I love driving cars. I always have. And I don’t just mean cars that are rewarding on twisty back roads, but all kinds. You see, I suffer from a kind of automotive ADHD, which requires that I experience driving as many different cars as possible, just to experience that indescribable subjective feel that seems unique to every model. I have enjoyed almost all of them, for one reason or another. There is only one that stands out as a the one that I simply despised every time I got behind the wheel – my college roommate’s ’62 Chevy Bel Air.
My college best friend Dan came from a family that teemed with interesting wheels. His father’s Mopars were new experiences for me, as were the International Travelall and Scout. Added to my father’s tendency towards big FoMoCo stuff and my mother’s family’s stable of late model GM cars, my early driving experience was pretty varied.
In the summer of 1980, Dan told me his father had been in for a haircut and learned that the barber had bought an old car from an elderly customer who had given up driving. It was a white 1962 Chevy Bel Air two door sedan with maybe 80,000 miles on it. The car was exceptionally clean and had clearly been well cared for during its long life. He bought it from the barber for maybe $600 with the idea that Dan would drive it.
Dan needed a car because his ’71 Duster had just gone away. It was a car purchase which I had aided and abetted, but should not have. If cars had the same kind of “life remaining” indicator that cell phone batteries have today, this Duster’s would have been flashing a red 3% the day he got it.
The Chevy was a good car – for Dan. Me? I absolutely friggin despised the thing. Perhaps I should start by reporting that I had only recently let go of a 1959 Plymouth Fury sedan, a car three years older and in about the same condition. The Plymouth drove very much like the late ’60s domestic iron that I was used to. The Chevy was (as we say in Indiana) a whole nuther thing.
First it was the driving position. As I would ooze into a seat with all the support of a bowl of Jello, I sat very, very low in the car. If that wasn’t bad enough, the steering column and steering wheel were really, really high. I felt like a 5th grader behind the wheel every time, as 5’11” me tried to scootch and hike myself up in the seat. I also understood why every little old lady I had ever seen piloting one of these was peering out between the steering wheel and the dash – there was no way anyone under, say, 5’8″ could comfortably see over the steering wheel without a big damned pillow to sit on.
Next came the steering. It would be awhile yet before Chevrolet would invest in a decent power steering system that integrated the power assist into the steering gear. My ’59 Fury was (like almost every other power steering car I had ever driven) set up for a steering ratio that took four complete spins of the wheel to get from full left to full right. The Chevy took six. Think about that, you young folks. A tight parking lot maneuver that requires full steering travel? Close your eyes and start counting the spins . . . 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . . 5 . . . 6. This was a car with power steering! I was surprised that the steering wheel lacked those big pegs that any decent schooner should have.
During one of the high-level editorial conferences that we have here at CC, it was pointed out to me that Chevy’s factory power steering used a slightly faster steering gear which provided a sports car-like five turns of the wheel. Some further research makes me suspect that Dan’s Bel Air might have been built as a manual steering car with the slower steering gear (and, according to one source, a two inch larger steering wheel) and that Chevrolet’s highly advanced external assist power steering system was bolted on at some point by the dealer. The happy result being all of the disadvantages of slow manual steering and of numb power steering, conveniently combined in one (not terribly delightful) package. So, in fairness, the Bel Air’s steering may not have been representative of the entire breed. But Dan’s father didn’t find some other ’62 Chevy. And the one he did find had the least pleasant power steering I have ever experienced.
Next came the suspension. Admittedly, my Fury’s torsion bars and leaves were ahead of the curve for an American 1959 car, but the Chevy felt like a 1952 instead of a 1962. Loose, floaty, and body roll that made you physically lean into a turn like a motorcyclist. I think sailors call it “hiking”, where you need lean over from the high side of a sailboat so that your body weight can keep the boat from rolling in the opposite direction. I guess this near-barrel roll maneuver was what they meant by “Jet Smooth”. And smooth it indeed was, unless you hit railroad tracks or a pothole, which made the structure shake and judder more than seemed right.
Finally, there was the combo of the 235 cubic inch Blue Flame Six bolted to the venerable Powerglide. It always started, ran and shifted, but once again, I felt like I had regressed to the early 1950s. The car was slow, slow, slow. But it made up for it by being unresponsive with that 2 speed automatic. What could have been charming in a car from early in the Eisenhower Administration was much less so in a car out of the Camelot years. However much a rev-happy 283 or 327 might have worked with that tranny, the old Blue Flame (which did not even have a full flow oil filter) simply begged for a three speed with a clutch pedal. Of course, adding a manual column shift to the wild gyrations required to steer the thing would have made for an exercise program that could sell DVDs in large numbers on late night television.
So, there it is. It was a good car, an attractive car, and Chevrolet sold a bazillion of them. But it was the single most miserable thing I have ever had the misfortune to operate. Even today, some thirty five years later, I cannot look at a 1961-64 Chevrolet without reliving the sensation of windmilling the steering wheel while leaning sideways with six little blue flames fighting a losing battle against a Powerglide. No wonder so many people drank and drove back then.
