Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: Amigo on 06 January 2011, 21:22:12
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We've had plenty of best car posts but what is your biggest ever automotive disaster? One that you've kept under wraps for years & would really rather forget about let alone share it with us pee takers.
STMO has just told us he once had an Austin Princess Wedge (probably his best car)!
When i was 18 i paid a mate to take me from Worthing to some estate in Brighton to buy a Hillman Husky (Imp With a van back). He had to go so i paid £25 & got as far as Hove after overheating a few times & half the gears not engaging. I left it in Hove/Portslade & never went back. Had to hitch home. Dunno what happened to it, no docs. Only £25? Back then a £1 note would buy you 3 pints & 20 Rothmans were about 60p.
Does'nt have to be big bucks but i bet most of you have in the dim & distant so c'mon, fess up!!! :y
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I had a couple of worst cars...
1) Not long after I passed my test I payed a tenner for a Fiat 126. What a rot box! Did nearly 90 to the gallon though.
2) Hilman Imp. Had it a week and the throttle cable snapped, so hooked the choke cable to the carb and off I went again. had it 9 months and scrapped it still with the hand throttle ;D
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I've had some right stinkers...... stuff you normally see on the arse end of a recovery truck heading to a Vehicle Disposal site..... but, even worse than that, I've owned a 1992, J Plate Ford Granada Scorpio.
Dont get me wrong, it was a very well spec'd car, looked meaty(ish) and was almost comfortable, but it was seriously rubbish.
*Performance was terrible, fuel economy was worse,
*It was soaking wet inside, and even though I spent days with buckets of water and spent many monies on automatic car washes, I couldnt find the leak,
*I always got a static shock from it when getting out of the door.
To be honest, I've owned worse cars, such as a Mk5 Escort and a badly rotten Mk2 Astra GTE, but I knew these were old sh1te cars...... the Granada was my second shot at a 'luxury' car (it followed a Carlton 2.6 Diplomat)..... boy was I depressed. The Granada was supposed to be a step up from the Carlton...... It was terrible.
To be fair to the Granada, I wanted to better the Carlton. The Omega doesn't really do it for me compared to that car. I was only 19 when I owned the Carlton, so perhaps I was a little too emotional about it, but bloody hell, it was a minter. :y
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MkII Escort what a rot box. It would just cut out for no reason & i never did find out why, i over took an Artic on the A38 & i'd just pulled infront of him when it died, all i could see was this bloody great truck in my mirror flashing its lights, i was kicking the crap out of the inside of it in anger. I hated that car. I broke first gear wheel spinning it at a junction, had another gear box fitted & sold it.
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phase 1 and phase 2 Peugeot 309 GTi's THE WORST cars ever. they were constantly breaking down, i lived in the local GSF shop and when one of them went up in flames due to an electrical fire in the engine id had enough, would never own another Pug after that
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1978 Austin Allegro 1100S - leaked like a sieve around the windscreen, got your passengers legs wet, no synchromesh to speak of, carb gasket made of hardboard and the bellhousing exploded when we bled the clutch because someone had put it back on upside down, oh and and it still had the dual controls from it's days as my Granddad's car when he was an instructor.. (Was interesting giving friends a lift!)
1989 Nissan 300ZX - my first - the cam sensor wiring had been butchered and was just 6 spade connectors with wires twisted together with the original loom (poked the big bundle of electrical tape and the engine died!) and the gearbox seal gave up and started dumping ATF on the cats which made a nice smokescreen!
Oh and a 1989 Nissan Bluebird 1.8GS auto - stalled at every junction while warming up so you had to left foot brake, knock it into neutral and keep the revs up with your right foot.. many an accidental emergency stop were had!
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:-[ Hyundai accent, i was desperate for transport ,what else can i say?
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'91 Ford Escort 1.3, was so slow my mother could walk faster. Never started first time, was rough as... (insert witty comment here)
'96 VW Polo, not that bad, but it broke down on me twice. It was supposed to be red but the paint had faded and was more like pink. Imagine going to college in that! I was the only one in my class that drove but I kept it to myself .
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:-[ Hyundai accent, i was desperate for transport ,what else can i say?
hyundai pick up, i hit the brakes at 40mph suddenly in the rain and wrote off the 2 cars in front of me, turn a corner at 20mph and the back end would be at the front, shite heap
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1968 Vauxhall Victor 1600. leaked like a sieve through the windscreen, gutless engine, sloppy 3 up a tree gearbox. Threw it in the river Ribble to get rid.
