Have you ever been burned by a car? Maybe it was unreliable, maybe maintenance ended up costing more than you expected, or maybe it just turned out to be a much less pleasant daily-driver than you’d anticipated. Or maybe it was too much fun (?). Tell us about a car you would never buy again. We’ll make no judgements here.
Now let’s make fun of our pal Thomas Hundal. When I was asking for advice on choosing a stock photo guy, this happened:
Ordinarily, Thomas is an absolutely tremendous knower of cars. Which Acura Vigor trim level came with a 6-CD changer? Was the 1996 Vauxhaul Astra offered as a wagon with a manual? Thomas knows off the top of his head. He’s that guy. Usually. Apparently his superpower is coffee-fueled. We feel you, Thomas.
Last time around we asked: “What Car Advertising Campaigns Have Stuck With You (For Better or Worse)?” Your answers included some absolute legends such as Chevy’s “Like a Rock” campaign featuring Bob Seger’s 1986 hit of the same name, as well as reminders of bangers we’d forgotten and some commercial’s we’d never seen.
Stefthepef:
I’m convinced this is actually the best campaign of all time: Anchan vs. the Daihatsu Wake.
It’s a whole series that documents one man’s descent into madness as he tries to one-up the Wake and can’t. Everything about it is incredible. I feel like I’m commenting a blog just mentioning it. The entire series is an absolute masterpiece.
Icouldntfindaclevername:
Joe Isuzu, end of story
Lew Schiller:
Joe Isuzu.
“Wanna see the air bags?”
Boulevard_Yachtsman
I’m am kind of stunned no one has yet mentioned it, but my absolute favorite bit of automotive marketing has to be “Cog”, the two-minute mini-film from Honda. It’s about a deconstructed Honda Accord with the parts arranged in a wonderful Rube-Goldberg setup that doubles as pure asmr before that was a thing. No CGI either – it’s still a delight to watch:
And our very own Mercedes Streeter shared this heckin’ legend from Pontiac, which we’ve also expressed our love for on Twitter:
The FULL LENGTH version of "Ride, Pontiac, Ride is *fantastic.* Turn it UP ???? (Link below to full video) https://t.co/swkhm5TDDx pic.twitter.com/vMmo5pyvSZ
— The Autopian (@the_autopian) April 10, 2023
Anyway, that’s how you responded to the last Autopian Asks; now it’s time to hit the comments and tell us which car you’d never buy again and why.
No offense to David:
Any worn out clunker. Many of us started off driving rolling heaps of junk and learned to wrench on them. But as you grow older and others are relying on your vehicle, reliability wins.
Volare – “whoa oh!” What a POS THAT was. My Dad bought a 4-door brand new – the trunk was filled with broken glass. We figured it broke on the line and then neither the factory nor the dealer felt like cleaning it up. I had a two-door (I needed something cheap at the time, and boy, did I get it). Both of them had the 1bbl carb, so when you made a fast turn one direction (right? can’t remember, maybe left) it was guaranteed to stall. Ugh.
Also had a Riviera that had so many electrical problems you’d think it had Lucas electrics. A few years after trading it in, I was on a tour of the GM Tech Center, and one room had a “wall of shame” – components that had been utter failures. Most of the Riviera’s electronics were up there.
I seem to be the weird one here because I am not sure if there is a vehicle I regret buying or that was so bad I’d never have another one…
Sure, some were terrible piles of crap, and several were not very inspiring vehicles to start with but I still managed to either have fun or get enough practical use out of them that they were worth what I had into them.
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Can I include a motorcycle in this list? If so, the vehicle I wouldn’t buy again is my Harley-Davidson Livewire. I have always been conflicted about this bike. It is unbelievably fun to ride. Acceleration is ridiculously fast and it handles well. The absence of heat and vibration makes it more comfortable than a comparable ICE bike. The lack of engine noise means you can go full throttle from red lights without attracting the attention of the local constabulary. It genuinely is a great bike to ride.
The problem is the lack of functional fast charging infrastructure where I live. There are no reliable fast chargers within the range of the bike, so I can only ride it within a 40 mile range of my house. Plus, it eliminates spontaneity in riding. If I see a road that looks interesting, I have to do a lot of mental math to see if I have enough electrons to explore the road and get back home. It is hard to have fun on a bike when you spend more time doing mental math than enjoying the bike and your surroundings.
So while the Livewire may be my most fun bike, I usually ride one of my other (considerably cheaper) bikes. When I ride my other bikes, I can’t help but think of the better things I could have spent $30,000 on than an electric garage ornament.
I had a 2010 Honda Insight that I regret buying. I enjoyed the challenge of trying to get the highest MPG, but day to day driving has scarred me. I really only remember two things about the experience…The auto-shutoff at lights/stop signs/stop-and-go traffic meant the A/C was blowing damp, warm air. That and having to redline the engine to drive up the minor incline that is my driveway.
This is a tough one to answer. My history of Shitbox rides is long and still makes me wince. In the late 1970’s started buying Toyota stuff. No more shitboxes again. Nothing but Toyota cars and trucks since 1984 except for some GM crap that was gifted to us, and quickly gone.
