What Was Dad's Worst Car?

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Since it apparently was Fathers' Day in the States yesterday (it's in Nov here), Jalopnik ran some "What did your Dad drive" articles. I was amused by "What Was Dad's Worst Car?", and thought it might make for an entertaining thread around here, too. So:

What Was Dad's Worst Car?

I'm being repeatedly told the worst car in our family was the bloodclot red Opel Ascona C five-door (1982 or 1983, bought used). It had Mangels wheels, which made it rather handsome (judging by family photos), but it never ran properly and was generally considered a terrible buy, in retrospect. It was promptly traded in for a brand new, red 1986 Corolla LB SE 1.6, which in my mind was the best car in the world. I was devastated when it was replaced by a 1988 626.

The Ascona's crapness is challenged by the 2006 Mercedes-Benz B180CDI, which unlike the Ascona, repeatedly failed to reach its destination due to faulty sensors and bearings (first and only car in our family to do that, and first to need a tow truck). It first broke down while en route to a relative's 50th bday, its reputation thus forever tarnished. Gone now, it was replaced by a W204 estate.

So, let's hear yours!
 
Well, dunno about Dad's since my mum left him when I was six months old, but she takes the cake with a 1978 Lolvo 340DL 1.4 Automatic in deep orange with a brown velour interior. It had a wheezy Renault derived engine with a DAF CVT box in something that weighed as much as a house.
Handling - non-existent
Acceleration - glacial
Braking - religious

Her 1978 Skoda 105 comes a close second!!!

Thankfully my grandma still had a manual Toyota 1000 in which I could learn to drive and mum got a new job and was able to buy a brand new Renault 5 which was a lot better.

My mum has improved with age - she bought my Impreza Turbo Wagon from me and ran that for a year and since then has been running an Ibiza FR Cupra!!!
 
When I was really young my dad had a Dacia 1310. He told me a few times that, at one point, while we were going on holiday when I wasn't even one year old, when on a pretty hilly section of road, the clutch literally fried itself and everything else under the bonnet started boiling. At another point, apparently he had to drive for 40 km with literally no functioning brakes and try slowing the car down by de-clutching and engine braking alone. It would often fail to start, even after long periods of persuasion, the fuel gauge never worked and we nearly conked out once in an intersection, with a bus approaching...
 
Some sort of second hand Alfa he had- it was a typical lemon and the justification behind many a "don't buy fancy Euro cars with dubious reputations!" story. He also owned a ton of cars (most of which I forget) in his younger years, something he does regret to an extent due to the money he feels he wasted on them. He did learn to drive in a Mini though, so I give him some slack on that point! :lol:
 
Hmmm...Tough choice.

Life story: It all started with a $200 dark green 1970 Plymouth Valiant, followed by maybe a car or two (not entirely sure), then an '85 or '86 metallic poo-brown 626 LX, that when exhaust and fuel smells leaked into the cabin, was replaced (in Canada) with a '96 dark green 626 LX that went through 3 transmissions and was awful at everything, that was followed by a maroon '05 Camry LE V6 (he didn't take me with him to hunt for a car, he just brought it home and told me to check it out; I went back to my room without saying a word and didn't speak with him for some time :p ), that was sold and replaced by a silver E87 120i and he now has an '07 Legacy 2.5i.


TL;DR:
It goes without saying that the '96 was the worst- it's what I grew up in and learned to drive on. Awful, hateful little thing. The Camry at least was faultless reliability-wise, and it had the V6, so I was able to roast the front tires in contempt :D But I'm sure the A/C-less Valiant was the worst car.
 
Opel_Record_E_1984_00021.jpg


i don't remember it being bad (was sold when i was 6), but i can't image it was anything good :D

Ford_Escort_vr_silver.jpg

until recently my mom drove one of these. it was the best day of the year when my brother wrecked it :D
(but then she when to the dealer looking for a volvo...and came home with a citroen berlingo :rolleyes:)
 
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well tough call.. maybe its talbot 1510 -84 or talbot horizon -83..

well he has had some cool cars also, like fiat 850 and ford taunus "coupe" (well his another choice then was celica but who knows why he chose ford)

He seemed to like french cars so after talbots, it has been all peugeots (405,205,406,406stw and 206)
 
Hmm, since I can remember, probably the 1989 Renault 5 my parents had before the Kangoo. Other than that my dad had a couple of old Astra Mk3 company cars. And then I guess you could nominate the Kangoo as well. :p

