.

Figure 1 bad vehicle out of many is doing pretty good.

Edited December 29, 2019 by lew

[bigcreekdad]

1974 Audi Fox....horrible car. Back in the carburetor days. In winter, if the wind hit the front of the car in a certain way the carburetor would freeze up and car would stop. If you sat long enough (sometimes an hour) the engine heat would eventually thaw it. Wonderful feeling to be driving home from out of town at night with temps well below freezing and have the car just quit. Happened many times. They never could fix it. Also, a funky transmission.You'd stop at a light and all of a sudden there would be a jolt like someone just rear ended you. You'd look in the mirror and no one behind you. They "fixed" this more than once.

[porkpie]

1987 Chevy Cavalier.  Had all kinds of issues from the electrical to the mechanical and then It started drinking oil.  I used to keep a case of 24 Canadian tire litre bottles of the cheapest kind in the trunk and it got to the point I didn’t even check for oil, just waited for the oil light to come on and stopped at the side of the road to fill it up.  I did a lot of steelhead fishing in that car though, and put many many KM on it.  Still a piece of junk though, despite the fond memories.  Second worst vehicle was an arctic cat ATV.  What a mistake that was!

[Fisherman]

1990 GM 1/2 ton, every 20K needed to replace the front axle seals on the diff, not a quick job. They had to drop the front diff each time.  1994 GM 3/4 with the 6.5 diesel,  7 injector pumps,  oil cooler lines, transfer case seals, rear axle seals, rad hoses that had funky connectors,  clutch that had the dual mass flywheel.  Never another GM product.

[Fisherman]

1 hour ago, porkpie said:

Second worst vehicle was an arctic cat ATV.  What a mistake that was!

Arctic Cat, (now Textron), Polaris and Canned Ham are the three worst when it comes to ATV's.

[Fisherman]

3 hours ago, AKRISONER said:

My personal one as you all already know is my current 2016 ram eco diesel. What’s yours?

Have to ask, what problems are you having with it?  PM me if you want.

[GBW]

I had a brand spanking  new Ford ranger 1996 that had it's starter motor fall out while getting it's 3rd oil change.  Constant clutch problems too that Ford couldn't figure out and it blew a month after the warranty expired...  

[bigugli]

Going back to the 70's Fords were known as "rustbuckets". A well deserved name at the time. You could not find a Ford that did not have rust coming through the paint in less than 2 years. My boss at the WCB bought a big Lincoln only to have a rust patch the size of my fist on the door 6 weeks after purchase. My uncle's Pinto had the floor rust out 3 years after purchase. We put down plywood and tar to keep the water out.

 In more recent years, the Ford Freestar was a lemon. Had 4 transmissions in 8 years. First replacement I paid for. the other two were free replacements when they broke down as there were recalls on them.

Edited December 29, 2019 by bigugli

[bigugli]

Early Volkswagon Rabbits from the 70's also had some serious problems from loss of steering control to exploding gas tanks in collisions.

[Old Man]

1987 Chevy S10 2.8 V6, 5 speed manual. Itwas gutless and got horrible gas milage.

 

[ecmilley]

My most problematic vehicle was a caddy sedan Deville 4100 engines trannys AC lines belt issues car was a complete nugget but it was comfy and also as far as I know the caddy anyone seen on Scugog icefishing followed by my z71 Sierra great riding comfy truck ate front hubs and rear brakes every 6 months  encoder motors every two years front diff actuators regularly

[canoecarrier]

When I was young kid we were driving on the Don Valley in our old ford bronco, when suddenly the rear axle snapped, we all made it out in one piece. Ford escape, pontiac grand am, kia spectra's gas tank dropped while driving out a few months after the tranny went.. Bearings were replaced also on the kia as well as the alternator.  

[grimsbylander]

Ford(s)...I've owned two and both were brutal. Windstar and Exploder. Until I read Lew's post about his F150 I still thought the Ford P/U's and the Mustang were the only two Ford's worth owning. I guess that list can be cut in half lol. I used to laugh every time I drove past the Ford plant in Oakville and saw a couple lights out on the big Windstar sign! I wrote customer service an email to tell them they could have the ones on my instrument panel - they're never off!!

 

[BillM]

Probably my 2003 S10 ZR2 just because of the cab corners and rockers rusting out like crazy.  The 4.3 and 4l60e were just fine.

