What was the biggest pile of scrap car you ever owned and tell us a bit about it. ( Volvo content )

Stevepage

my 2nd Ford Focus. Had problems with the thermostat housing cracking multiple times, cost quite a bit in fuel, tax was high and the last 2 months it needed a new fuel pump, new clutch and a new lower control arm.

That thing cost me an arm and a leg.

EricTheWeary

Just for balance  - I've had two old Citroens and both were great and very reliable, the AX was as cheap as chips and had a long life with my nephew after me.

I had a mark I Viva I was given ( as it had so little value) which broke down with alarming regularity and was generally a rusty box on wheels. Only car I ever had with a manual choke IIRC.

I had a diesel Fiesta which was generally okay but it didn't have power steering. Now I've driven estate cars and even vans with no power steering but on the Fiesta it was truly terrible to turn and I developed a bad neck. Great car on the straight and the massive diesel engine in a tiny car meant I could overtake almost anything on a really big hill.

RobDavies

1999 Mercedes CLK200 Kompressor. 

Probably the the most stressful month of my life. 

To cut a very very long story short....   I needed a new car after my incredible little Micra died. A friend of mine had a CLK which I'd admired for a while so I searched the dealers on AutoTrader for a used one in and around the £3k mark. 

I found one one at a place called Chapmans in the New Forest and drove out there to test/buy it.  All the signs were good - decent car in good condition etc.  Paid cash and didn't notice that the dealer had written 'private sale' on the invoice.  

Drove it home and after approximately an hour, the engine warning light came on.  Phoned dealer said to bring it back and he'd fix it, which he did.  
Two days later, engine warning light comes on again, and then car completely breaks down on my way to work.  Another phone call... dealer arranges a low loader to pick car up..... I ask for money back - he said no, it's a private sale, and he's doing me a favour. 
Car needs new catalytic converter which dealer says he will fit.  

Once 'fixed' I take the car to Merc specialist in Portsmouth who basically condemns the car as unsafe. There's oil in the wiring loom (£800 to fix), the brake pipes are corroded to buggery and could fall apart at any minute, the new cat is badly fitted, suspension is knackered and to top it off there is what looks like horse hair and dried blood stuck to the underneath of the car - evidently someone had run over a new forest pony at some point.  Expert opinion is that the previous two MOT's were extremely dodgy.  My kids had travelled in this car. 

I phone dealer again and ask for money back and start talking about trading standards. Dealer gets shitty and says I haven't got a leg to stand on due to 'private sale' on invoice.  
I phone trading standards who recommend small claims court.  Not sure I can be doing with any more stress so decide to cut my losses and sell the car on - perfectly honestly, so I listed every fault on eBay and a bloke drove down from Lincoln to pick it up and paid me £1700. 

Lesson learned, lost £1300 - and I will never buy a used car again. 

rlw

Carrera 3.2 from 1985.   Built like a tank but drove like Texaco Valdez.  Wallowed, blew about in the wind, scary on slippery roads, appalling gearchange (even after a gearbox rebuild and always changing properly....) and all the sophistication of an Austin 7.   Utter shite.

boogieman

So many.....
In the 70s when I first started buying cars I could only afford shitheaps. They'd always break down or fall apart. I'd spend money fixing one thing and then something else would promptly go wrong, so I'd be left with the dilemma of throwing even more money at it or scrapping it.

The worst thing was how quickly cars used to be so crap, so quickly. My first car was a Ford Anglia 105, it was all of 8 years old with 65k miles on it when I bought it but it was already full of holes and fairly knackered mechanically. I can't imagine a 2009 Fiesta being anything like the same.  

Gassage

TheMarlin said:

Citroen XS.  The air suspension kept failing.  Ruined my neck...

Don't lie under the car then.

hotpot

Austin princess (wedge shape) it was a stop gap car because some scroat nicked my MkII Ford Granada. the thing was appalling, totally unreliable & under powered, you could literally watch it rotting. it's brings sick up into my mouth just thinking about it.

boogieman

hotpot said:

Austin princess (wedge shape) it was a stop gap car because some scroat nicked my MkII Ford Granada. the thing was appalling, totally unreliable & under powered, you could literally watch it rotting. it's brings sick up into my mouth just thinking about it.

