Skip Navigation
122 comments

  • Chevy Suburban. I volunteered to drive for a university course field trip and it's what I got stuck with.

    • Unresponsive fatass brick of a vehicle. I mean, come on, a minivan has more cargo space and the same passenger capacity without three light aircraft worth of inertia.
    • Dashboard sucked. It took me a solid three minutes to find the button shifts. (I know these can be done well - Honda does them right - but the PRNDL was fucking laid out in a thin row at the side of the dashboard. Huh?)
    • Overtaking damn near anything would redline the (very new, less than 10k miles) engine.

    • My uncle owned an 80’s suburban. That thing was an absolute tank… and not in a good way. The steering had so much play in it, you had to turn the wheel about 45 degrees for there to be any input.

      A fedex truck actually ended up t-boning him, and the truck flipped. He was fine. Suburban wasn’t. Probably for the best.

    • Overtaking damn near anything would redline the (very new, less than 10k miles) engine.

      While this suggests it might have been underpowered, how high the engine revs during acceleration in a modern automatic transmission vehicle is determined by software that operates the transmission and the driver's control inputs, not how old the engine is. The designers of the car probably decided that was the best way to deliver the performance you asked for. They may even have been correct in that assessment.

  • Some time in 2015/2016, parents had a loaner Ford ecosport. That thing struggled with hills. And by hills, I mean speed bumps and anything not completely horizontal. Nobody even felt like trying to get it on a highway, we knew there was no way it could get up to speed safely.

  • I have a few shortlisted

    My parent's 2010 Ram 1500, the interior is rather comfy but the reliability is just not there. At 100k km the engine blew up, apparently this is still an issue with the current ones as the 5.7L V8 still has the same flaw allowing for some components to drop into the cylinder. There's also been random electrical components that have died relatively fast, and whatever metal was used rusted exponentially even with rust proofing being applied twice a year. It had more rust than their 2011 Toyota Highlander that had greater than 300k km

    I also just hated when I had to drive it downtown, but I can't exactly blame the vehicle for that.

    2011 Toyota highlander, it went through 3 transmissions, 5 rear wiper motors, and it was about to go on to its 4th transmission when they sold it. The 3rd one didn't even last much more than a year.

    2006 Rav 4 (V6), this car also went through 2 transmissions, and then had to have the entire steering column replaced by year 2

    ~2016 Ford Fusion, this was a rental car for when my Civic was being repaired after an accident and my god was it awful. It handled like a massive boat despite being a medium sized car and the transmission felt significantly less responsive than even the CVT in the honda. The seats also sucked but i think that was how the rental company cleaned them, they made this awful noise every time you sat in them and looked and felt like a "casting couch" with several generations of children dried up in them...

    Honorary Mention: my friends Nissan Versa, seemingly unreliable and falling apart but it refuses to ever give up. That thing will survive nuclear winter, and will remind you with every pothole that its existence is torture.

  • Going to be a toss-up between two of my own cars.

    1992 Cavalier convertible Z24 I bought for pennies as my first own car. Had 420,000km on it and grabbed it and it's papers from some sketch dealer.

    Looked good enough on the outside for it's purpose of having fun. Roof worked. And it had a v6. But it fell apart fast (and a lot due to my own shenanigans). Stearing became so off that I had to turn left to stay straight. The heater died, I live in Canada. The seat's support broke, so I used an old set of goalie pads propped against the back seat to keep my seat upright. The dashboard lights were blown, so I had a ducked tape flashlight on my headrest to light my dash up. More than ounce, I'd have to pull a fuse and put it back in while cruising on the highway.

    Second worse was the off the lot brand new 02 Sunfire my parents forced me to buy to replace the above shitbox due to it's safety. For fuck sakes I despised this car. Despite how bad the cavalier was, it was FUN and quirky. The Sunfire was just a poorly made shitbox with zero power, and non-stop electrical failures the day I took it off the lot.

  • My wife's old 2004 Honda Civic. It was the worst piece of shit I've ever had the displeasure of driving. And it was super unreliable to boot!

    It was dangerously slow. Getting on the freeway always required full throttle to get up to speed in time, which was never enough. Some cars egg you on, "Go faster! Let me rev! I love revs! Speeeeeed! Power!" This thing was like Eeyore on Adavan, "Huh? Power? If I have to. Ththrhtbbt. That's the best I can do."

    The "top rated" Goodyear tires we put on it were fucking awful as well. The tire compound was super hard, so despite the pitiful power, you could always spin the front tires in the dry. Despite the hard tire compound, they wore out 20,000 miles before their warranty was up. One time while exiting the freeway, the shit box decided it wanted to oversteer (the tail slid out) as I went around a corner at a very reasonable speed. Luckily, I was able to hold the slide and correct it (which was pretty cool). I like to push cars and to go fast, but I've never ever had a front wheel drive car oversteer on me before, especially at super low speeds. This isn't really the car's fault, but the shit tires come with the shit territory.

