So, we all have had cars that have been unrealiable steaming piles of poo to own, but what was the one thing that made you say stuff it, and get something else?
Mine was a 1998 Daewoo Nubira Estate 2.0CDX In silver (and rust). It was about 18 mths old when my company (owned by my dad!!!!) thrust this piece of crap on me.
At first glance the looks were bloody awful and the interior was plain nasty. But coming from a 1994 Rover 214SLi with 155,000 on the clock, I thought his may have been an improvement.
It had air con, four elec windows and a huge boot, but it was that engine that amazed me. It was so rapid (as a friendly copper told me whilst standing beside the A1/M at Letchworth who had just witnessed it accelerate from 80mph to 122mph faster than his unmarked Volvo, but more about that later)
No word of a lie though, this car was beyond unrealiable. It's main problem was a front suspension that always creaked. No matter what the daewoo dealer did, within 2 weeks the creak was back!!!
The clutch exploded on one journey, finding reverse gear was a game of pure luck, there was rust (a lot of it) behind the front grill and when I took it all the way to Enfield for them to repair it all they did was touched in the brown areas with a brush. They'd had it for 3 days!!! There was honestly so much wrong with that car that I have just blocked out most of it.
But the biggie was, cambelt due at 60k, mine failed at 58,500! It took most of the engine with it and was off the road for near on 6 weeks as they needed to get the parts shipped over from Korea. I picked the car up on the Saturday and had the Monday off to take my brother to the airport with his missus. Driving out of London on the A4 and bang, it snapped again!!! Had it recovered back to Luton Daewoo and ended up having such an argument with the service manager that he offered me outside! Turned out it wasn't the cambelt, it was a hairline fracture in the idler jockey bracket, the very bracket they said they had changed!
But just a few weeks later the heavens smiled on me. I'd just got the car back and I had the run in with the above copper. I went to court and got a 2 month ban, during this time one of the companies salesman who had a habit for smashing his cars in, smashed his (4th) car in. As a punishment he was given the daewoo! Result. I got my license back and slipped behind the wheel of an almost new Astra estate 2.0Di
But believe me, given the choice, I would have gotten rid of that Daewoo long long before that!!
Wayne