But enough about me. Tell us about the car that you have hated driving more than any of the others, and what made you hate it so much.
My Father owned (not for very long) an early, high mileage Porsche 911. This car had been “rode hard and put away wet” wayyyyyy too often.
The shifter felt like you were stirring a stick in a bucket of frigid molasses.
The heater was just barely adequate, even in temperate New Orleans.
The worn out engine had an irritating habit of filling up the garage with blue smoke when first started.
The air conditioning felt about as useful as a warm, damp washcloth slapped on your face in hot & humid New Orleans. It randomly spit out water, made the car run like a sick VW beetle, with the noisiest blower ever put into a car.
The driver’s door had a disconcerting habit of popping open whenever the hell it wanted to. Thank God Dad was “big” on seatbelt usage!
The suspension system was quite squirrelly, even for an early 911, what with all the miles on it The back wheels had a most pulse pounding way of tucking in the rear rims & skinny, almost worn out Michelin X tires and sway back and forth like an over-loaded U-Haul trailer caught in crosswind.
The first (and last) time I made the mistake of letting OFF the gas, when exiting a sharp curve, allowing the worn out rear suspension to laugh at me and spin, in a couple of complete circles, and then enabled the whole car to shudder and shake and spin off the road and into a strawberry field, was the last time I drove it. After I nursed it back home, I washed it, dried, it, washed out the mud and strawberry plants stuck in the fenders, and NEVER drove it again.
About two months later I noticed it, parked in Dad’s side of the garage, with mud and debris in the same places. Dad never commented whey but sold it quickly after that.
Like many here I’m a car guy and have always been willing to drive anything at least once. The only vehicles I ever actively disliked driving were the National Guard’s M151A1 quarter-ton truck (the non-Jeep) and the M35 (deuce and a half) cargo truck. The truck was just uncomfortable and terribly slow but the M151’s were dangerous. Someone thought it would be a good idea to equip a short, relatively tall vehicle with swing axles front and rear. These little POS were prone to rolling over at the slightest provocation; after enough fatalities they were retrofitted with roll cages and seat belts. I doubt that anyone mourned their passing when they were finally phased out, after I was long gone from the National Guard.
My worst driving experience, non-military division, also involved a truck. Back in the early seventies I rented a Uhaul truck to move my sister’s belongings from Lexington, Kentucky back to our hometown, a trip of 200 miles or so. This was during the days of the 55 MPH national speed limit and the truck was governed to a top speed of 58 MPH. This would have been bad enough but the governor was a simple RPM limiter; whenever the engine reached whatever RPM that equaled 58 MPH it basically shut off. As you might imagine this made acceleration painfully slow.
I kind of enjoyed the M35. That whopping 125 HP or so hauling around twelve or fifteen thousand pounds really needed a lot more gears, however. The worst part for me was that I would always have a sore right leg after driving one, from jamming the gas pedal to the floor the whole trip. Like that was going to make it go faster–Hah!
HMMWVs were just stupid: Loud, hot (the pre-A/C models, at least), no “Park” position (it was a regular old GM THM, so the Army must have paid extra for that feature), astonishingly wide, and impossible to see out of. On the other hand, they would go pretty much anywhere, so they’ve got that going for them.
A 2012 model Buick Regal rental car – had it for a week and never could get comfortable. Just couldn’t find the right combo of seat position, seat back rake, steering wheel position, or seat cushion height/angle that felt “natural”. Plus the horrible visibility – no wonder modern sedans come with full sensor suites and cameras – you can’t see out of the danged things. Like peering through a mail slot.
Other than being uncomfortable and feeling like I was driving blind it was great…
Speaking as a relatively new driver, I don’t have the most extensive history of cars. But of the four cars I’ve driven, one sticks out in my mind. My sister’s 2001 Subaru Forrester, the car she got after the Equinox she was driving got wrecked. I drove it home from a Firestone one time, and I loathed that thing. I had to face facts that I was driving in a high riding SUV, which was the last thing I was comfortable driving, but that was the least of my worries. The position was awkward as hell, it may have worked for my sister, but my 6’3 figure couldn’t find a position comfortable. The interior was not at all driver friendly, the pedals were so small my foot actually missed them many times, the ride was truck like, bouncy and uncomfortable, the steering didn’t feel smooth at all, and the wreck that my sister had left the interior meant it was claustrophobic in some cases. Oh, it was also hard to see out of as well. But that doesn’t compare to the biggest problem, the engine. I had gotten so used to the V8 in my Cadillac that driving that 4 cylinder Subaru was an exercise in torture, it was not smooth, it jerked if you even put so much as anything above featherweight on the pedal (considering how small the pedal is, very easy and tempting to do), and it had no power at all. I had many times where the light would turn green, and I would fail to proceed because either I couldn’t find the gas, or the engine would have a big delay before it got the giant Forrester going. I learned that day two lessons, one, SUVs and Crossovers are not a fun experience to drive, and two, if I ever did decide to get an SUV or were forced to drive one, that thing better have at least six cylinders under the hood.