Shame they didn't get the reliability and build quality sorted, they were quite a handsome car, especially the twin headlight Wolesey version. My dad had an Austin one as a company car, although for some unfathomable reason he chose one in a kind of apricot paint with a brown vinyl roof and baby poo coloured velour interior. 

impmann

Talbot Horizon (Horrozone).

Under the bonnet was a bag of spanners on a spin cycle, masquerading as an engine. At the factory, the ancilliaries had been emptied into a disposal bag, shaken vigourously and then tipped into the engine bay at random using fixings that would have been easy to undo should you be a double-jointed dwarf with twelve inch fingers containing four knuckles that oppose.

I wouldn't say it was slow but the speedo should have been calibrated using soil erosion or glacial movement.

Fuel consumption? Well, the fuel delivery system I think was just a random pouring arrangement that lobbed fuel in the general direction of the engine with the hope that some of it may find its way into the pots.

Comfort? Sitting in the seats was akin to sitting on slightly stale Marshmallows - initially hard and then you'd sink and continue sinking into them during your journey. By the end of which you were almost bent double. The seats also smelt... funny. By that I mean it wasn't humourous in the slightest, but you found yourself trying to work out where you'd smelt the odour before... it was like a mix of biscuits, wee and industrial effluent, with a soucon of Badger to lighten the experience.

Roadholding? The tyres on this special edition model I had were reinforced with Teflon in their Far Eastern factory. Grip was measured in "woahs" from about 10mph rising to "shhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiittttttt" at about 25mph and above. For a car with such soft suspension it was amazing quite how crashing the suspension was - going over bumps illicited the sort of sounds that I'd imaging the Titanic made when the Captain realised that the iceberg wasn't going to get out of his way.

Steering? The turning circle was measured in furlongs. The Bizmark could turn more rapidly and probably had a lighter tiller. Roundabouts were a great upper body workout, usually accompanied by screaming, crying and general panic from the occupants - especially if you exceeded 20mph.

Gearbox... it had one. It seemed to best summed up thus - the noise of the engine changed. It made the driving experience a variable noise constant speed enterprise.

The clutch had previously been a challenge from "The World's Strongest Man" contest, but had been dismissed as the Russians had found it too much for them to cope with. Even with double the steroids.

The styling - Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder went on a three day bender and on the fourth morning, whilst dealing with the munchies decided to try their hands at car design. The only implement they had at their disposal was a blunt child's crayon and their choice of a crumpled Kebab wrapper dictated the shape.

Reliability? You could rely on the Horrorzone to break down regularly. The onset of rain, darkness or snow would ensure complete unreliabilty - ranging from electrical faults (mainly it falling out), cable breakage (the final straw was the accelerator cable being made of unobtainium necessitating a repair involving a electrical connector and a zen philsophy) or just general "fuck it Dave, I'm not playing today", often whilst attempting to keep up with traffic on major roads... in the dark. In rush hour.

So what happened to my vision of joy? After four miserable months of realising that walking was a better option, I advertised it (with a similar description to the above) on eBay and it was immediately snapped up. The buyer asked us to meet him with the car at a local(ish) station one dark evening... I thought it was a wind up but went with it anyway. He met us, handed over folding, completed the paperwork and installed himself behind the wheel. When asked where he was heading he told us "Harwich", and then the car was being loaded into a container and being shipped to Australia.
The stunned silence was only punctuated by my wife and I mouth breathing in shock. It turns out the Horrorzone was never exported to Australia and this guy had a collection of unusual cars, and this car fitted the bill perfectly. Again, I thought this was a wind up until some years later I saw an auction advertised in one of the classic car magazines of an ecclectic collection in Australia and one of the pictures used to illustrate the story was my old bag of shit Horrorzone basking in the sunlight.

The Talbot Horrozone. Walking is a better option.

Octafish

mike_l said:

Mk3 Golf.

Total and utter shite motor. It sat at a different dealership in the group for months (should have been an indicator). I got it because I needed a car quickly.

Typical VW kept blowing the thermostat housing. Then the power steering pump gave up.

I've only owned Golfs, didn't learn to drive till late 20s and first car was a mk1 GTI . I've had or have mk1, 2 and a mk4s. All have been great cars, reliable, easy to work on and fun to drive, but in my experince the mk3 was a pile of crap. Never owned one, but driven a few and all have had spongey average handling, sluggish performance, been rust prone and two people I know who owned mk3s both had the head gasket go before 150000. How VW could have got it so wrong after the excellent mk2 I have no idea, although I suppose their main competetion was miserable 90s Escort and Astra efforts.

