FUN : Whats the most unreliable car you known?
Discussion
Ok, this ISNT a "lets have a go at TVR" or "speed six engines are crap" either. Niether is it an excuse to pick on a particular manufacturer / dealer.
However, I thought that it would be rather amusing to have a thread that has some of the more bizzare or unusual aspects to car reliability. Recently read an article in the Daily Mail (not mine, honest) about the most unreliable car. Some chap had been through three sucessive Vectras and still had problems. Another had a Audi 200 Quattro and got rid of it after 2 months, bought a Saab 900 Turbo and got rid of that in 3 months due to reliability issues!!!!
I have been Ok for reliable cars, but the worst that I encountered was the fleet of Rover 820is that we had at a previous company (we were based in Birmingham). Out of 8 820's, 7 blew head gaskets, one went through two windscreens through cracks due to chassis bend, one had the windscreen wipers fail three times, one had electrical faults that kept unlocking the car! All suffered opening sunroofs when the mobile phones rang. One with leather seats was always wet!?! Three had problems with steering tracking that meant that they eat tyres every 6000 - 8000 miles! Oh, and all of them broke down at some point - to the point that the AA wanted to start charging for recovery.
The strange thing was we also had 3 Rover 420's - same engine but NONE of the problems. Could it be that they were made in different places????
Whats your worst experience? If it is a TVR than fine - but remember it is supposed to be fun and not a "lets pick a fight" or criticise TVR again... we have done this already.
Cheers,
Paul
However, I thought that it would be rather amusing to have a thread that has some of the more bizzare or unusual aspects to car reliability. Recently read an article in the Daily Mail (not mine, honest) about the most unreliable car. Some chap had been through three sucessive Vectras and still had problems. Another had a Audi 200 Quattro and got rid of it after 2 months, bought a Saab 900 Turbo and got rid of that in 3 months due to reliability issues!!!!
I have been Ok for reliable cars, but the worst that I encountered was the fleet of Rover 820is that we had at a previous company (we were based in Birmingham). Out of 8 820's, 7 blew head gaskets, one went through two windscreens through cracks due to chassis bend, one had the windscreen wipers fail three times, one had electrical faults that kept unlocking the car! All suffered opening sunroofs when the mobile phones rang. One with leather seats was always wet!?! Three had problems with steering tracking that meant that they eat tyres every 6000 - 8000 miles! Oh, and all of them broke down at some point - to the point that the AA wanted to start charging for recovery.
The strange thing was we also had 3 Rover 420's - same engine but NONE of the problems. Could it be that they were made in different places????
Whats your worst experience? If it is a TVR than fine - but remember it is supposed to be fun and not a "lets pick a fight" or criticise TVR again... we have done this already.
Cheers,
Paul
I have to admit to owning a Montego EFi in my younger days.
Actually quite comfortable but the only car I've got out of and kicked! (No, I don't look anything like Basil Fawlty.)
I mistakenly traded an Audi 80 Sport for the low mileage Montego. Big mistake. Two alternators, crappy paint, I don't know how many wheel bearings, electric windows etc. Have you ever been able to turn the radio on and off with the electric window switches? (alternator feedback apparently) Finally traded it against a 309 XSi.
Actually quite comfortable but the only car I've got out of and kicked! (No, I don't look anything like Basil Fawlty.) I mistakenly traded an Audi 80 Sport for the low mileage Montego. Big mistake. Two alternators, crappy paint, I don't know how many wheel bearings, electric windows etc. Have you ever been able to turn the radio on and off with the electric window switches? (alternator feedback apparently) Finally traded it against a 309 XSi.
My vauxhall astra took 3 months to sort out 1 problem then exactly 3 weeks later the thing goes bang in the middle of nowhere, also had great joy in flashing the engine fault light so i had to keep making trips to the dealer to get the codes downloaded from the ecu !the thing was a pain in the arse , the astra that ive got now no probs at all 15000 trouble free miles
If I remember rightly the 420 engine was the Honda variant and the 820 was the Rover one.
Anyway from the 40 or so cars I have owned, or driven regularly, the most unreliable (from new) was also from Rover, MG Maestro. This was a company car during the days when I worked for British Aerospace, they owned Rover at that time so all cars were Rover.