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Citroen Xantia .
Chose it as as a new company car replacement after having six Vauxhalls in a row , and suffered 100 K miles in two years with it.
It was the most uncomfortable ,unreliable and unwelcoming car I have ever had the misfortune to have driven, the memory makes me want to go and lie down....... :'(
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1991 1.4 Ford Escort,got it brand new started rusting after 10 months,gutless uncomfortable and crap to drive.It got stolen and torched,I was glad when it had gone.
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Toss up between Mk1 Crapi GT and Sierra 2.0 GL. pobably the Sierra because it was sooooo bland and devoid of character.
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Toss up between Mk1 Crapi GT and Sierra 2.0 GL. pobably the Sierra because it was sooooo bland and devoid of character.
I've had both of those, Ford were way ahead of thier time with the absolutely amazing anti-traction devices fitted to most of their RWD cars ::) :o ;D ;D
[edit]Sorry Guy ;) :y[/edit]
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An engine with almost no grunt you mean ? :D
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Since starting driving MANY years ago I have had numerous wrecks, but loved each one, even those that clocked up more miles being pushed than driven!
But the worst car is the skip I drive at the moment --- skoda ::) Yeah, I know, don't know what possessed me.
It's a 1.9 SD --- goes surprisingly well, good economy, only £90 tax. But sounds like an ancient london taxi, creaks worse than me (eats suspension bushes). Power steering assist has a mind of it's own, when brake switch fails glowplug light flashes, when windscreen fuse blows, rear wipe operate when you press front wash, electric window switches operate random windows, stereo sound swings from side to side ----- all of these problems are rife with this model, yet skoda say there's no problem.
I'll persevere and drive this one til it blows up and save for a decent motor.
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Fiat X1/9 - absolute piece of shit, was scared to go through a puddle in case I didn't have a car the other side. Can't think of anything that actually worked on that car
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2 Cars for me
Chrysler Alpine 1.4 5 door, Twin choke webber that allways flooded the engine, ans poor performqace 84mph flat out. The HA van it replaced did nearly 100mph. Chrysler was just naff and uncomfortable but was white as well. Even though it only had 14,000 miles on the clock I could not wait to get rid.
2nd was a brand fire new Astra GTE bought and delivered to my home 2 days before it was allowed on the road on Aug 1st.
Ran it in carefully etc etc, and when run it it went like the clappers.
But Suffered rust spots, condensation in the headlights, faulty sun roof, fuel tanks had a habbit of imploding due to incorrently pipe fuel ventilation, wax crayon showed under the paint, wheel paint came off in placs and the wiring loom in the engine bay went up in spoke in a petrol station of all places when I went to start it. Oh and that tinker was white as well.
The Gte was/had that many faults it totally put me off Vx for a while.
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Talbot Horizon. How it won the COTY award still defeats me. It started off as an absolute waste of £40 and went downhill from there. Had an oval crank, no oil feeding the top end and all the shocks were knackered so it bounced like Tigger, while the steering was as direct as politician's expenses claim. The only good things about it were it had no rust, really good paint and a mint interior. But mechanically it was completely shagged.
Took me a week to fix it in a corner of a workshop and cost me £80 to do it, with all the bits coming out of a local scrapyard. After that the engine still clattered like hell (the hydraulic tappets were so noisy it made you wince), it was horrible to sit in and just annoying to drive. Every time I set off to go somewhere I prayed an artic would ram it up the chuffer, or some urchin would torch it. Anything, please, just rid me of this poxy motor!
I did one long distance trip in it to London to see some mates over a long weekend and while there I sold it for £350. He thought he was robbing me. I didn't dare let him think otherwise.
Apart from that the only other one that stands out was a company car I had for a bit, which was a Mk3 Golf VR6. Some people actually rate these useless, soggy handling, no brakes bricks.
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I had a disaster with a 1973 Austin 2200 Landcrab. Bought it from the father in law about 2 years after I married his daughter - paid £600 for it in 1976 (car not daughter) - ran well for a while but started rusting and then one dark rainy October night in 1978 with 6 week old baby - the oil light came on near Bodmin en route from Leigh, Lancs to Truro - coaxed it to Truro with large can of oil but it needed new engine - police drove me to a garage to get oil and then took me back to car - would that happen these days?. Remember writing to Leyland complaining about the piece of s**t that should do more than 50000 miles - new engine was installed in a garage set up in an old tin mine at Wheel Kitty in St.Agnes.
I had to leave family down in Truro as it took ages for engine to arrive and father in law lent me his Allegro Estate to get back up North.