[DRIFTER_016]

I bought a 1980 Camaro once. Biģest POS I've ever seen. I'm sure the engineers that designed it were retarded monkeys!!! That's the only Chevy I've ever owned and was enough to avoid any and all Chevy's like they are Aids carriers!!!!!!

[floater]

2004 Honda CRV. Every thing that could go wrong did. I will never buy a Honda again because of this Crappy Recreation Vehicle.

[OhioFisherman]

I have only owned 1 brand new vehicle in my entire life, a 1973 Dodge Tradesman van, after 6 months the clutch pedal started started sticking to the floor, the pivot arm had never been greased.

I kept some people working, mostly in auto parts stores, but wrecking yards too if they weren't work fixing.

[Garnet]

I had a S10 with the 2.8 extended cab that was good up to 175k when I started towing a boat with it. Pop goes the weasel and a couple clutches.

The only real dog 2010 Sierra 1500 with 75K started squeaking like a fan belt. had my mechanic look at it first new it was crank near back.

GM insisted was de laminating   cam week tear down was ready on fri. I was sitting with sales when call came. Good news your truck is done bad news its not fixed.

Good news you own it I traded for 2011 that now has 280K.

 

[Moosebunk]

Dodge Shadow. Can't remember the year but just like a Dodge's do, pieces of it fell off until it eventually caught fire on the Queensway during a snowstorm.

[AKRISONER]

Someone somewhere asked about my own problems with my ram and now I can’t find it to reply so here it is

 

1. Brand new 2 months old <1,000km on it it got cold one October morning and I went to put my window down and the frost had caused the window to stick a bit. I didn’t know this until later but attempting to put the windows down when it’s a little frozen up causes the clips to break every single time. Here’s the catch. When you press “up” again it seems to go back to its original position but it doesn’t. So what happens is that if it that’s during the day, once the ice lets go your window falls down to its position on the broken clip. This literally happens to me regularly. My favourite places this has happened is a go train parking lot and downtown Toronto. I park my car and come back to find the windows wide open. It became a tradition for me to get the clips fixed every single time I was bringing my truck in for other warranty crap. 
 

1.A) my cab fills with exhaust if I’m idling and the heat is on. So when I auto start my truck my entire cab is full of exhaust I have to open the doors to let it vent. When I drive not on the highway in the winter I also have to drive with my windows down and turn my heat off everytime I’m  not driving fast enough for the wind to blow the exhaust away from the fan intake. I know I have an exhaust leak somewhere near the fan intake. I took the truck into dodge 3 seperate times under warranty and every single time they told me that “they fixed it” they didn’t do anything at all, I live with it to this day. 

2. 20,000k I’m sitting at a stop light and go to take off and the truck makes a horrible noise and it turned out my turbos couplings had flown off.

3. 30,000km electronic shift control fails
 

4. 35,000 k wouldn’t you know it, the turbo’s couplings fly off again

5. 40,000k mad check engine lights go off, my EGR is totally plugged and needs replacement and the EGR cooler is dumping coolant through my entire exhaust system causing soot to pile up everywhere. Including my intake manifold which also needs replacement. I’m told that I should also do an entire not covered by warranty de-soot of my entire engine that costs $700 I tell them where to shove it and that they can have fun replacing my engine if it blows up.

5. I pull off of the dealership lot hop on the highway and the turbo couplings fly off again but downsview dodge is now closed and I am supposed to be in Georgetown for an event. I limp it to dodge in Georgetown and they say they won’t touch it because another dealership just fixed it. So I call dodge and tell them they have a dead truck sitting at their dealership in Georgetown. They then proceed to tell me to use road side assistance to get it towed back to the dealership at downsview. So I oblige and this is one of my favourite moments of owning this truck. I’m on the phone with road side assistance asking them to tow my truck back to downsview for service because Georgetown won’t work on my under warranty truck. Road side says a) their policy is to only tow to the nearest dealership but after explaining the situation b) roadside will not tow my truck from a parking lot due to the chance of them damaging other cars. I legitimately said on the phone “no problem I’m about to put my truck into neutral and push it out into the middle of highway 7 and leave it there for you to pick up” they decided that wasn’t a great idea and got in touch with downsview who I guess somehow arranged for a tow truck. But they also fail at that because the tow comes and says that they didn’t realize the truck was 4x4 and they said they couldn’t tow it. I told them to feel free to break my truck and that downsview dodge would fix it. I think they sorted it amongst themselves.