This went back to the garage every week for poor engine running, after the 5th visit I took it to a different garage who rang me and said that they had sorted out the problem, unfortunately I would need a new engine, the original had a crack in the block! The garage I had been taking it to had been putting in oil every visit without telling me so when I checked oil levels it was fine. The oil only leaked when driving so none on my drive. The car also suffered electrical problems and brake judder. Sunroof also leaked due to body flexing because of poor welding of seams. I rang the Rover customer care office and spoke to the manager, demanding a replacement car, which they did supply after some argument, the new car (another MG Maestro) was 100% reliable. My only problem then was the customer care manager was then transferred to B Ae and became my boss .
In my view the MG Maestro was a great car and very under-rated (particularly the turbo version).
Anyway from the 40 or so cars I have owned, or driven regularly, the most unreliable (from new) was also from Rover, MG Maestro. This was a company car during the days when I worked for British Aerospace, they owned Rover at that time so all cars were Rover.
This went back to the garage every week for poor engine running, after the 5th visit I took it to a different garage who rang me and said that they had sorted out the problem, unfortunately I would need a new engine, the original had a crack in the block! The garage I had been taking it to had been putting in oil every visit without telling me so when I checked oil levels it was fine. The oil only leaked when driving so none on my drive. The car also suffered electrical problems and brake judder. Sunroof also leaked due to body flexing because of poor welding of seams. I rang the Rover customer care office and spoke to the manager, demanding a replacement car, which they did supply after some argument, the new car (another MG Maestro) was 100% reliable. My only problem then was the customer care manager was then transferred to B Ae and became my boss
. In my view the MG Maestro was a great car and very under-rated (particularly the turbo version).
8so is in did a crap!
My father used to work for a guy that switched a Volvo 740 turbo intercooler for an 820! Crazy!
The fact is he didn't like to drive it (what a surprise!) so he sold it to someone else. The car was brand new but after a week, the engine fell off! Nice construction!
But the ultimate unreliable car, must be the famous and revolutionary NSU RO80. A car decades ahead of it's time, but with the nastiest rotary engine.
DOn't know if you heard about this, but when two RO80 drivers passed by on the road they used to compliment each other putting their arm off the window show so many thingers as the number of engine reduilds, or substitutions, they did.
What a reputation!
My father used to work for a guy that switched a Volvo 740 turbo intercooler for an 820! Crazy!
The fact is he didn't like to drive it (what a surprise!) so he sold it to someone else. The car was brand new but after a week, the engine fell off! Nice construction!
But the ultimate unreliable car, must be the famous and revolutionary NSU RO80. A car decades ahead of it's time, but with the nastiest rotary engine.
DOn't know if you heard about this, but when two RO80 drivers passed by on the road they used to compliment each other putting their arm off the window show so many thingers as the number of engine reduilds, or substitutions, they did.
What a reputation!
I sometimes think this is down to the driver - not the car! And I don't mean bad drivers, because modern machinery will stand up to dog's abuse. Some perfectly good drivers seem to have a telepathic ability to make a car behave like a badly assembled Meccano set. In my time as a Ferrari dealer I only met one unfortunate soul like this. He bought a Dino which simply wouldn't run for more than a month at a time, and developed faults no-one had ever heard of.
He ended up taking the car to Maranello Concessionaires for a virtual re-build and, sure enough, when he finally collected it, he drove onto the Egham By-Pass, looked for a gap in the traffic, and promptly motored full tilt into an iron bollard. Nerves? I don't think so. Something supernatural about that guy's bad luck.
He ended up taking the car to Maranello Concessionaires for a virtual re-build and, sure enough, when he finally collected it, he drove onto the Egham By-Pass, looked for a gap in the traffic, and promptly motored full tilt into an iron bollard. Nerves? I don't think so. Something supernatural about that guy's bad luck.
once had a tkm kart which was the most tempermental little *&%&*&* piece of £^%*&%$(*" that i ever set eyes upon. it would be fine 50 yards away from the circuit, get it to the pit lane and it would do anything possible to not get onto the circuit. This involved throwing petrol on me, refusing to spark, shedding its exhaust, loosening the seat, ensuring the motor wouldnt turn.....
"If I'm not looking out of the rear window, I think I can save it"
"If I'm not looking out of the rear window, I think I can save it"
quote:
If I remember rightly the 420 engine was the Honda variant and the 820 was the Rover one.
