1985 Ford Tempo. Everything broke.
Ohhhhh man. My friend’s father used to drive a Tempo to work. That thing was a steaming POS.
Ugh. Late 80s ford ranger 4 cylinder here. Everything broke, and top speed (downhill only) of about 65 mph. Good luck trying to go 55 up a hill.
I had an '82 Ford Escort. Those things were notorious for lunching the motor if the timing belt ever broke (which they did every 45,000 miles like clockwork) while you were traveling down the road. The valves would stop in whatever position they were in at that instant, and then the momentum of the car would keep the pistons moving up and down, bashing the piston tops in to whichever valves were unlucky enough to still be open, ruining pretty-much everything. At the same time I owned that car, my best friend owned an '82 Chevy Cavalier. We were constantly one-upping each other over who owned the biggest turd…
An Audi TT.
FUCK Audi. Never again. Nothing but problems with that heap of shit, and repairs cost more than I paid for the car.
The car I had the most trouble with wasn’t because it was a bad car, but because it kept getting trashed. VW Cabriolet convertible. Bought it when I got my first real job out of school.
One week after driving it off the lot, parked on a busy city street, someone slashed the roof and tore out the stereo. Fixed it all up. Insurance rate went up. Six months later, knife through the roof AND a smashed window. Stereo gone. Switched to a removable, pull-out stereo. Still got broken into.
Had dozens of slashes/smashes. At one point, just left the door locks open. Nothing to take. Someone slept in the back seat (left food wrappers) and pilfered through the ashtray where I kept loose change.
Loved driving it with the top down, but what a pain it was to fix.
2016 Chevy Volt. Needs an EGR valve.
Chevy: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! No.
Do they not make the valve?
The OEM part is, as the service manager at the dealer put it, “on intergalactic back order.”
They don’t make the OEM part any more, and anyone who has new stock isn’t selling it to other dealers. You might be able to find a Chinese version, but if you have a warranty or service plan, you’re rolling the dice with it.
It’ll be a class action suit one day, I feel it in me bones. 🏴☠️
Should be a class action suit now. Isn’t it typical to have 10 year part availability?
Maybe I’m totally wrong, but doesn’t EGR stand for EXHAUST Gas Recirculation? Is the Volt a hybrid? I thought it was an EV and thus had no exhaust.
Edit: This was a joke, wasn’t it?
The volt is hybrid both gas and electric
The Volt is a PHEV, I think the Bolt is the pure EV. I was considering its Vauxhall badged version years ago as a choice for a company car.
The Volt is a hybrid gas & electric. The gas engine is there in part to charge the battery, and in part to power the electric drivetrain.
Under normal drive conditions, the gas engine short-cycles and doesn’t really come up to operating temp, which gums up the EGR valve causing the valve to pull too much current and start blowing fuses that power other critical parts of the battery charge control circuit. Left us stranded on an interstate this past spring until I could limp it to an auto parts store off the next exit to buy a replacement fuse. It ate two more before we could get home.
(edit: the OEM part is no longer manufactured, and what OEM stock is left is unobtainable. What’s left is remanufactured, Chinese aftermarket, or a scam. Install at your own peril.)
The workarounds to disable or bypass the EGR (for now) can cause other potential issues with the engine in the long run. Simply disconnecting the EGR keeps it from blowing fuses, but then the car isn’t road legal in many states because it fails emissions. Also, the EGR is part of the combustion engine’s cooling system, so not recirculating hot crank case gases works the rest of the cooling system harder, and potentially damages the pistons & cylinders.
The whole situation is a mess. Thankfully we have a second vehicle that’s a regular gas engine, so we use that one for distance driving, and can just use this one for around-town driving while we figure out what to do next with it.
That’s when you put in a block off plate instead.
The one I’ve got at the minute, a Seat Leon (mark 4); it’s built on top of VWs MQB platform and honestly it’s a piece of shit.
The list of issues is as long as my arm: The reversing beeper gets stuck, the graphics don’t draw on top of the reversing camera, plugging a phone in stops playback, the shitty entertainment system crashes, keyless entry gets shy when it rains, the emergency alerting system throws a fit if it loses mobile signal, there’s no light on critical controls in the dark, the interior light sometimes can’t be switched off, the cruise control gets confused about which side of the road it’s driving on and doesn’t want to overtake another car (it thinks it’s undertaking), the speed limiter is hiding behind UI 4 steps, the clutch etc etc.
Every month I discover a new niggle. This is the third Seat I’ve owned (having previously loved my two Seat Leons) and will most definitely be my last VW group car ever. What a piece of trash.
Hyundai sonata 2017
The door hinges do not hold the doors open. If the car is on a slight incline or a very slight wind the doors will slam shut. Better not have an arm or leg in the way.
The rear view mirror is set so low in the window that it blocks view of front right of the window.
The seats are hard as rocks. You can literally feel a metal bar that goes left to right through the seat. It’s right under your butt.
I’ll never buy another Hyundai again. Zero chance.
my 2011 toyota camry.
it’s also the best car I’ve ever owned, probably because it’s the only car I’ve ever owned.
For a loose definition of “me” and more “my parents when I was young” was a mid-70’s Fiat. I have lots of memories where we waited in some parking lot or by the freeway for a tow truck or some other help to arrive.
Fix It Again Tony
Lol more like F*** It, Am Totaled
This I can confirm, I had a 70’s 124 coupe, was nothing but trouble. It is also my favourite car I have owned.
a mid-’70s* Fiat
Jeep. Not owned but have rented two. First one was a 2022 Compass. The electric system died mid highway. Never recovered fully. Second was a 2024 Ranger. A true shit box. After a week having it I despised that piece of shit.
I e only ever had Japanese cars, and they’ve all been great. A Nissan, a Toyota, and a Subaru.
1976 Dodge Aspen
Back in about '89-'90 I was the assistant manager at a fast oil change place, and we had a regular customer with a maroon '76 Aspen with a bullet-proof slant-six who got his oil changed with us regularly. I could hear him coming. I’d know it was him without even looking because of the distinctive TAP-TAP-TAP -TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP. We’d pull him in and he’d tell us to just change the oil and filter and don’t bother checking all that other stuff, so that’s what we’d do. We’d pull the plug and if more than a half a quart drained out we’d be surprised. After a filter swap, we’d fill it back up and restart it and it would go TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP-tap-tap-tap-ta-ta-ta-t-t-t-t-t-t-t- etc and he’d smile and pay and be on his way. Of course, we’d see him again in about 3 or 4 months, same thing, rinse and repeat. The tapping was his signal to get it changed. Fast forward to '97, after working as a manager at other locations I came back to that same station as the manager there and I’ll be damned if that same guy in that same '76 Aspen didn’t pull in for the same service with that same oil-leaking loud-ass tapping slant-six, still hanging in there…
2003 Mitsubishi Galant. Just thoroughly mediocre-to-bad in literally every regard one might care about. It did get me from point A to point B.
1990s Plymouth Caravan
A 2011 GMC Terrain. It burned oil like none other. The power steering would occasionally just not work upon starting the car, requiring me to turn it off and on again a several times. Sometimes, I’d stop at a red light, the engine would die, and when I’d restart it it’d go into limp mode. And traction control and AWD would occasionally just give out, which can be dangerous where I live due to ice and snow.
The thing was a hazard and GMC and all associated brands can fuck right off.