Octafish

Snap said:

Great thread!

I've had a number of shit cars.

Morris Marina, 1.8 Super. It wasn't super at all. Had aircon though - huge holes in the floor. Burnt oil like no tomorrow. Twin cams though, so it did go a bit. Metallic green with brown velour interior. Sweet. Was my first car though, so I thought it was ace.

Viva - metallic brown, uh huh. Never started, so always had to bump it, used to park at the top of our road so I could roll start it every day, and it would backfire every time. Bet the neighbours hated me. Funny though. Thing is, the wipers wouldn't work if the lights were on. Which was a problem. So, I got hold of an old wiper from a scrapped transit van, and would use that.

To get to my girlfriend's house, I had to go down 3 junctions of the M6, so I would drive in the pissing rain, with my arm out wiping the windscreen with this chuffing great big van wiper. Regularly. Also, the rear indicators didn't work so that was a bit novel.

After that, I bought a Lada RIva, 1.6. Burgundy, with grey body kit. Rock right on buddy. Actually, that wasn't really that bad. Well, I suppose it was, but it was reliable. I used to drive over the M62 in it quite a lot. The first time, I was going up the hill towards Saddleworth, and even though I had my foot flat down, it was still losing speed. Lorries overtaking me. Thought I'd blown piston rings, so I pulled over to have a look under the bonnet. As I got out, the problem became clear: there was a raging headwind, and it was just so piss weak, it was struggling with the hill + wind. Once over the top, we were away and laughing. It had a sunroof that was err, shall we saw "an aftermarket" addition. It was off centre. Someone had put it in with a jigsaw.

I made a profit selling that as well.

Shittest modern car i had......

Nissan Juke. Had one for a week recently as a hire car. 1.5D,. Now that is a truly terrible car, in every possible way you could imagine. Cheap and nasty interior, uncomfortable, jittery ride, slow, small, looks ridiculous. Nissan Joke. Anyone who owns one, the joke really is on you.

REnault Laguna was pretty bad too. Like a shit Cavalier.

Ha, ha thats a great list there, particularly the off-centre sunroof  . I'm getting all nostalgic for cars backfiring, something you no longer hear. Also being born in the mid 70s I have distant childhood memories of early cold winter mornings and the sound of a multitude car starter motors spinning away and drivers spraying away with the easy-start in a forlorn attempt to get engine firing, usually some Ford or BL crap.

goldtop

Fiat X1/9, my second car. Bought with heart, not head. Looked glorious in a BL green resrpay (should have been a clue).

Would lock the front brakes if there was any moisture around. Vapour lock if trying to restart when warm. Always seemed to be wanting to act up. Girlfriend got fed up of waiting for the AA, and being in a tow truck to get back home.

Finally sold it ASAP, when a friendly mech showed how bad the rust was on the front chassis legs.

crunchman

Maestro

Awful car in every way.

Got a letter from the AA after calling them out about 5 times in a year to say that they wouldn't renew my membership if I carried on calling them out that often.

Snap

@Octafish

The sunroof - true story:

On one of my many trips to the scrapyard for parts, I drove in in my then newly bough Lada. The bloke running the yard came over and said - "i fitted that sunroof"...

then detailed the history of the car and how he'd bodged the roof job. He wa amazed it didn't leak, and tbh so was I.

Good old Ladas. Built like tanks and drove like one. Slow, ponderous, but virtually unstoppable.

One of the great things about shit 70s cars was that as a kid, you had to learn how they worked, cos they always broke down and you spent a lot of time under the bonnet, or under the car. No choice, no money.

My Viva kept snapping clutch cables. One time it went right outside the local police station, and I had no road tax. I ended up bazzing round the town centre in first gear, trying, and failing to get away. Managed to get into 2nd, but in the end it just packed up, thankfully not outside Rozzer Central.

Every time you turned the ignition key, it was a voyage of discovery.

Never went anywhere without a portable garage worth of tackle in the boot. I had all manner of spares and tools in my boots back then. AA?? Who needs that when you've got KwikFit in the boot eh?

Octafish

@Snap

That's some great memories there. I would have loved to have been around the moment that chap realised he cut the hole off-centre.