In my view the MG Maestro was a great car and very under-rated (particularly the turbo version).
No Kevin, both the 420 and the 820 had Rover engines.
The earlier 820 had the M16 version, whilst the later ones plus the 420 had T16 series engines. You can tell the difference cos the T engined cars have all black cam covers whilst the M series cars are black/silver.
The M16 was not a happy first stap at a twin cam 16v unit for Austin Rover and as a result was not brilliantly reliable.
The T16 was not a bad engine though(although both the M and the T were based on the old O series block that started out in the Princess I think)
The Maestro Turbo was a great car. I had one from new and it went like stink, handled well and was very reliable. The engine was O series, with 8 valves big turbo/intercooler and a big carburettor!
All the O, M and T engines suffer oil leaks, usually from the front right hand side of the block where it meets the head. Apparently the oil passage is too close for comfort there!
I have owned 4 MGs and 2 Rover 820 Vitesses, doing nearly 600k miles in total in them without a single breakdown and really only minor problems all told, and I can tell you I like to drive my cars fast!
Plus my old company ran another 3 vitesses, 4 MGs and a Honda engined 827 coupe. The only car that broke down in that bunch was the Honda engined one!
The most unreliable car ever was an Audi 80Tdi estate, that we knicknamed Christine after the Steven King novel about a car possessed by an evil spirit! It broke down leaving the driver stranded so many times that the driver and the AA man became close personal friends. By the time it left us at 100k miles I don't think there was a single major component that had not been replaced AT LEAST once.
Cheers
Andy, 400se
Rover 827. This was my fat man's car during an inexplicable gap from BMWs in the late 80s. A beautiful, purring V6 totally ruined by being in the worst heap of rubbish British Leyland had produced in years. Particularly strangely it had a spontaneously self destructing drivers seat (I'm 5'11" and 13 stone before anyone suggests anything 
) The low point was turning up to a crucial meeting with the bankers in London with washer fluid all over my brand new suit, shirt, tie and shoes after washers came on spontaneously as I was filling up the tank. It also knocked my wife unconscious when the weld on the boot's gas strut failed, it was two months old at the time and the back of the bracket had three mil of bubbling rust all over it. This car lost the most money relative to its purchase price of any I have ever owned.
Yours, Jon Dokic
) The low point was turning up to a crucial meeting with the bankers in London with washer fluid all over my brand new suit, shirt, tie and shoes after washers came on spontaneously as I was filling up the tank. It also knocked my wife unconscious when the weld on the boot's gas strut failed, it was two months old at the time and the back of the bracket had three mil of bubbling rust all over it. This car lost the most money relative to its purchase price of any I have ever owned. Yours, Jon Dokic
The most unreliable car I know was my 350i. And I have had a 1.1 X Reg Fiesta
In one year of ownership it had
Ignition system rewired
New Starter Motor
Recon Starter Motor
New Passenger Window
Recon Alternator
Exhaust fell apart
Headlights that worked when they felt like it
Two new batteries
New Fuel Sender thingie
In one year of ownership it had
Ignition system rewired
New Starter Motor
Recon Starter Motor
New Passenger Window
Recon Alternator
Exhaust fell apart
Headlights that worked when they felt like it
Two new batteries
New Fuel Sender thingie
Wasn't my car but my fathers (I was about 14 at the time), it was a Ford Cortina, if it was at all damp the B@st@d wouldn't start. I must have pushed that car more miles than it went under its own power! It kept going to the garage and they fixed everything and it would be fine for about 2 days then it would get the hump and not start again. Mind you it did breed an interest in car mechanics.
Reminds me. The late Sir Hugh Fraser (Scottish tycoon) bought his first and last Ferrari from Maranello. Left Egham on journey home. Cracking along the M1 when ffsssssssssss from under dashboard, and gallons of coolant (HOT) spewed all over his luvverly suit. Hitched a ride to nearest M'way sevice and summonned his whirly-bird. Never drove another Ferrari, which was rather sad because he missed a lot.
Turned out that mechanic tried to remove tiny squeak from wiper mechanism before delivery, and put heater pipework back where linkage could rub it.....
Turned out that mechanic tried to remove tiny squeak from wiper mechanism before delivery, and put heater pipework back where linkage could rub it.....