Sounds like the inevitable leaky head gaskets on that Forester. Jerkiness and the delay in making power are classic symptoms. They’re slow, but when running right there’s still enough power there to get you out of trouble.
Unlike a couple of vehicles I’ve lived with over the years (’00 S-10 2.2/auto and a ’93 Pontiac (Daewoo) LeMans), I’ve never had to turn the a/c off just to feel safe merging into traffic in a Forester.
The ’84 Toyota Corona my wife had when we got married. Cramped for its size, clumsy, gutless, noisy, thirsty. But it had good air conditioning.
A 2nd generation Neon I used for a delivery beater for 11 months. Wanted to replace it the whole time but it ran and I was lazy so it stayed until the timing belt went. I smiled and bought a Bonneville the next day. The neon had a great cupholder though.
2009 Honda Accord. Never felt as separated from the driving experience in any other car – modern or non-modern.
I really had to think about this one.
If I had to choose, I suppose it would have to be the pre-owned 1993 Dodge Spirit. That was the car we never should have bought for many reasons. Too many alarms went off in my mind, but we bought it anyway…
It had bucket seats that leaned ‘way too far back even when in the most upright position. The car was repainted, it just didn’t feel right in so many ways. It was fast because of the 3.0L V6, but that was all.
One day the tranny locked up on me and stayed in either 1st or 2nd gear until I reached my destination in town, but when I returned to the car it ran and shifted fine. When I told Wifey, she immediately looked around and we got rid of it and traded it on a pre-owned 1996 Intrepid 3.5L.
The Intrepid was a joy to drive.
I’d agree with many of the other posters that there’s something interesting to be found in almost any car. That said, I really couldn’t find much to like in either the Nubira wagon (awful ride, awful seats, awful handling, awful everything) or the automatic Paseo I drove. The Paseo was the slowest car I’ve ever experienced, dangerously slow, in fact.
1973 AMC Hornet. It could barely get out of its own way with the wheezing, emission-strangled six-cylinder engine despite the excellent Torqueflite transmission, and it guzzled gas almost like a full-size car. (Though to be fair that was the case with most 1970s U.S. iron.) The worst though were the seats. The standard thin bench seats on these cars were backbreakers, no support or comfort at all. Spend 20 minutes on that seat and you’d be screaming for a chiropractor. (AMC did offer optional seats that were OK but this car didn’t have ’em.) In many ways the Hornet, at least in base trim, seemed inferior to the Rambler American that it replaced.
The car was reliable as an anvil though. The friends who owned it endured that car for over 10 years and the only repair it ever needed aside from normal wear items was a water pump.
Suffered with those same seats in my ’82 Concord. The back issues they caused were the majority of the reason I dumped the car, which otherwise was very good to me.
Car Rental Free Upgrades. I’d try to rent a Hyundai Accent, but I’d almost always get something else. Probably the most embarrassing was a Cadillac STS back in 2007. I was unemployed and gas was expensive. I felt ridiculous.
One doesn’t hear that sort of complaint much, I’d have been tickled pink to get a Caddy rather than a Hyundai penalty box. If you were unemployed, what need would you have for a rental car anyway?
The combination of no job + driving a Cadillac just felt strange. It actually wasn’t a bad car at all.
great question. i was surprised to find the featured hate mobile was actually one of my favs. but my 62, in white also, had the 327 w/PG and buckets. i upgraded to chevy rallye wheels and radial tires. rode and handled like a whole different car.
most of my slow cars were compacts with manual trans so they really could still be fun to drive and had crisp moves even though they were tinny and harsh.
i really like to look at each car i purchase new or used as some teams best effort to build an honest and competitive product within the constraints they were given to work with. some stylist sweated that body design. some arts & color person agonized over that fabric. some engineer made that part or system with just the right blend of functionality and durabilityl. some ergonomics specialist put that knob or lever just so. even some bean counter tried to make it affordable with just the right standard comfort and convenience features. BUT, these people were all at lunch when my 94 mercury tracer was conceived. only the body style and the seats were pleasing. the 1.9L engine was rough, thirsty and underpowered. the 4 spd AOD transmission had only one mission in life. that was to shift into OD as soon as possible and stay there. only mashing the accelerator would divert it from its MPG mission. it was quiet but handling was numb and nowhere near a similar escort and protege i had. worst of all, even though i parked it through the winters, the underside rotted as it sat. i was on my way to deliver it to the garage for an annual safety inspection when the rear brake lines burst due to corrosion. i parked that turd and made sure it went to the crusher.
