Worst car you have ever owned and why.

[mick taylor]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

My VS Caprice is pretty crapola, doesn't handle, stop or steer overly well in comparison to more modern cars.

I cooked the rear brakes beating on it going up the local mountain range once, got up the mountain fine, coming back down required new underwear for myself and a couple other people in the town on the way down I blew through without brakes

When I eventually managed to pull it up, I got out and the rear rotors were blue with smoke coming off them.

It doesn't crash real well either, its something I'm pretty aware of when I'm driving it, before I blew the auto anyway lol.

Aussie car brakes up to VT/AUII were like opening the door and jamming a piece of wood against the road to pull up the car.

You can change all that easy bro.
Put some better brake pads in it for a start and you will never get brake fade.

The IRS need good shocks or they become total spastic due to the angles and toe in and out that can be displayed by such a 3rd rate IRS setup. Holden did not get their act together until the VX IRS to control the spastic angles displayed.

A VS can be made to handle very well and you do not have to lower it to the ground at all, that's for kids in the city's.

If you love to drive fast a strut brace works wonders in high speed steering control on crap roads esp.

So many people bag some cars as bad handling but it's only because they know nothing, even a HQ Holden can be made to handle very well.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by mick taylor

You can change all that easy bro.
Put some better brake pads in it for a start and you will never get brake fade.

The IRS need good shocks or they become total spastic due to the angles and toe in and out that can be displayed by such a 3rd rate IRS setup. Holden did not get their act together until the VX IRS to control the spastic angles displayed.

A VS can be made to handle very well and you do not have to lower it to the ground at all, that's for kids in the city's.

If you love to drive fast a strut brace works wonders in high speed steering control on crap roads esp.

So many people bag some cars as bad handling but it's only because they know nothing, even a HQ Holden can be made to handle very well.

It's got DBA T2 rotors and Remsa ceramic pads in it, but the suspension setup is all Pedders throughout, there's no VR/VS Commodore that doesn't have the Pedders works

It's lowered but only by about 20mm.

VT front brake upgrade is on the cards eventually, it's cost effective and is a big step up from the crap VN-VS setup.

Rear upgrade is a pain in the *** as the hand brake setup is different.

[mick taylor]

Originally Posted by Dr Terry

VR & VS Acclaims had IRS as standard, they didn't have a 'diff housing' as such.

The early Holden IRS was of Opel design & were fine if you drive like a pensioner, but if you made use of the V6 torque, they toed in & wore out the tyres on the inner edges at an alarming rate.

Stories of wearing out rear tyres inside 5k or 10k were commonplace.

Dr Terry

Now the real reason for such with rear tyre wearing out like that has to be to do with crap shock absorbers or they carry a lot of weight about.
With crap shocks they tend to move up and down more so and when going down they also scrub the inside out due to that they toe out as well when doing so, this gives the inside tyre a hard time.

I drove a VP IRS was my first time experience with them, I was shocked at how had they were, the shocks were buggered as well, 1st round about she toped out hard and then bottomed out all in a spastic mode, I pointed out to a mate that they were total s$6* He still does not believe me claiming IRS is the ducks nuts. I said why don't they use the IRS in Bathurst then ?

I drove out to Charleville from Brisbane in the Wife's live axel VS sedan and when I came back I said that the roads were spot on, you can sit back cruse 160 KM/H easy as and he went into a fit of rage claiming otherwise. That VS had Pedders white shocks magic for ride quality they were, you do not need IRS to get a good ride quality. IRS helps with rid quality but not always in handling.
My 1st big surprise with IRS was driving a VT SS flat out through a bend at 160 KM/H say and the bastard IRS did a C act because of the excessive toe out of them rubbish IRS I had to make a quick action at the wheel to correct that nonsense. a average driver at the wheel could of easy of lost it. IRS can be that dangerous. Even my VY SS ute you had to be on guard for such displays but it was not as bad as them earlier IRS were.
You always need good shocks or the IRS can become a handful.