It continued to rust - got rid of it in 1980 for about £450. Happy days??
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1984 Granada 2.8 ghia auto. bought for £100. Had more filler in/on the roof than metal. Rad blew up during Mot on journey home from picking it up. RSO tester thanked me with a fail sheet and a bill for £400 to weld the rear crossmember back together. Somehow it lasted 7 months. Sold it for £150. Next 'owner' had it round an oval somewhere within a week. doubt he even bothered stripping it. >:(
Next worse was probably my 55 vectra diesel. had that for a mere 6 months. Was in garage every other week for various things ranging from seized handbrake mechanism, which killed a wheel bearing, to a coked inlet manifold which shafted the egr valve. Car only had 10k on it when I bought it in 2006. Was booked in to have 2nd inlet manifold done at 31k when I stuffed it into a roundabout to put it out of its misery. Which was nice. At 35mpg it made both the 3.2 migs that I've had look almost frugal...
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volvo glx or some such thing, with a hatch back.
only had a few months and as pulling off tom traffic heard a great bang, looked in rear view mirror and could not see anything for a hundred yards but loads of thick black smoke.
(chernobyl springs to mind) :o :o :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[
Other drivers just on. Can only guess at what they were thinking. ::) :-[.
Had a feeling something was up when the young boy and his mum buying from could not quite get away quick enough after getting their mits on my hard earned £250. Wasn't even worth 50p >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(
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It has to be my Cresta I'm afraid. It was an absolute pig to start and on one occasion when I drove it to school to pick up some heavy kit, the clutch slave cylinder piston popped out and stuck at an angle requiring a tow home. Not being taxed, MOT'd or insured that was embarrassing to say the least. If it had some ground clearance I might have been able to diagnose it on the spot!
I then got it stuck on a VERY steep hill when it wouldn't start and I tried to do a roll 3-point turn. That resulted in me up against a garden wall and still pointing up hill. I had to run home with the battery (yes! You read that right) and run back with the one out of my parent's car. All compounded by the fact that the car still wasn't supposed to be on the road.
Some would blame me, but it was definitely the car's fault. ;D ;D ;D
(http://i890.photobucket.com/albums/ac107/Chris_H3/Cresta.jpg)
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1.1 Fiesta
A rather orrible car, the worst most noisey engine on the planet, it rattled and tapped but you could make it quiet....for about 4 weeks and then the adjustments went out again.
It didn't drive so well either
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Mark 5 Cortina 2.0GL.
Looked good on the outside but was full of rust and only 4 years old.
Got written off by a reversing lorry-foolishly my brother bought it back as scrap and put it back on the road.
Next worse was the car I replaced it with-a 1981 Granada 2.8 Ghia-problems with timing and the autochoke-gave it to my brother who promptly blew the engine up.
Steve
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F reg VW Scirocco : no brakes, idled at 3000rpm - you could drive along without touching the accelerator, bulkhead collapsed once shearing all the cables, left 4 crates of beer in the boot one winter and half the bottles exploded when they froze - car smelt like a brewery (to be fair thats not the cars fault).
loved it to bits tho - still regret selling her over 20yrs ago ::) :y
actually - the worst car was an '04 Laguna diesel estate i had for 2 weeks before getting shot of it - the dash lit up like a christmas tree, every single nut and bolt seemed to have a sensor attached to it, none of the sensors seemed to work and the car would shut down if it thought it had a problem........hopeless, even running slightly low on water would cause the engine to cut out - traded it for a 406 - and its far superior, which tells you what a bucket the Laguna was ;D
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Citroen BX19GTI
Promised so much, delivered so little, hydropneumatic suspension failed twice, needing new pipes and £200 each time (paid £500 for it) It actually went reasonably well, and then after leaving a window open slightly in the rain and taking all the carpets out to dry one day found this little weld line from the floor to the ceiling and all around the "b" pillars............................ashamed to say I dried it out and sold it on to a dealer in PX for a Granada Ghia 2.9 and he allowed me £300 on it!!
The Granada was almost wallet breaking to run, but sooooooooo much better.
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After passing my test I bought a 4/5 year old BMW 1602 in a lovely teal colour.
Was underpowered and uninspiring to drive. (Unlike the 2002Tii that followed it)
The universal joints on each drive shaft (at the differential end) were knackered - discovered when investigating a lag in drive take up.
Never really took to it after that but it was disappointing rather than the worst.