But I guess another VW Bus would be on my list of never again.
Jaguar XK8 Convertible. I’d always wanted one, I bought a used 2000, daily drove it in the summer for about 5 years. i got lucky that the transmission died and was miraculously covered by my aftermarket warranty, but it had just bizarre electrical issues. Once a year, without fail (usually July), it would simply do nothing when you turned the key. It would remain like that for for 10 minutes or 2 hours, and then just start fine like nothing happened. I knew that if I kept it, there would be some future failure in the overly complex immobilizer circuit and it would never run again. I learned to hate Ford/Jaguar electrical systems, their fragile undersized wires with brittle insulation. I hate their unsealed connectors and their sticky, gooey harness tape. I also hate their sealed for (short) life drivetrain components and their guaranteed-to-fail critical engine components made from plastic. Other than that it was great, but will never own another one.
My ’97 Maxima was like that with a no-start, but it always seemed to be on otherwise lovely crisp, sunny spring or fall days with mild temps, say in the 70s. Better that than the rain I guess. Replacing the starter didn’t do the trick, so I didn’t really try and pursue a fix for that one because it was odd to pin down, and there were other issues with the car higher on the list. I just tried to park aiming downhill on days where the weather was going to be nice so I could roll it and pop the clutch, which was easy to do at my college apartment.
I’m tempted to nominate my two Corvairs, one which never ran and ended up being parted out and one which I daily drove for a while, constantly dealing with vapor lock, fouled plugs and the unending threat of slinging the fan belt… but I still find myself looking at Corvairs for sale every once in a while. I don’t know why. I just don’t.
The clear winner here is my ’87 Ford Bronco. I bought it off a friend as a favor for $250. Ugly – tan on tan with a light brown interior. No options – not even a tape deck on the no-longer-functioning factory stereo. I bought it knowing the engine was shot, thinking “5.0 Ford v8’s are everywhere! I’ll just get one secondhand and drop it in!”
I bought a 5.0 from an LTD wagon and found out that hard way that was a bad idea – all the F-150 accessories had to be swapped over since everything was different. Plus, I was warned not to push things too hard as the car version of the 5.0 wasn’t really up to the heavy duty work that the Bronco/F-150 version had. I went for it anyway, spent way more $$$ than I should have and the engine swap worked great – it ran like a top with the used 5.0.”
Except it wasn’t until the engine was in that I found out the transmission was shot. It was drivable, but that was a temporary condition and it could let go at any time. The annoying part was that if I had been more patient, I could have gotten a full engine/trans/transfer case for less than I spent putting the wagon’s 5.0 in. I cut my losses and sold the Bronco as-is to someone who had the energy to keep dumping work and money into a very, very ugly Bronco with not many other redeeming qualities.
Any Ford with a PowerShit transmission. Makes Nissan’s CVT a marvel of engineering my comparison.
2012 Ford Focus Hatchback SEL. The Powershift dual clutch transmission in this car was an abomination. The transmission’s seals go bad and fluid gets on the clutch plates causing them to slip and shudder badly. Ford rebuilt the transmission in the car twice in 80k miles. It’s not a matter of if, but rather when, it will fail again. At that point, it’s the end of the road for my son’s first car.
Any Subaru. I had one with oil consumption issues at 38k miles. Friend’s has had to have the cam seals and some valve train components replaced before 100k. Other friend’s has odd clunking on turns consistently and on initial reverse from cold start at 100k miles.
On the performance side, I had a friend spin a bearing on an STI. I destroyed 3rd gear in a forester XT at about 450hp getting onto the highway (WRX 5 speeds are well known to break easily). These aren’t quite fair considering how hard they were driven, but when your tuner says “sounds like a modified Subaru” when it comes into the shop with an issue, I don’t have confidence they’re even good to modify.
But you get to have a badge on the back saying what number Subaru you’re on and what outdoor activities you do with it, so maybe it’s worth the trouble.
I don’t have any submission to the question because I’d buy all of my cars again. I’ve only owned four cars total in my life (I’m in my 50s): three Subarus (still have two – 1996 and 2003 Legacy wagons… I prefer 2004 and earlier Subarus) and one Toyota. All of my cars have been excellent in reliability with super low total cost of ownership.
Fiat ’71 850 Spider. I never knew we had hills in South Charlotte until I drove my 850 up a shallow grade, which required the right pedal to be floored. And that was AFTER the engine rebuild. It’d probably slow down climbing a speed hump!
My ’70 Beetle and ’78 Renault R5 were powerhouses by comparison. Weak, leaky, smelly but strangely compelling and beautiful Giorgetto Giugiaro design. Too bad the rest of the engineering and manufacturing was done by signficantly less skilled artists.
Cadillac XT5.
It is not sporty.
It is not utility.
It vibrates the seat when you are backing up and the car decides it doesn’t like where you are heading, and it scares the sh-t out of you.
To put the car in reverse, you push the console mounted selector forward.
You want to go forward, you pull the selector backwards.
It has the automatic stop and start “Feature”. I don’t see how to disable it. So the car dies at every stop, and if you have ever spent time on old Motorcycles, it’s an awful feeling when it dies in traffic. So you have to manually turn it off every time you start the car.