[oldel]

Has to be my BA falcon ute. I saw a scathing review recently that almost sums it up. Not sure if it mentions blocking cats, exploded Ion/BTR planetaries in the trans, rusting fuel rails/clogged FPR with that dumb screen, window regs dying, the back under bonnet not painted so I can see it surface rust will driving, or peeling shockwave (I'd forgive everything if I wasn't left with a rusting car with a peeling paint job when it was 6 years old!).
At least being a ute I didn't have to put up the rear subframe, IRS and diff mount bushes

Not my words except for the end where they say not to buy a falcon I just changed it to b series falcon, though BF are probably better than BAs I haven't been interested enough to spend money to find that out ;-)

Australian culture dictates that you need to be either a Ford or a Holden fan. It also dictates that you need to be an overweight slob, living in the suburbs and routinely beat your wife. We have built a culture that we are proud of and no one knows why. Drinking beer out of cans, putting sofas on the front porch and doing burnouts in the driveway. As much as the patriotic suburban pie eating slob feels he is backing the Australian economy (assuming he even knows what that word means) the fact still remains that in the global car market both Holden and Ford are not really contenders.

Unfortunately both manufactures have produced some average vehicles over the years, granted that the Europeans and the Asians have also produced some pure filth when it comes to cars, the Ford BA Falcon is a very ordinary car.

Starting at the rear of the car. The spare wheel well, if its not full of rust by now you’re doing well. The spare wheel “hold down strap” is a stupid design that nearly always gets lost. Almost every BA or BF Falcon is missing the strap. The common Ford diff bushes problem started with these cars and the hand brake mechanism is just stupid.

Moving forward, commonly known for transmission faults. Engine mounts splitting and power steering problems. The calibre of the manufacturer is so magnificent that the common fault of a shudder through the steering at low speeds was diagnosed as “characteristic of the car” and not a hydraulic system full of air.

The BA was so superb that the push rod in the brake booster was commonly known to hold the brake master cylinder on. This gave you the results of driving with one foot on the brake all the time. The brakes cooked, the rotors warped and the steering wheel shuddered.

Ford Falcon Common problems.In similar fashion to the early model Territories these cars are made of Duplo. Everything plastic inside the car is known to break. Bonnet release cables, inner door handles and the centre console crumble in your hand the third time you use them. The seat rails break, ignition coils fail and the TPS sensor is known for behaving like a fat kid in a public swimming pool.

Engine wise these cars are not too bad. They are the same engine being used since Longshanks took one on his crusades. They are known for leaking inlet manifold gasket and timing chain tensioner leaks.

Add a whole new level of rubbish, they released a turbo charged XR6 model. Enter every young bloke who ever thought of touching himself whilst his parents went out to dinner.

The XR6 Turbo is a poor excuse for a performance car. Yes massive power can be pumped through the robust engine, but slam all that through a sluggish, troublesome automatic transmission, then hit your old man up for money to replace it because it died whilst you were “just driving normally”.

But die hard keyboard warriors will argue the fact, “my XR6 does this or that, this much down the quarter mile, blah blah blah”. Face it kiddos you bought a four door taxi so you could pick up multiple women of questionable morals outside Mona Vale Hotel on a Thursday night. It doesn’t go around corners well, when you come to a grinding halt the whole car shakes more than Michael J Fox and near falls to pieces and uses more fuel than a Boeing 747.

The XR6 is about as high performance as Syphillis is sexually arousing.

The long and the sort of it is, don’t buy a B series Ford Falcon.

[Crazy Dazz]

I think worst has to be related to cost, expectation, and specifics.

One of the roughest cars I've ever owned was a dirt-cheap Cortina I bought as a run-around, for when I left the family car with her indoors. It was as rough as guts.
But I paid $250, and once I replaced the starter it was 100% reliable, and I ended up selling it for $500, so win-win.

The Worst, in terms of the let-down factor, was my EB series 1, with the POS 3.9 engine. It's hard to believe that anybody could turn out an engine that bad. And those 1st gen 4spd autos had there own share of problems.

But overall the worst would have to be the Mitubishi Starwagon we bought as a family mover. It wasn't that great to begin with, a slab-sided box on wheels, but the transmission was terrible, the engine worse, and it had an electrical fault that we could never fix.

[oldel]

You had a 4spd? That's luxury, bet you had MPI too?
First falcon I bought near new was a series 1 EA with CFI and a 3spd. I put it on LPG and drove it cross country twice so I guess even that wasn't too bad*. It was a bit nicer to drive than my 1300cc mazda 808 that definitely needed another gear on the highways - only had a 4spd manual, so no overdrive either

*the falcon ran pretty hot on the nullarbor and barrier highway so needed top ups. I think SA water killed it because not too long after the head was corroded and needed a gasket and some devcon.