The worst I’ve driven was a 2015 Chevrolet Cruze I had to rent last year. Highly uncomfortable, difficult to maintain a set speed, and my lower back hurt by the time I returned it. In a way, though, the worst was really the “most disappointing”, a 2010 Town Car I rented. Having driven a number of very well appointed and in my view largely high quality land yachts from Ford and GM over my relatively young life, it was the cheapest and most decontented turnpike cruiser I’d ever encountered. I knew it would not be around much longer, and that was worse than the Cruze in that I expected that to be bad and jumped at the chance to rent the Lincoln, expecting it to be nice.
anything with front wheel drive
btw the sailor in the picture is a US Coast Guard Academy cadet aboard America’s tall ship, the Cutter EAGLE
Why do you hate FWD so much?
the plowing effect caused by torque steer and the uneven weight distribution. They are also generally more challenging to work on
I don’t like that the nose is always dragging on the pavement anytime there is a driveway with a slight incline to it.
In HS, in the 70’s, I hated driving the old man’s ’65 Checker Marathon (6 cyl 3-speed). NOW I wish I had one.
MORE recently, I grew to hate getting behind the wheel of my ’94 Saturn SL2 4 door sedan. Hated the auto belts. Hated the way it drank oil. Hated the way it went through front tires. Didn’t especially like the color (gold). Hated that it had an automatic rather than a stick. And it was absolutely the worst car I’ve ever driven in snow.
I didn’t expect to dislike it so much. It had 71,000 miles on it and I paid $1600 for it. I knew of Saturn’s reputation. I thought it would be a nice little econo-box for my 50-mile daily commute (round trip).
I WILL say that it was reliable and never left me stranded.
I ended up donating the vehicle rather than trying to sell it. I’ve never been happier to see a car be driven onto a flatbed wrecker and taken away.
A stripper, rental 2014(?) Jeep Compass with the base engine and CVT – a relic of a powertrain that should’ve been put to pasture years before. People seem to buy lots of these and the Patriot, though – perhaps the other powertrains are better and/or they are so cheap people simply don’t care?
Then again, I feel fortunate I never had to deal with lousy 70s/80s compacts. Compared to them, I’m sure the Compass is practically a Lexus.
The one I hated most? Oh that’s easy, a 2000/2001 Holden Vectra (aka 1995-2002 Opel Vectra B). The one I drove was a co-worker’s company car back in 2001. The other reps had Nissan Primera wagons which were delightful to drive. But the time I had the Vectra for a while, oh dear… I’m not tall by any means (5’7”ish) but that car was cramped in all the wrong places. Several times as I lifted my foot off the clutch pedal, the end of my shoe would neatly jam in the plastic shroud and bundle of wiring under the steering column. And my shoes aren’t big! Overall the Vectra was a disappointing pile of horribleness to drive. It seriously felt like it had been bench-marked against a Mk V Ford Cortina…
I don’t hate this car day in and day out, but every time I travel on Hwy 74 (pic attached) which is weekly if not more, I really dislike it. This car is RWD, has close to 300 hps, it’s low, got big fat tires and multilink IRS. But that mountain road, it looked the look but totally enjoyable to drive. Why?
it only came with auto, and a very slow shifting auto, the suspension were too too soft for the tires. No wonder the Top Gear gang voted it the worst car in the world:
Lexus SC430.
Though I didn’t drive it, I can say that the car that i’ve liked being in the least was my buddy’s 1990 VW Rabbit Cabriolet. Although it had very high mileage, the car was in decent shape and well maintained, and it felt like a bucket of bolts that could fall apart at any given time–I did not feel safe in it. It creaked, shook, the suspension/ ride was like your butt was right on the pavement and though I’d have to compare it with a new one, I have a feeling that it wouldn’t be much better in new form.
I have a real toss up between the worthless ’87 Honda Civic sedan with an auto, or the ’61 VW single cab Transporter. The Honda seats were so bad I couldn’t sit in it for more than 15 minutes without hurting. Piss poor underpowered 4 cyl carbed and an automatic that sapped the remaining 6 hp. Scarily underpowered and flat out dangerous to drive on the freeway. Full throttle got you lots more engine noise and rpm, but no discernable increase in speed. Road noise worse than any car I have ever driven. Junk. The VW had a 40 hp that was rather unreliable, electrics even worse. No fuel gauge from the factory either. Combine that with marginal brakes and minimal ventilation with no heater, gave me a hatred of all things VW to this day. Embarrassingly slow on the freeway hills, it seized one day after I located the factory heater boxes and installed them. It ran again after it cooled off, but never again VW.
1981 (?) Ford Escort L. I was a sales rep covering six New England states in this company provided, four door, hatchback, manual transmission, rolling slug. I think it was a 1.6 L four cylinder. 55 mph was the absolute top end when going up any kind of an incline. Turn off the a/c when making that climb, or you’ll need to pack a lunch for the trip. AM radio. Crank windows. They didn’t come much cheaper than this. Hard starting when raining, even in a covered parking structure. Had a carb fire one day in a garage in Boston. I was content to let it burn to the ground, but the stupid guy came running from the booth with an extinguisher and put it out. Finally, the folks at HQ decided that the car had been a problem child for a while. ( I had inherited it from the Philadelphia rep) They got me a brand new Plymouth Reliant; which I was t-boned in about six months later……
I scrolled down a long way, worried that there was not any Escort hate here. fortunately you brought it. the carbureted 1st gens with automatic trans were the worst! I remember trying to accelerate on a sloped highway entrance ramp. the damned things could not choose a gear, so the trans constantly switched between 2&3 about every second. rough idle, early head gasket problems. no temp gauge to see it was overheating till too late. the worst penalty box. once they got F.I., Escort life became slightly more tolerable. even then, you could choose to climb the hill OR have the AC on.