So far out of the car's I've owned, (see my profile) the '89 Golf GTI Cab was the worst.
Had it for just over two years, and everything went, from steering rack, to fuse board, to gearbox, to exhaust manifold... and the engine was dying when i sold it.
Maybe (probably!) it was thrashed in its earlier years before I owned it, but sadly its still been the worse car.
Only one car (the 1.1 Golf) has been 100% reliable whilst I had it. All the rest have had some trouble (even my "trusty" MX-5, the best so far, had the big-ends go in the engine at 51000 miles) so I should be prepared for TVR ownership in a few weeks!
-andy-
Had it for just over two years, and everything went, from steering rack, to fuse board, to gearbox, to exhaust manifold... and the engine was dying when i sold it.
Maybe (probably!) it was thrashed in its earlier years before I owned it, but sadly its still been the worse car.
Only one car (the 1.1 Golf) has been 100% reliable whilst I had it. All the rest have had some trouble (even my "trusty" MX-5, the best so far, had the big-ends go in the engine at 51000 miles) so I should be prepared for TVR ownership in a few weeks!
-andy-
First Post to Pistonheads, so go easy on me fellow gassers - most unreliable car owned had to be my 94 Discovery - three gearboxes in three years ( I'm pretty sure I know how to change gear!) then sold it to a colleague (who was aware of it's record) whereupon it blew it's cylinder head gasket 3,000 miles later.....
Despite all this I liked the thing a lot and to be fair to Land Rover everything was fixed on warranty - it just meant that there was the odd month where I had to drive something else!
Despite all this I liked the thing a lot and to be fair to Land Rover everything was fixed on warranty - it just meant that there was the odd month where I had to drive something else!
Talk about Murphy’s law, my most unreliable car didn’t cause me any problems at all for a whole year, then the warranty ran out!!
It was ’95 MGF VVC, 1 week out of warranty the head gasket went pop (not a cheap job on a mid engine car), a month later the hydraulic clutch dumped all it hydraulic fluid, got it back from the dealer, managed 8 whole miles before the ECU packed up.
After that little lot I had a massive two month reprieve before the gear linkage cable snapped and left me stranded in the office car park – much to the amusement of my colleagues!
About three weeks later the head gasket went pop again!! Got it fixed and got rid of the bugger before anything else went wrong, just as well to, two days after I traded it in, the engine blew up!!! At least I didn’t have to cough up the £2.5k required for a new one!
Shame really although it was no TVR, when it worked it was quite good fun…..if a little girly!
Matt
It was ’95 MGF VVC, 1 week out of warranty the head gasket went pop (not a cheap job on a mid engine car), a month later the hydraulic clutch dumped all it hydraulic fluid, got it back from the dealer, managed 8 whole miles before the ECU packed up.
After that little lot I had a massive two month reprieve before the gear linkage cable snapped and left me stranded in the office car park – much to the amusement of my colleagues!
About three weeks later the head gasket went pop again!! Got it fixed and got rid of the bugger before anything else went wrong, just as well to, two days after I traded it in, the engine blew up!!! At least I didn’t have to cough up the £2.5k required for a new one!
Shame really although it was no TVR, when it worked it was quite good fun…..if a little girly!
Matt
Mine was my VW Golf GTi Turbo 1999.
In the 2 years I owned it, I had 2 new turbos fitted, 4 new window motors, 1 set of new carpets, 2 new front seats, 1 drivers wing mirror.
The day it got delivered the drivers wingmirror fell of, and the drivers seat was not stitched so it was just hanging there (Recaro)
Day 3 the 1st turbo went after covering 90 miles.
Week 9 the replacement turbo went.
and so on......
The service was pathetic from VW and I swore never to buy a VW ever again.
Martin
Cerbera Speed 6 S 922 OPO
In the 2 years I owned it, I had 2 new turbos fitted, 4 new window motors, 1 set of new carpets, 2 new front seats, 1 drivers wing mirror.
The day it got delivered the drivers wingmirror fell of, and the drivers seat was not stitched so it was just hanging there (Recaro)
Day 3 the 1st turbo went after covering 90 miles.
Week 9 the replacement turbo went.
and so on......
The service was pathetic from VW and I swore never to buy a VW ever again.
Martin
Cerbera Speed 6 S 922 OPO
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