There is no room in the back seat.
You can’t hook up a trailer hitch.
I will say that it has always worked, the materials are wonderful, and the build quality is superior. It’s my wife’s car, and she likes it, but man….
I once had a girlfriend who enjoyed sitting on the washing machine while it ran. Soon she had all the girls in our class doing that. Those were the days.
Good Lord! Have I been made a Cadillac Cuckold? By an XT5, of all the cars out there?
You can at least turn off the seat-shaker; it’s buried somewhere in the personalization.
W124 MB E320 with the biodegradable wiring. Never before have I spent so much time and money on a car to just punt it at a loss. Just played whack a mole with electrical problems for a year before giving up. Just a completely miserable experience and I won’t touch another Benz unless it is free and/or under warranty.
Same here. Plus other strange afflictions that cost an arm and a leg. Seemed MB went out of their way to make things difficult to repair on this car.
Nissan Altima.
Do I even have to explain this one?
Nissan Altima.
Mine ate head gaskets like candy, was so floaty that we packed up all the passenger seats at an autocross once and came in singing “I’m On a Boat,” and was such a flaming unreliable turd of a car that left me stranded early and often after we bought it. It started turning the aircon off to compensate for its head gasket issues in the summer…in Texas. This issue repeatedly left me without a car in extremely car-dependent Waco. Never again, especially given that newer models feel even cheaper and flimsier than that cursed ’02.
It earned the nickname “Failtima” and then some. I hope it’s a toaster now. A bad, ugly toaster. If I could personally catapult it into a volcano, I would.
I have never, and most likely will never, own a Ford product. I have been conditioned to be this way from birth. No Ford- This is the way.
Vehicle I owned and will never own again- Jeep Renegade. Slow, poor ride quality and engine issues.
Anchan! I loved those commercials!
My MKV Jetta GLI was a great car when it drove. The motor went through 3 plastic intake manifolds, the traction control computer decided it didn’t want to live in this world, and one day, a motor mount just broke and the engine rocking back and forth destroyed the pipe from the turbo to the cat. I loved that car but now I fear the Germans.
Based on some bad previous experiences I have pretty much sworn off all Fords. I did recently look at some Mustangs because manual V-8, but the interior is such a bummer, and I have trust issues with the brand.
Apparently the Gen 1 Fusion with the 2.5l engine and manual transmission was solid – but that’s not much of a surprise, as it was a Mazda6 underneath with a Mazda engine.
My first car was a mustang, only had issues with the convertible top motor. Second car was a 2017 fusion sport which was almost a lemon in my state. I have trust issues with everything they put out except the mustang.
2002 Nissan Altima, the car was just horrible and expensive to fix. 1986 Pontiac Fiero, it was a nightmare to work on and mine was horribly unreliable. It was extremely fun to drive, but not worth the headache.
YES I’M NOT THE ONLY PERSON WHO WANTS TO SEND A 2002 ALTIMA STRAIGHT TO HELL WHERE IT BELONGS
Given that I drove a 1981 Buick Skylark for a while, it should tell you something that the car I hated owning the most was a 1994 Nissan Altima. I did get a measure of satisfaction at trade-in, because the shady dealer thought they were getting away with something offering me wholesale Blue Book at fair condition. Despite the car looking pretty good cosmetically I knew I was by far getting the better end of the deal. I’ll also note that a number of Nissan products as rentals since then have never improved my opinion of the brand, either.
Kill all Altimas. Seriously. Kill ’em all.
I inherited a 1995 Altima that my mom had owned for 9 years and drove it for a couple. It was a perfectly fine automobile besides its hatred of starters and alternators. Drove well enough, great for the long drives I was making with it.
Bugatti La Voiture Noire.
I’ll never get this thing paid off.
Did they trick you into signing a 384 month loan?
Those 4 squares gets em every time.
It’s the fine print that gets ya.
This is the last time I’m getting a loan through Mariana & Trench Financing.
No, a *lease*, so he still has to turn it in after 384 months.
Dodge Caliber (sound of a mike dropping).
I’ve had two second-gen Hyundai Accents (an ’03 and an ’04) – the first was a hand-me-down from my parents, the second was initially bought for my (now-)wife and ended up as mine when we only needed one car. After two years driving that ’04 which I hated, for a job I also hated has certainly put me off ever buying an Accent ever again, and has at least slightly poisoned anything Korean for me. It’s all gotten much better, but I still have to think hard about, however good something like a used Stinger might be, that something stupid like the feel of the door handles will throw me back to the awful little penalty boxes I used to have.
Anything from Stellantis, what a horrible dealer experience, plus the car quality issues (2022 Pacifica PHEV), ugh
Having owned a Fiat 128SL that immediately rusted many years ago, and having a brand new 2015 T&C rental break down loaded with my most valuable worldly goods on a move from NY to FL (the only time in my life I was stranded), I completely agree.
Ram pickups. Had a Dakota Sport I got used; my guess is that the previous owner took it on a trail and wound up swimming in it. Had loads of problems with the electrics and the belts and pulleys till finally the engine block cracked. Worst vehicle ever for me.