6. 95,000km An injection system sensor fails they replace it and attempt to tell me to spend $800 doing a fuel filter replacement and oil change. The fuel filter I had just replaced <10,000km before but they didn’t know that. I tell them to replace the sensor and that I will do the half an hour Labour and buy the $120 worth of parts myself.

7. A “service electronic shift control” warning randomly appears every few months and puts my truck into limp mode. But then randomly if I get home and let the truck sit and then turn it on again it’s mysteriously gone every single time.

8. From new my 4x4 doesn’t disengage. When I put it in 4x4 and then shut it off it basically randomly decides when the 4 wheel lock will release. Sometimes it’s Instantly, sometimes it’s a couple of minutes later sometimes it takes me putting the truck into park and turning on 4x4 over and over in neutral until it releases.

9. From new, When it’s really hot outside my rear window over the box will open but it won’t close until it’s cooled off. Luckily I don’t worry much about security with this one cause If you can crawl through that little hatch window more power to you lol.

10. The eco diesel law suit. Turns out my truck doesn’t get the advertised mileage that it claims, it also required a total reflash of the Ecu to meet admissions standards because they also made a cheating system like VW. Since the reflash my truck now gets worse mileage and has less tourque. (It was gutless to begin with but I knew that buying a small diesel)

the Americans settled the law suit and got paid 3,000us plus had their warranty’s extended out to 120,000k as part of the class action settlement. This doesn’t apply in canada so what dodge did was use the reflash from the states and sneak it through the canadian system via a “recall” 

here’s the kicker the GM then tried to push through that if you had the “recall” completed (they never asked me to do it they just did it when they were fixing one of my other problems) that you were no longer a valid member of the class action suit because your truck had been “fixed” the lawyers responsible for the class action quickly had the courts toss that out. So here was GM who had just lost a class action suit in the states trying to screw every eco diesel owner in canada through the courts as well!

11. since new my truck has been eating coolant slowly. I have told the dealership in Brampton Georgetown and Toronto multiple times and had them check it under warranty every time and they couldn’t seem to find the problem. It’s still a problem but no one ever could figure out why.

12. from 2 years old rust is forming underneath both back doors as well as on the hood. The paint just cracked?? I regularly wash my truck thoroughly by hand any time it gets salt on it

13. 100,000km Two exhaust bolts broke off and I lost the gasket on the highway somewhere. Had to have a new gasket and exhaust bolts installed.

there might be more problems with this piece of junk joke of a truck/ but I can’t think of all of the annoyances from new that this truck has brought me. All I will say is never ever ever again. It’s a total bloody joke that in 2016 a truck company could honestly put out such a piece of trash and think that they could get away with it.

Edited December 30, 2019 by AKRISONER

[dave524]

'79 GMC  3/4 ton van with 350  4 barrel quadrajet. Paint was crap, dealer repainted the roof within a year, I got the whole thing repainted before I moved to Grimsby  in '84,  shortly after I moved the cam went, not cheap, lower body started  going and more engine trouble before I dumped it for a Chevy pickup in '88 with a 4.3 which was a solid engine.  Guy who bought it , torn the engine down and found a push rod though a rocker arm. Mostly drove GMC and the rest were solid performers

[Canuck]

BMW X5.  Was the most I will ever pay for a vehicle and was the worst by far.  It was in for repair at least 6 times a year.  Engine work, transmissions, air bag suspension, electronics, radiator cracking, hoses failing, auto mirrors, water leaks, oil leaks, current drains, interior parts falling off/warping, gremlin that turned on the interior lights and door alarm on damp days like the door was opened, even while driving.  The list goes on.  I was too stupid to sell it when the warranty ended, but that didn't last long.  On its last trip to the dealer to replace a $400 coolant overflow they  gave me a list of service items that totaled over $9,000 (not a typo).  Basically most of the seals in the engine and tranny, suspension bushings and a bunch of other stuff.  That is for a 7 year old vehicle. Too late I said, its sold! (to a guy that shipped it to Beirut).  Leason learned.