[Crazy Dazz]

Originally Posted by oldel

I think SA water killed it because not too long after the head was corroded and needed a gasket

Nah, that was but one of the many features of the 3.9...

[whiteSY]

So . . going back to the thread topic . .

My worst ever vehicle was a VW golf. 2004.
Every single thing that could fail on that - did. Bought new, but the first thing to die was the water pump, followed by the seats (front and back), air conditioning, brake lights, brake switch, window winding mechanism (on the passenger side) and finally the gearbox.
Sent that piece of crap west after 3 years from new.
German made the dealer said . . . then found the makers plate inside the back. Poland.
Utter, utter piece of crap. Never ever own one (or anything associated with VW) ever again, particularly after the diesel fiasco and gearbox failures in Audi's.
Replaced it with a Territory, and never turned back.
Hitler's wonder car, my a$se.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by whiteSY

So . . going back to the thread topic . .

My worst ever vehicle was a VW golf. 2004.
Every single thing that could fail on that - did. Bought new, but the first thing to die was the water pump, followed by the seats (front and back), air conditioning, brake lights, brake switch, window winding mechanism (on the passenger side) and finally the gearbox.
Sent that piece of crap west after 3 years from new.
German made the dealer said . . . then found the makers plate inside the back. Poland.
Utter, utter piece of crap. Never ever own one (or anything associated with VW) ever again, particularly after the diesel fiasco and gearbox failures in Audi's.
Replaced it with a Territory, and never turned back.
Hitler's wonder car, my a$se.

Heard VW's referred to as Hitlers revenge

[Pis-ton broke]

Originally Posted by whiteSY

German made the dealer said . . . then found the makers plate inside the back. Poland..

ha,ha, sorry, but i wouldn,t have brought it.

[roddy1960]

Holden Commodore VC 1981...(what was I thinking ) Had about 60,000 on it when I bought it in 1984 from memory . Engine (blue 202) went bang without warning at 118,000 driving home from work one Friday afternoon. Had to put a Repco long engine in it as it was too damaged to repair and the gearbox mountings collapsed soon after . Rust under the sills by 1986ish as discovered while washing it one day , Radiator failed , speedo failed and radio cassette was junk .. Problem solved by trading it for a 1984 XE GL 4 speed manual ...No issues to speak of if 5 years ownership .That Commodore was a true lemon of a car if ever there was .

[CyberWasp]

Mine was the infamous EFI 202 VK Commodore bought second hand back in the 90's
1st warning sign. It broke down on the way home after purchasing it.
More often than not if you went shopping it would come home on the tow truck.
Replaced the ECU several times, Fuel Pumps, and assorted Electrical Gremlins.
It broke down on Holidays up the coast, in general it just like to brake down.
Come to think of it in all these years it is the only Car that I have owned that has broken down on me, so that has to say something.......touch wood.

The really stupid thing is that I interupted a car thief trying to steal it off my driveway one night. I should have tossed him the keys instead of chasing the %^&&^%.

[Pis-ton broke]

Originally Posted by CyberWasp

Mine was the infamous EFI 202 VK Commodore bought second hand back in the 90's

yes the famous 202 injected. well, how did it run (when it was running?)

[CyberWasp]

It ran really well downhill with the handbrake off.

Come to think of it, it was the catalyst for purchasing my 1st mobile phone - NEC Sportz, as it made it easy to ring the NRMA, instead of trying to find a phone box.



When it ran it was Ok i guess for the time, but it was always a hastily put together solution by Holden who quickly dropped it for the Nissan Engine in the VL

[mick taylor]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Heard VW's referred to as Hitlers revenge

That had to do with the VW Beetle only, as it was Hitler's Party that rallied for common working class people to be able to be able to afford to drive a car back in them days.

VW means Peoples Car in English.

As you seen a VW Beetle broken down on the side of the road, they got informed by most people that it was Hitler's revenge that had just bitten them. as a joke or for buying a VW Beetle.