So many candidates: honorable mentions include a rental Toyota Echo, which, besides the center mounted instrument cluster, combined a high seating position with short wheelbase and narrow track to provide ride and handling comparable to a a carnival tilt-a-whirl, a 66 Plymouth Belvidere hand-me-down from my Grandfather that combined rear Monroe “Load levelers” with a broken spring leaf on one side and two broken leaves on the other side to provide both a punishingly hard ride and squirrelly handling, no doubt due to more than a bit of rear wheel steering due to the broken leaves not keeping the axle located.
The absolute worst ever? We visit, once again, the 78 Mercury Zephyr Z7, bought new. Leaving aside the many, many, outright failures that had that POS in the shop monthly for 2 years, let’s look at it’s “features”:
1-Ford abandoned the well developed and proven scissors style window regulators for a cheap single vertical rail, which, according to the maintenance schedule required lubrication at every oil change otherwise the window would jam repeatedly at every attempt to crank it closed.
2-Ford pocketed another $2 by not providing self-adjusters for the rear drum brakes, which had been standard on US cars since the 50s, , but, instead, requiring the owner (me) to pay to have the brakes adjusted at every other oil change.
3-Ford pocketed another $1 by requiring the front suspension to be lubricated periodically, but not installing grease fittings, so installing zerk fittings was another bill I was required to pay.
4-Shocks that were barely adequate to back the car off the transporter. Patched or potholed pavement (I drive in Michigan) would send the car into a 4 wheel jitterbug as the wheels bounced uncontrollably. (recall, this was a car bought new)
5-Brakes that were laffably unbalanced. Attempts at braking in an urgent fashion would immediately lock the rears and send the car slewing sideways.
6-Carbruetor on the 302 that was invented by Torquemada featuring the worst drivability imaginable. The shop did address it’s tendency to flood the engine every time I parked for a few minutes, but never cured it’s horrible cold performance, which required repeated starts, as it would repeatedly stall the moment the tranny was engaged. Somehow I survived 2 years of making a left turn on the way to work that came just as the choke was coming off, so the squirt from the accelerator pump would give it enough gas to lurch into the lane of oncoming traffic, where it would stop and sputter on maybe 2 or 3 cylinders, as the opposing traffic grew nearer, then at the last moment the thing would catch and lurch on through the intersection.
7-The 302 itself. Gas at that time appears to have been particularly horrid as many cars suffered high levels of carbon buildup. The 302 was part of that large cohort as an Italian tuneup would blow an immense cloud of carbon out of the exhaust. In spite of frequent such tuneups, the thing pinged like a Geiger counter at Three Mile Island. A coworker with a then new 79 302 Mustang had the same carbon build up issue.
I have never seen a car that could suck every trace of enthusiasm out of it’s driver, and replace it with bile.
I think somebody was taking you for a ride on those brakes, my ’78 Fairmont has self-adjusters.
I think somebody was taking you for a ride on those brakes, my ’78 Fairmont has self-adjusters.
Are you sure they were not retrofitted sometime between 78 and now?
Here’s how the brake thing went: driving along at low speeds I noticed noise from the rear wheels, a combination of a grind and a “klop..klop..klop” sound. The shop said they adjusted the rear brakes, and the noise was gone. Looking in the maintenance schedule in the owner’s manual, I then saw the note to “adjust brakes” regularly. I had been driving cars with self adjusting brakes for several years and I had never heard the noises the Zephyr brakes made, nor ever been told I needed the brakes adjusted.
The self adjusters could also have been a running addition, because so many people were outraged at Ford’s constant penny pinching, to the detriment of the owner.
I just remembered another thing about that Zephyr that made driving it so aggravating: The wiper blades were plastic, rather than the assembly of stamped metal bits wipers had been previously. Those plastic wipers were so rigid that in cold weather they would not follow the contour of the windshield. The driver’s side wiper would only wipe the bottom couple inches of it’s arc, and completely miss the water/snow on the part of the windshield I needed to see through. In later years, Ford added a couple hinges to those plastic blades to make them more flexible.
Vehicle I owned: my ’86 Bronco II Eddie Bauer. 2.8L V6, 4×4, auto trans. Last year for carbureted motor before they switched to EFI. Slow, scary-tippy handling , lots of NVH, stall-prone, crappy MPGs. What a POS that thing was. Loathed that car.