Did once spot a Golf GTI with one of those bee-sting aerials installed on the rear of the roof a cm or two off to one side. Owner wasn't particluraly pleased when me and a mate pointed it out and then suggested he installed another one next to it to balance it out.

I do regret not learning to drive earlier, I could have been on the road in the early 90s and there was still plenty of cheap 70s tat hanging around, would have been fun. My local paper used to have a column in the classifieds called 'Jalopy Corner'. Me and my brother used to have a laugh reading through the list of Allegros, Maxis, Cortinas and other horrors often no more than £25-50.

Snap

Bought my 1979 Viva, in 1992, for £150. There was a Marina for £65, but I thought I'd have a bit of variety.
The difference in a 13 year old car now, and one then is incredible really. It is no wonder at all that so many of those old firms no longer exist. By and large, the cars were total shite.

As soon as Datsuns appeared, the like of British Leyland, Austin/Morris etc were finished. No comparison at all.

ronnyb

Snap said:

Bought my 1979 Viva, in 1992, for £150. There was a Marina for £65, but I thought I'd have a bit of variety.
The difference in a 13 year old car now, and one then is incredible really. It is no wonder at all that so many of those old firms no longer exist. By and large, the cars were total shite.

As soon as Datsuns appeared, the like of British Leyland, Austin/Morris etc were finished. No comparison at all.

I think that British cars of the 70's early 80's got a bit of an unfair reputation. Ok they weren't that good but neither was the competition. German cars at the time were mostly rotboxes. When I first met my wife her parents had an Audi 100GLS from new in 1978. Within a short space of time it just disintegrated with rust. It ended up at the local college of further education for the students doing car mechanics to practice welding on. Not that there was much left to weld to. The first Golfs when they came out had serious rust problems that VW had to rectify. Italian cars such as Alfa and Lancia would turn into ferrous oxide at the very sight of moisture. Fiat were the same. The French were still turning out 2CV's, have you ever driven one. I think i'd rather be in an Allegro or Mini. I had 2 Allegros and several Mini's. Ok they had their problems that you had to keep on top of but I don't think they were as bad as some of the competition. The Maxi wasn't a bad car either. The Japanese did give the car market a kick up the arse though. They were very reliable and came with the extras as standard, radio and sunroof etc. I don't think they lasted any longer than British cars though.    

Danny1969

I've had so many piles of shit over the years I've gotten used to them. A MK 2 luton transit that I had to weld 41 separate plates to in order for it to pass an MOT .... A Sherpa van that flung its wipers off the first time I switched them on going up the motorway in the rain ... A maestro that caught fire while I was driving it .... A Seat van that wouldn't start from hot and didn't like starting from cold .... The other day we were driving to a gig in s MK7 transit and the master cylinder failed meaning we lost all brakes except the handbrake ... The same van has blown injectors out of the engine and had 2 starting motors .

going back to Volvo 340s which aren't Real Volvo's at all except in name ... I had one snap its camshaft in two then it's flame gauze in the carb failed leading to it breathing fire, then the coil went. I was constantly fixing the thing until I sold it for £120 ... The next day I saw the new owner pushing it along the road

rlw

rlw said:

Carrera 3.2 from 1985.   Built like a tank but drove like Texaco Valdez.  Wallowed, blew about in the wind, scary on slippery roads, appalling gearchange (even after a gearbox rebuild and always changing properly....) and all the sophistication of an Austin 7.   Utter shite.

Edit to this.  I had completely forgotten the Alfasud 1.2Ti I owned for about a month and during which period everything I had ever heard about Italian cars was proved to be true.  lovely to drive but a complete liability.

Telejester

CHRISB50 said:

Mine is bittersweet.

I had a 40th Anniversary mini...





I fucking loved that car. It drove like a go kart.

But it was a piece of shit mechanically.

Bought brand new, within 3 months it had a new gearbox. It was treated to another new gearbox within the following 3 months after the first new one.

Then the steering rack went. If you went round a tight corner and applied full lock the steering wheel never returned to centre. It was tilted one way or the other depending upon which direction you had just turned in.

Then, as it's a Mini, it decided to rust. I sold it to the John Cooper garage in Worthing for a huge loss, and went and bought an Audi A3. Now that was a lovely car!

Wow, that is aesthetically gorgeous.