But my dad's company cars have been pretty good - I loved the Renault 19 (3 door) as it had remote locking (which at that single figure age is all very exciting), and then he had a couple of Saabs (900S (modern shape not the classic one) and 9-3) before an Audi A6 (C5). The cars they've owed in my time are the Renault 5 and Kangoo, and now the Volvo V50. Before my time they had an old Audi 80 and Astra GTE, so frankly not too bad... :p
 
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My father had a Renault 4 once upon a time - that was probably his worst car, but I'm not content enough with 70ies cars to judge.
For my mother it's easier - '87 Kadett with 1.3 l petrol engine and 3-speed automatic. I needed four months (after I got my license) to convince her I we needed something faster better.
 
https://pic.armedcats.net/b/bl/blind_io/2010/06/21/volkswagen_scirocco_1642468.jpg

The 1979 VW Sirocco.

Driver's door fell off and had to be re-welded to the body.
Dash had more cracks than a dry lake bed
Seat foam disintegrated in few years, leaving you sitting on bare springs covered in cloth. This was "fixed" by placing a couple folded towels between the seat cover and the seat.
Rear dash "carpet" turned to dust.
Passenger mirror rusted off, was patched and painted but the mirror was never replaced.
Transmission finally grenaded all over the road at about 65,000 miles, it was sold to the local VW shop as a parts car.
 
Of the cars I remember my parents having, none of them were truely bad. Aside from the work trucks my dad usually drove (the family landscaping business was across the street, so we had access to all the trucks when needed) they only have had 3 cars over the last 20 years. The worst was probably the 1986 Buick Century wagon, 2.8L V6 with a 3 speed auto. That car was plagued with a series of problems and it finally got replaced after only 7 years because it started having chronic overheating problems that just couldn't be fixed for some reason.
 
My dad's first car was a Toyota Tercel, beige with beige interior, that would also be the worst.
Luckily by the time I was born that was long gone and replaced with a rather lovely white 190E :D
 
Probably the Sierra that had the doors rust through when it was only 5 years old. Or the Austin A30 which he bought for ?30 and which then failed on 15 different points when it needed an MOT after becoming 10 years old a short time later.
 
Happily turning this into "Dad's motoring history":

My Dad told me about some of the crap he had when he was stationed in the US for fighter pilot training... just imagine an 18-year-old from Wirtschaftswunder germany, where all cars are VW Bugs coming to Alabama... He (and most of his mates) went through a quick sucession of junk they were tricked into buying before they learned how to judge an american used car. I can't name makes and models, so these cars can't be counted here.

At the end of his time with the USAF, he got himself a Porsche (judging from the time he had it, it must have been a last-year356 or a first-year 901/911) and later had BMWs for most of the 70s and early 80s (insert obligatory story about oversteering into two trees in a 2002 here)... After my sister's birth, he needed something bigger and got himself a B2 VW Passat, which, as far as i remember, was perfectely reliable and is still close to the top of my list of "not-uncool estate cars". When the B3 came out, he was one of the first to get one and got a real lemon - it broke down constantly. Still, i had a later-model B3 as a company car and loved it to bits, so this is not the worst car, either. The sucession of B4 and B5 Passats that followed it (as a good german citizen, my dad does his duties for the economy and gets a new car every three to four years) were unspectacular, but not bad.

So, the honor goes to his current car: The Golf Plus AKA "Senior citizen Golf". It's not a bad car, but it's hideous, much more impractical than it looks, has one of this modern "full-automatic climate control" computers that still won't let me regulate the venting/heating as good as one knob for the heater and one for the ventilator motor could and then there's the fact that the summer and winter tires he got in the factory package are of different diameter, so the speedo is always off a little more than it should be....

As this car, too, turns three soon he is looking for a replacement... i'll try to talk him back into a 911 or at least a 3-series.
 
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My dad's worst car was his first - a brand new Trabant 601 Combi. Do I win?
Trabant601K.jpg
 
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FSO Syrena (mk1 + mk2)
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Polski Fiat 126p from 1978
Va126P.jpg

(looked nearly excacly like that, only with black rims.)
 
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GM had to buy it back under lemon laws two years after he bought it because it was so bad.
 
GMC Safari. He hated that thing with a passion, it ran but he hated it.

The Jeep Wagoneer with the AMC 360 won the unreliable award.
 
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