Vehicle I drove fairly often but didn’t own: my in-laws’ ’02 GMC Envoy. Slow, tippy handling, crap tons of NVH, seats were downright painful to sit in for more than 30 minutes, crap build quality. Did I say crap tons of NVH? Usually had to drive this crap wagon whenever my wife and I went to dinner or someplace with her folks, which was far too often with that POS.
Any Chevrolet G-Series van, the 1995 and earlier models. Crude, rude, and flimsy the driving position was awful and everything about them radiated cheap. Truly terrible.
Also, any first or second generation Ford Escape. Uncomfortable and underpowered, even with the V6, they are horrible and I simply don’t understand how they were so popular given their godawful powertrains and harsh everything.
A 2014 Nissan Sentra rental car I had deserves an honorable mention for its generally shitty demeanor.
The G van gets honorable mention in my world.
The G-van should be taken in context. I’ve owned 3 of them. The basic cargo vehicle is everything you mention. Its’ like a half-built vehicle, a steel box with a cheap seat, and is a miserable experience.
But the passenger models are much better. The factory Rallye and Beauville models are like a really big, roomy Caprice wagon, and pretty decent
The conversion vans are like a cheesy Fleetwood, all tufted velour and wood trim, but they are quiet, comfortable and pleasant highway cruisers.
Finally, whatever the model, these vans are really reliable, durable, cheap and easy to maintain, and versatile. And that’s something.
These were all passenger vans. There was nothing redeeming about the driving experience.
Well……… I guess its good you didn’t get a cargo version, or else we would never hear the end of it 😉
Imagine a G-van with zero windows behind the two front doors, no RH door mirror, and non-functioning backup lights.
Now, equip it with a 305 V8, three speed-column shift, and air conditioning (non-working of course). Don’t equip it with power steering, brakes, radio, or gauge package.
This van is so miserable to drive that I actually like it…in the same way that some people like to cut themselves.
It can haul a lot of donuts though.
Mmm… Donuts!
One of nature’s most perfect foods…
Sounds like my kinda ride. If I could pick one up for say $500 or $600 bucks. When I worked briefly for ServiceMaster in 85, we had 78 Dodge vans like that except they were slant sixes. I got a kick out of it. Wish I had one now. My automotive tastes are very simple.
I did not like the manual transmissions in the two cars that I owned with one. The first was a 4 speed in the 69 GTO. The GTO was a fun car otherwise. I thought that ordering the Skyhawk with the Japanese made 5 speed should be good, with the OHC 4. But it was not good at shifting either.
The car with the least performance was the 1950 Buick Special with Dynaflow. But it was a great old car and I did enjoy driving it.
My worst driving car is the 1955 Plymouth that is currently languishing in my garage. The 259 2bbl V8 has sufficient power but is mated to a barely synchronized 3 speed manual trans, vague steering courtesy of worm and roller steering gear and king pin suspension, Lockheed total contact drum brakes are twitchy and prone to fade. That is pretty much state of the art for mid century American cars, not pleasant to drive, but fun to drive amid the sea of chrome and aqua paint.
1989 Mitisubishi Mirage VIE X, bought it for my ex as a runaround she refused to put it in her name so it stayed it had the full JDM disaster inside power everything climate air con autotragic trans 1500cc engine with no power whatsoever and JDM suspension so it handled like a bag of shit but rode very comfortably.
I replaced the shocks to get a WOF but that didnt cure the handling so it got sold to a passing high school student, I saw it on and off for about four years after that it gained new dents at every sighting then it disappeared no doubt into a crusher.
1971 Fiat 850 Spider. Something was always going wrong with the car, even though it had extremely low miles. Rust ultimately put it out of its misery.
Easy to answer. The hand me down 1987 Ford Taurus LX I got from my sister.
It was a great car when our mom bought it in 94.
My sister had it for 2 years when she gave it to me. The car was awful. Something was always breaking. I only kept it 3 months before giving it away
Power stuff didn’t work right or at all. Door handles kept breaking and it would stall while driving for no apparent reason. Even at freeway speeds. You had to open the drivers door to roll up the passenger window pull in the drivers window to get it into the curved frame or it stuck out like a bat wing. The ford logo flew off going down the road and so did both passenger side turn signal covers.
I got this heap when she bought a 95 camaro I should have kept my Chevette. It was slow but reliable. GM built it long enough that mine was a good one (last year made 1987)
69 VW Beetle which replaced my ’63 Beetle that was crushed by a fat ass Chrysler Córdoba.
The ’69 was a POS and sucked me dry of every dime I had when I first went to college.
Till this day, have never considered a VW product when in the car market.
I’ve had a couple of rentals over the years that were pretty unbearable (a late ’90s Cavalier and a first-gen FWD Malibu), but the absolute worst was a ’93 Chevy G20 van that my employer had back in my telecom days. Loose steering, a sliding door that always took numerous slams to get the rear latch to catch, excessive rattling and a totally gutless 4.3 V6…..the same engine that in our Astros was a real screamer.
A VW Quantum diesel. At the time I bought it, I had a 30-mile (each way) commute, gas was US$4/US gallon, and I was thinking, “If present trends continue, it’ll be $7/gallon in a few years.”