The worst car by a long way was a Renault 18TS bought new in 1979 for my wife. (Was a deal from a friendly local dealer)
This car was badly made of what appeared to be cheap materials and had a gear change with more movement in it than a dog's dick. It started to rust in the boot floor seams where they ran along each rear wheel arch so was disposed of after about 14 months.
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Don't think any of mine have been that bad. They've all served me well and stood up to the abuse admirably.
Yes, when I had the Morris Ital I was forever chasing round it with a tin of rust eater and a rattle can, and that oil leak onto the exhaust made a bit of a smell sometimes but it did 50k with nothing other than regular servicing and a recond alternator IIRC. Oh, and the "occasional" (at every fuel stop!) top up of oil. Gearbox whined a bit but TADTS.
The Rover 214 was a bit bland and uninspiring but did 80k in my hands without much bother and had the decency to wait until 2 weeks after I sold it before doing the "K series head gasket thing".
The Laguna I had, again uninspiring but a good mile muncher - until the valve clearances all closed up and, when I went to re-shim it I found it had mullered a cam bearing in the head. Changed the head and got it all tip-top again then promptly chopped it in for an Omega. ::)
I've been lucky, really, I suppose.
My mate always had the knack of buying liabilities - like an all-aggro - one of the pokier ones. It was a 1500 or 1750 IIRC. A bit more grunt comes in handy when only 2 gears work - 3rd and 5th IIRC (no reverse, then!).
Then there was the Chevette that had been serviced so regularly that the breathers had almost filled the air filter box up with crud. Went to adjust the rockers and had to find them first! Just a big chunk of margarine under the rocker cover.
Remarkably, that ran as sweet as a nut after a couple of oil changes and a good service.
.. and speaking of Chevettes, another mate had one with a dodgy gearbox. Replaced that, then the prop shaft let go and took the back end of the gearbox casing out. So, we made one good gearbox out of the bits, and tried again.. etc.. I think the gearbox came out 5 or 6 times before it was fixed. ;D
Kevin
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Like the OP , mine was probably an Imp. Light blue in colour. It too cost me £25. It too had loads of overheating and lack of gears issues. It was just horrible.
I had a friend who had an ex works Imp rally car with a fairly standard but bigger capacity engine. He sold it to a chap from Ireland who met him at York. On the test drive it stuck in reverse. He still bought it though!
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G-reg Montego estate in blue, got it from an auction in about 1998, got half way home gearbox was whining, arches were full of newspaper, it was an ex taxi, it smelt of dogs, anyway £20 on filler and paint sorted the arches, a quick bad sorted the smell and £300 profit wasn't too bad either, told the bloke about the gearbox, I knew him and the box last another 49,000 miles so all was well. How that kept going for 3 years I'll never know ;D ;D
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2.5 V6 CDX Omega. ;D ;D
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Renault 25 without power steering :-[
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HA Viva with a 1.8 Victor lump shoehorned in, still had std axle and crossply tyres. Was known as Ol Smokey because of camcover leaks which necessitated a fire extinguiser at the ready if going more than a few miles.
Marina 1.8TC Coupe. Went like the proverbial but wouldnt stop or go around bends.
To buck a trend my best car was a Hillman Imp, full Monte Carlo suspension, GP 3 Greetham engine, Hewland box front radiator etc (not much left of the original car...perhaps thats why its not a 'worst' one ;)
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fiat super strada,went pretty quick but rusted out quicker :( ;D
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The worse car I've ever owned was a Vauxhall Astra Belmont. Whilst there was nothing especially wrong with this example (they were all dire), it was bloody awful. Corners - nah, stopping - nah, acceleration (on the original engine) - oh yes, come to daddy :D
Replacement engine, after the original's valves and pistons had a little chit-chat at 70mph in 1st gear, was average, and thus showed the car for what it really was - shite! Only had it 3 months, but did around 15k in it.
Still, I replaced it with another Astra, a GTE this time. Still a poor car, but brilliant spec for the money (joyrider era), and a stunningly good engine. Again, appallingly bad chassis went several embarrassing situations with less powerful cars at the lights.
I also had a Vauxhall Nova, that I famously 'found' in the garage. Great little car to be honest, but has to be in my list of 'worse' cars simply because I couldn't get the seat set right, no matter what I tried. I always found it difficult to drive, because I couldn't get the basics right (seat, mirrors etc) - yet my brother's 2 (newer) Novas never gave me that problem. Replaced the Nova with the Rover 25 that I still have in April 2000...
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Ooh I forgot one.. well, two..
