The Worst Car You've Ever Driven.

[diffwhine]

Yes - I pointed out my error a bit further up the thread.

[Scotty]

Hi, not 1 for me but 3 spring to mind, the first was a 1979 Granada Ghia 2.8 I bought it in 1987 it was the most unreliable car I've ever owned, 2nd was a 1988/89 Sierra Ghia 2.0i I bought that in 1992, i should have learnt my lesson with the Granada only kept it for a couple of months due to a fault the dealer couldn't get to the bottom of which was i could be driving along at a good pace and suddenly it would lose engine power then regain power after a few minutes thankfully the dealer took it back and the 3rd was a mk1 golf that i bought in 1992 which was absolutely dreadful, i bought it for swmbo when she was learning to drive, in fairness it was old then but the gearbox was like stirring soup and the ride was also dreadful it lasted 2 days with us and i took it back to the guy as he'd said if I wasn't 100% happy to do so.

[Scotty]

  Paul

[Alan Drover]

It's a tie between a Land Rover Series 1 and an Austin Allegro

No way. A Land Rover Series 1 has an air of "je ne sais quoi" about it. The Allergic has just "je sais quoi!"

[geoff]

The " All Agro " 

[TimV]

Getting away from cars, onto the worst van you've driven, mine was an Austin (or Morris) J4 diesel. Gutless, incredibly noisy, the gearstick would pop out, shoving it back in and stirring around would find the right place.

The Bedford that came along (all too briefly) had the sliding doors and column change - a breeze to drive!

[Dormy]

3 poor/bad ones for me: -

Chrysler (Hillman) Avenger - Works pool car. Could only put the problem down to very soft engine/gearbox mounts. Anyone who tried to drive it without being warned (who would tell ?) would kangaroo violently off up the road and from every junction thereafter. The only way round it was to floor the throttle like you were in a race for your life, or crawl away slipping the clutch like you had reached your retirement early (ooh,er - I am retired). Workshops said there was nothing wrong with it - I think they were just having a laugh !

Bedford HA (Viva) van. Another pool vehicle which I only ever drove unloaded. Had such a bouncy, flighty rear axle it wanted to go sideways at every corner - No I wasn't driving it that hard !

Hyundai ATOZ  (A to Z - gedit  !). A small 800cc 3 speed-auto town car bought in anticipation of my wife's transfer into the city centre. She stayed working in the county and I used it for a short while to commute to work. This involved a 15 mile drive from one end of a dual carriageway to the other. At 55mph it was howling like a banshee and managed only 30mpg !
To add insult to injury my work colleagues nicknamed it 'The Pope Mobile'!
Google pictures of it and you will see why.
It was replaced six months later.

[NoBeardNoTopKnot]

Bedford HA (Viva) van. Another pool vehicle which I only ever drove unloaded. Had such a bouncy, flighty rear axle it wanted to go sideways at every corner - No I wasn't driving it that hard !

I have to take issue with you there. The Bedford HA was BRILLIANT! That axle is why. You could go everywhere flat out, go round any roundabout or bend,  doing all this, and still be under the speed limit. James Hunt of F1 fame said similar things of his Austin A30 van, he learnt car-control doing just that. The Bedford HA was akin to this, you can drive one, always on the limit... everywhere.

I wouldn't claim to be a talent, but I'm a better driver for hours and hours holding a Bedford HA on its 25mph limit. It telegraphs what it's going to do.

Such fun, you can't do that in a Lamborghini or much else. A WONDERFUL thing. I want mine back.

https://www.adrianflux.co.uk/influx/people/james-hunt-austin-a35/

[Theshed]

On the Fiat thread, I had a 131 Supermirafiori in a lovely Bronzey Red colour. With huggy bear seats, it was quite nice actually, went like stink.
Most unreliable has to go to one of my favourite cars, The SD1 Vitesse. It was a cracking car, other than it's propensity to fail to proceed !

[sheepman]

it's hard to choose between a Citroen  Dyane and a Land Rover series 1 80"......

[NoBeardNoTopKnot]

We need to address the elephant in the room. Fact is, the crown goes to a Series Land-rover. Driven daily I can say mine's always the slowest, most unsuitable and uncomfortable thing, not just on the stretch of road in clear sight, but likely in 1 mile radius of wherever I happen to be.
There's next to nothing it can do that'd be better. Few vehicles have inflicted themselves on the hapless like a Series LR.

Right there, this is quite a claim.

If we stop for a minute, and get on our high-horse to counter this statement, I'm sorry, but face it. We're going struggle. Only, you know what? I don't care. It makes me smile.

[Porkscratching]

Easy, the Mini..
 Not the faux modern thing, the 'proper' mini.
A girl I knew was flogging one so I thought I'd give it a go as it was only 200 quid, this was in the late 90s I guess.
Anyway after a 5 min test drive I returned with a very definitive "nah.."
Now I'm not particularly tall and am quite skinny, but couldn't see how anyone of reasonable adult proportion could put up with sitting in it for any length of time, it was thoroughly nasty to drive too. I can't imagine why they seem so popular.
The mini's successor,the Metro on the other hand, I thought was an excellent design which had a comparatively roomy interior. I've had a few of those as cheap bangers, though always threw away the rear seats and used them as a kind of van (well OK, small Land Rover)

[Peter Holden]

In the early 70s when at teacher training college I used to work as a driver at the local car auction.   We used to dread the big jag autos.  Most of them had been seriously abused before they got there and they were truly awful

Peter

[diffwhine]

That's because all the bad guys in the Sweeney drive them. Reagan's Granada always seemed to get them in the end.

Actually I think the base vehicles were good, but the auto boxes themselves were horrible.

For me, the worst car ever driven was without doubt was a Lamborghini. I worked for a performance car hire company in the late 1980s. The Countach was ugly, noisy, unreliable, damned uncomfortable and made me look more of an idiot than I usually do. I also couldn't hear the radio on my long drive up to Liverpool. Their tractors aren't much better either...

[Ken]

Another worst car I've ever driven a Lotus esprit, the Guigiaro one.
I borrowed it from lotus for a supercar ride and drive I organised for jaguar. It was terrible.
Driving back into the sun the dash reflected onto the windscreen leaving a small, letterbox sized hole to see the through where the binnacle didn't.
The gearchange was indescribably bad. Any change of road pattern ahead such as an upcoming island was  heartsink time.
At one point I ran into road works and going into a lay-by tried to do a 3 point turn. I'm not exaggerating, it took 15 minutes to find reverse.
By the time I got it back to Coventry I had an RSI in the muscles of my left shoulder which took weeks to recover. Crap looking as well.