The test drive gave me no illusions that the car would be refined, but I didn’t foresee that the drivetrain’s agricultural nature would become Chinese water torture. The cable-operated clutch was like a Stairmaster. At one point the clutch went out, and after the clutch job, the clutch became lighter, although not light on an absolute basis. So presumably the previous heaviness was a sign of impending clutch failure.
The seats were virtually flat, no contouring to speak of.
When I sold the Quantum, shale oil and the current oil price crash were a few years in the future. I wasn’t prescient about oil prices, i couldn’t stand the car any more!
From ’73 to ’77 I had a ’71 Fiat 128 which lived up to the “Fix it again, Tony” stereotype. But when it wasn’t in the shop, the actual driving experience was fun.
I had a ’75 Fiat 128 SL, and echo your comments. When the damn thing wasn’t broke down, the buzzy little 1.3 was actually fun to drive.
A silver Fiat 128 SL was my first car. I was working at Gateway Chevrolet on Milwaukee ave. in Chicago, and we brought it in on trade, and I fell in love at first drive, the dealership owner charged me a $200 pack on top the $50 trade so I got it for $250. Gosh it was fun to drive, when it was drivable. I learned how to fix lots of stuff from that car.
Chrysler PT Cruiser. One business trip, Chicago and LA, had a PT Cruiser in each place. Horrible ride, gutless, uninspired, and the worst drivers’ seat I’ve ever experienced. Was glad to turn in the first one…almost cried when I got the second!
Can’t, for the life of me, work out how they sold so many of them!
I once drove a friend’s PT Cruiser briefly, and subjectively it felt top-heavy. Ditto the rental Dodge Caliber I had for a day or two. My daily driver then was an Audi 4000 quattro, much lower and more stiffly sprung, so the contrast was pretty dramatic. I’d had other rentals that I didn’t care for, but the Caliber stood out even in that mediocre company. I once read an online review of the Caliber that said it was so bad that the then-forthcoming Alfa-Romeo-based Dodge Dart would have to be an improvement, and I could relate. The next time I rented a car (same company, same location) I said, “Not another Caliber if it can be helped.” Only car I’ve ever made such a request about.
I had 3 Peugeot 504’s in the ’90s, and they were also somewhat tall with some tendencies to roll. I don’t have any hard data handy as to how the 504 compared to the PT Cruiser and Caliber for height and roll stiffness. Of course the 504 had the expected Peugeot virtues–refinement and handling.
Hmm. I never imagined that someone would compare the PT Cruiser to the 504. It’s a bit like comparing Miller Lite with fine Champagne.
I admit the 504 can be annoying and has a few design flaws, like a radiator that sludges up too quickly and some weird electrical gremlins, but the driving experience is supreme.
I agree that they’re different. I never thought of the comparison until I made the earlier post, because all 3 vehicles are relatively tall and not real stiff in roll.
I may not have made myself clear–I thought my 504’s were great. I’m totally on board with the Miller Lite/champagne comparison.
My sister’s Chevrolet Citation. I can’t add any more to the bad things that have been said about the X-cars…
1976 Suburban 1 ton 4X4: The problem with this monster was the manual transmission, a four speed floor shifter. This was the most difficult shifter I have ever encountered. You really had to put some muscle with attempted shift. I always wondered if this was the infamous “rock crusher” from Muncie. Luckily the truck was not mine, it belonged to my employer at the time.
1972 AMC Gremlin I6 automatic: Worst seats my rear end ever met, no padding to speak of, like concrete park benches. Fortunately the car belonged to my sister in law.
No, it was not a “rock crusher”, it was top load truck transmission that had basically been around since the 30’s. Short and heavy it was not a speed shifting transmission by any stretch of the imagination. Driven a lot of them over the years, designed to be tough and reliable, I never had a problem shifting them even with worn out syncros just double clutch. I think the earliest ones had no syncros.
Loco, Thanks for the clarification. In those days I didn’t know about double declutching.
My 1984 Jeep Cherokee, my first new car. Great design, terrible execution.
It had the Chevrolet – sourced 2.8 V6, normally a great engine. But several thousand defective ones were shipped to AMC, and I got one. The cylinder bores had excess clearances or wore to quickly. This engine developed piston slap by 25 k miles, and by 60k miles was completely worn out. I rebuilt it. The cylinders needed an 80 thou bore to eliminate the wear. Usually 30 thou is enough.
Strangely enough, GM never put such defective 2.8’s in their own vehicles. Hmmmm……..
The Steyer-Puch torque converter was defective. I went through three of them. The first two cracked internally and pumped steel filings through the transmission requiring two expensive transmission rebuilds, at 25 k and 50k miles.
The Selec-Trac transfer case was defective. It worked great for 2 years, then burned up the viscous-clutch in the center diff, even though it was in 2wd 99.9% of the time. A rebuilt case was $1500, almost 30 years ago. Later, the case stopped shifting into 4wd, and even a second rebuild did not fix it.