Up to the 1980's such things were commonly said in regards.
Fords were, Found On Rubbish Dump.
Holden's were, Just Holding together.
Valiant's were Wog chariots.
Datsun Toyota etc were manly regarded as buzz boxes or Jap crap.
Anything made in the UK was un reliable and leaked oil.
Anything made in the USA was a Yank tank.

[mad2]

Originally Posted by mick taylor

Up to the 1980's such things were commonly said in regards.
Fords were, Found On Rubbish Dump.
Holden's were, Just Holding together.
Valiant's were Wog chariots.
Datsun Toyota etc were manly regarded as buzz boxes or Jap crap.
Anything made in the UK was un reliable and leaked oil.
Anything made in the USA was a Yank tank.

nothin wrong with the wog mobile.......

[roKWiz]

Originally Posted by mad2

nothin wrong with the wog mobile.......

Yeah, loved the big Vals.

On the Holden 6's can't say I ever had a problem with the stock or worked engines, even flogging them as courier cars.
Must have been a later Dunnydore thing with the emissions crap.

[oldel]

Originally Posted by mick taylor

Up to the 1980's

It was the mercs and BMWs that were most reliable.
Funny how it's the opposite now. They were always ahead so back then they were most reliable, but problem now is they're ahead and you want safe and old 90s style reliability - so people want Korean now for example.

[MercuryT]

Never owned but the Mustang.

What a shocking, cheap made car.

I used to love them until driving one.

[mick taylor]

Originally Posted by oldel

It was the mercs and BMWs that were most reliable.
Funny how it's the opposite now. They were always ahead so back then they were most reliable, but problem now is they're ahead and you want safe and old 90s style reliability - so people want Korean now for example.

I never thought that the Merc or BMW were ultra reliable at all, just that they were advanced to our Aussie cars back in the 60's 70's 80's but then again they were not cheap line models, you would have to be looking at the top of the line Aussie cars for starters to compare such things, but our average Aussie mainly thinks of 6 cyl Holden Special and Kingswood's and such, overall in general many Aussies never had V8 Premiers or Statesman so they do not relate to such directly off hand, so they looked at Merc and BMW in the wrong light somewhat. forgetting the price point.

Servicing such cars was huge, I remember one 1970's merc had to have the intake manifold off to replace the spark plugs for crying out loud.

Many will claim that the Toyota Crown was so much better than the Aussies cars, BS ! the Crown sedan was in the Premier and Statesman price range for a start not to mention you got a V8 with that price. so as I pointed out before most relate to 6cyl Kingswood's and when they get into a Crown the say oh it's posh in here and same with Merc and BMW.

So Merc and BMW were not that much better as one may think.

Look at all the drongos who bought 1980's Merc's 4cyl Diesel crap really ! C'mon

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by MercuryT

Never owned but the Mustang.

What a shocking, cheap made car.

I used to love them until driving one.

You are the only one I have ever heard complain about the way they drive. Maybe it's just you.

But that's not even what this thread is about.

[rare ss]

XF Fairmont Ghia, was my first car so it copped a fair amount of abuse.. look back on it fondly now but was always fixing something on it

Would like another tidy one again but couldn't handle the (lack of) power of the efi 6

[Bushbasher]

Worst car I've ever owned mechanically was my first Sportsman. Mint, 91K, all driven ,as a directors wifes' car, around Sydney. Never been over 80kph except once it went 100, I was told.
It didn't enjoy being driven like a country car and I had to spend money on it every month. Leaks, rattles, aerial, window switches, everything under the bonnet except the engine proper, failed one at a time, including steering rack and ABS module. All as the bushes in the suspension progressively failed, all in under 3 years. The replacement car was a hard worker that pulled a boat I'm told. It goes harder and has needed minimal work to date and has taken me 200k effortlessly for the last 5 yrs, I love it.

[MercuryT]

Drove another Mustang today.

They are complete garbage. Look and sound ok.....it all ends there.

Typical USA crap.

[MercuryT]

Give me a local Falcon (also poorly built) over a Mustang any day.

The latter is worse built than new KIA and Hyundais.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by MercuryT

Drove another Mustang today.

They are complete garbage. Look and sound ok.....it all ends there.

Typical USA crap.

Sure you did

[GT450]

He keeps driving them , must be something he likes...lol I thought this thread was for cars you owned. I suspect he's just trolling for an argument tell him to go to the mustang section and make those statements i am sure he will find on there, better still just ignore him.