    It had no safety features other than seatbelts and a couple airbags. No anti-lock brakes. No traction control. It had manual windows (fine, I guess), manual mirrors (eww), and manual door locks (gag me with a spoon!).

    Despite all these omissions, it had alloy wheels and a spoiler from the factory! Oh, but it's ok, it's the fucking "value package" so all my friends won't know I cheaped out on a car until they have to wait for me to get in the car to unlock their doors!

    In the 4 years she had it, the following broke:

    • The thermostat got stuck closed, which caused it to overheat which required the head gasket to be replaced
    • The alternator failed catastrophically. Forget not charging the battery, try shorting out, discharging the battery and killing the engine in seconds.
    • The tie rod snapped, causing the front wheels to be pointed in opposite directions (luckily this was in a parking lot so we didn't die)
    • The steering rack had to be replaced to fix the steering wheel that was 30 degrees off center to go straight.
    • Something was wrong with the brake booster, it hissed when you held the pedal down in a certain position, which really inspired confidence.

    What an awful car. Still, at least the previous owner left a new condom in the glove box when she bought it.

    • Eeyore on Adavan

      Despite all these omissions, it had alloy wheels and a spoiler from the factory!

      Thanks for the laughs

  • I have driven and found joy in many cars: Pinto, beetle, 2CV, original 500s, 1940s Ford tractors, beater pickups including a 1949 International, HMMWV, etc. Mopeds (like 1970s Puch), ratty motorcycles. They all make me giggly.

    I had to think a few minutes about one that was just terrible, no redeeming points I could find: first (north american) gen Hyunda Excel What a soul-sucking turd.

  • Toyota Echo

    I had to rent one one year because my car was in the shop for a while.

    I was being cheap and I just needed a car at the time.

    There is no seat room or leg room. I'm tall but not that tall and I couldn't get comfortable in this thing.

    And who the hell thought it was a good idea to put the instrument panel in the centre of the whole dashboard and not directly in front of the driver. I had a few near accidents before I adjusted myself to where the speedometer was.

  • The worst car I’ve ever driven was also the best because it lasted me until I was able to get on my own two feet and afford a new one: Nissan Sentra 97’.

    • around 200,000 miles the engine literally began falling out from the bottom of the rusted frame. I took it to a mechanic and they ran a wire underneath to hold it in place. Drove it for 5 more years after that!
    • Driver side window would not stay closed during Chicago winters so I glued it shut.
    • Dashboard lights burnt out.
    • Muffler would scrape across the pavement as I courted my girlfriend (now wife) around town.

  • Mid-Eighties Plymouth Voyager minivan. Put the pedal to the metal, and the damned thing would hardly accelerate, the motor just got louder. Probably would have been quicker if I rolled the window down and flapped my arms. And if you look at one spot too long, that part would break.

  • A 2018 Nissan Frontier. It was a loaner car while my Pathfinder as in the shop, and because it was brand new I thought it would be nice inside. But it wasn't. It had no power anything, a four speed automatic, and only AM/FM/CD. But the worst part was the floor was so high I was basically sitting with my legs straight in front of me. The ride was bumpy as hell, and the noise was so bad the little four speaker radio could barely be heard.

    Honestly, my 2010 Silverado (RIP) was a nicer truck, if only because it was heavier so the ride wasn't as bad.

  • I actually don't know the manufacturer or model.

    My childhood friend had a car in the late 90's that was like Fiat Strada, but the style was little more Japanese. My friend had ripped off all insignias and tags.

    Car was a nightmare to drive. It had very little power, top speed was about 130km/h and it wobbled oddly in turns. Even the gear stick was bendy plastic thing and it was hard to tell if the gear was really in or not.

  • UAZ Cabriolet

    It’s clearly the worst car money can buy. Before starting the engine, you need to check which liquids have leaked out and add some accordingly. Pretty much anything and everything can and will leak. Who needs a gym when just turning the wheel is a workout. If you want to listen to hardbass while driving, you need to bring your own stereo with you since this car doesn’t have one. It’s the only car that can be improved by a mechanical failure. When the engine or transmission inevitably dies, you’re finally free from this torment.

    0/10, would not recommend

  • The only motor vehicle I've ever driven was a lawn mower tractor. It does its job but gets boring after a while.

  • Haven't driven a load, but I've test-driven a Fiat Bravo (diesel). The sightlines were terrible, and it handled like a tractor.

  • 03 Ford Focus. Terrible transmission, on board computer fried, all kinds of random engine and sensor issues. Finally found an honest mechanic that said it would cost more to fix everything wrong with it than to just take the L and get a new car. Took a loss on the loan and bought a Camry. Best decision I could’ve made. Nothing but Toyota since.

122 comments