Rover Metro with a 1.4 naturally aspirated diesel engine. Actually this really wasn't that bad a car - it was a step up from the Allegro, anyway - and it survived being stuffed into a ditch by yours truly when the handling went all funny.
Later found out that the handling went 'all funny' because the front subframe had, for quite some time, been two halves as opposed to a whole..
The next company car was equally appalling - Rover 218D (naturally aspirated Pug engine). Nothing really wrong with it, it just didn't do anything. Like go, or stop, or go around corners, and with no power steering you ended up with arms like Geoff Capes. As I recall the two girls in the office who also ended up with them as company cars hated them because they couldn't park them anywhere (because there was no power steering..)
Still, neither ever let me down.. aside from the Metro trying to kill me that one time.
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Very briefly, a Ford Mondeo in 1994. It was bad because it was a Ford Mondeo, with as much character as a manky dish cloth!! :P :P :P
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Marina 1.8TC Coupe. Went like the proverbial but wouldnt stop or go around bends.
I'd obviously blotted the most horrible part of my Ital ownership out of my memory until now. Yeah, they didn't handle too well. ;D
Kevin
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Very briefly, a Ford Mondeo in 1994. It was bad because it was a Ford Mondeo, with as much character as a manky dish cloth!! :P :P :P
Good donor cars, though, especially pre-'95 2.0s. ;D
Kevin
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Very briefly, a Ford Mondeo in 1994. It was bad because it was a Ford Mondeo, with as much character as a manky dish cloth!! :P :P :P
Good donor cars, though, especially pre-'95 2.0s. ;D
Kevin
That is about as good as they got then Kevin! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;)
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That is about as good as they got then Kevin! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;)
That's about as close as I got to one. ;D
Kevin
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i made a disaster out of my Elite 3 years ago by getting an LPG kit fitted to it buy a company that turned out to be the biggest se of cowboys i'd ever encountered
tragically, it was originally the best car i'd ever been in!
other than that, i've had a bora, 2 corsas and 3 omegas and to be honest none of them let me down, i still have the bora and one omega tho obviously
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If we include works vehicles, 1.8d escort is the worse, worse than the 1.3 Italy :o
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Marina 1.8TC Coupe. Went like the proverbial but wouldnt stop or go around bends.
I'd obviously blotted the most horrible part of my Ital ownership out of my memory until now. Yeah, they didn't handle too well. ;D
Kevin
they sounded nice though :y
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If we include works vehicles, 1.8d escort is the worse, worse than the 1.3 Italy :o
Is that even possible? :o
Mine was a 1.7 8-) You could gain some speed between corners. Getting rid of it again proved problematic sometimes. ::)
Kevin
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Worst car (poor starting and rust) = Mk1 Cortina
Most reliable = '59 1192cc 34 bhp Beetle (owned for 13 yrs)
Most comfortable = Jaguar XJ6 (Also the thirstiest)
Enjoyed owning the most = '53 Mk1 Consul, probably because I used to rally it back in the day.
But I still love the Omega after 12 years, it only has to go one year more to beat the Beetle for reliability also!
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If we include works vehicles, 1.8d escort is the worse, worse than the 1.3 Italy :o
If we include works cars it would be a toss-up between a Datsun 120Y, Hillman Avenger, Morris Ital and a Renault 18. (All unmarked soft-skinned)
The worst armoured saloon vehicle by a mile was the MK4 Ford Cortina, even considering the 2.2 Landcrab.
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V reg Hillman Avenger estate wins for me. Bought as a get around car whilst doing a new bodyshell rebuilt on a 6 month old, low mileage, E plate Astra SRi 1800.
On the plus side, the Avenger swallowed large body panels and was able to transport them around for me as and when required.
Other than that, was a pile of cack. Brakes were, forgetfull, despite overhall... Steering was wayward. Gearboc and diff noise was too much. Power - it couldn't pull back its own ****skin, even when pressed hard. Seemed like a fair car when viewed but a couple of hundred miles soon showed its true colours............
Paid a couple of hundred quid for it and was desperate to get that back when the Astra was up and running - it would buy the tax and fill the tank!
Took ages to get rid of that crappy red Avenger boat anchor, think it was not much more than 50 quid or so, just glad to get shot. Avenger? Certainly did to me.... :P
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Citeron BX total Sh***
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Vauxhall Chevette, (with no compression). like a lottery in the mornings; will it start? Only thing I could afford at the time to keep me mobile after I had my Mk1 Sierra XR4x4 nicked. >:( >:(