Rounding this out was loads of minor failures, remove mirrors that never worked from day 1, tailgate wiring harness that broke internally, sagging door hinges, peeling chrome bumpers, and rocker panels that dissolved in winter.
This Jeep was great for the first 2 years. But the crushingly expensive failures made me absolutely livid. I could not afford to keep fixing it and became wary of driving it much. I bought a succession of interesting cheap used vehicles for daily use all of which were more reliable than that pile.
I still have it. Frankly its the worst thing AMC ever did did.
Both were cars owned by my mom..
The first (and her first car since she got her driver’s license at age 37) was a 1978 Saab 99 5 door with the power-sucking automatic. Sure, it was comfortable and handled wet, sloppy weather rather well. Unfortunately, the automatic transmission was a real buzzkill in this car. (Mom hated manuals-as she always said:”If God wanted me to drive a stick, he would’ve provided me with a third leg…”). Totally gutless car-0 to 60 in an hour–top speed not quite 90 (downhill with a tailwind). It died afer getting drowned in a gullywasher of a rainstorm in Houston in 1984.
The other Mom-bomb was a 1987 Ford Taurus with a 2.5 litre 4 cylinder/AT power(less) train. No power whatsoever. Oozingly slow. Her first words of advice driving it? Turn off the a/c when you hit the onramp. Why Ford allowed such a crappy, Ford_tractor-division-reject engine to “power’ something as otherwise advanced for the day absolutely escapes me.
I own a MT5. The manual makes a slight difference. I easily outrun Duke powered a bodies.
I have driven many vehicles and generally enjoyed something about every one I drove, with the exception of the stupidly huge Lincoln Navigator. It was akin to driving the Exxon Valdez.
I hated it.
Rental: 1979? Mercury Zephyr. Beige with beige interior. Slow, odd handling, and the right front brake pulled in light breaking, and locked up hard in heavy braking. I beat the crap out of it for the week I had it, and I put over a thousand miles on it.
Friend’s car: 1985? Pontiac T-1000 four door. A friend bought it new, unaware that it was a rebadged Chevette, it was his first car.. Slow, weird shifting tranny, it was just boring as hell. On top of it all, it was a metallic brown.
Car I owned: There’s only one vehicle I every regretted buying, that didn’t actually have mechanical problems. It was my 1999 Grand Cheokee Laredo. Drove fine and had zero problems for the 18 months I had it. The seat killed me. a half hour in it and I was hurting, an hour I was dying. The steering wheel, on several I sat in, was cocked to the right. I finally traded it in on a 2000 GMC Sierra 4×4 Ext cab truck. Unlike the Jeep, the seats in it were great, to the point I fell asleep in it at stoplights a couple of times.
Our 2002 Sienna Minivan, plus similar era Corollas/Camrys. Honourable mention to the 3rd generation Cavalier.
Sure they worked, but completely devoid of character, style, or interest, and the interiors were just depressing places to be.
2016 Toyota Yaris Hybrid. No power, annoying transmission and very little range. For 2016 that car is just such a disappointment.
I have driven a lot of cars and thus a lot cars that were worse, but in 2016 you expect more than this.
I’d have to say the 1978 or ’79 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon Aeroback my grandparents once owned. Whether it had the Olds 260 or Chevrolet 305 I don’t know — I recently asked my father, but he didn’t remember either — but it was completely gutless and also quite thirsty. Any sort of grade would also make the engine ping like crazy. The steering was completely numb, the brakes wildly overboosted, cornering grip meager, and the rear tires eager to spin on any kind of slippery surface. It had black vinyl upholstery on which I remember burning myself more than once and which was no fun in cold weather either. Also, while the air conditioning was powerful, there was something about the smell created by the HVAC system (which I can still remember, though I prefer not to) that would alternately make me carsick or give me nosebleeds. (I hated riding in that car when I was a kid, since in the Midwest it is either stupidly hot or painfully cold about 90 percent of the time.)
Some of these problems may have been specific to that particular car, but it was one of those cars that make you struggle to recall any redeeming feature at all.
Diesel-powered Peugeot 504 pickup. It looked good but what a slow, noisy, uncomfortable lemon. But then that was in the military so I guess I would have actively disliked driving any car over there (+ maybe I won’t have to apologize to Paul right away for dissing a Pug :-))
It had to be the 5th generation Malibu that a coworker and I had rented to drive from BWI (Baltimore Washington International Airport) to Atlanta for a Pro/E conference in 2002, so I’ll assume it was a 2002 or 2003 MY. This car was awful. It handled like an out of control roller skate. On the interstates in the south, where the speed limit increased to like 70 or 75, the fact it was seriously underpowered did not do it any favors. The steering was very touchy. Now mind you, I was used to rear wheel drive for many years, however at the time, I was driving the only FWD car I have ever purchased for myself, a ’97 Grand Prix GTP I had bought 2 years prior. At least that car didn’t have many the bad characteristics of a FWD car. This Malibu had ALL of them.
I just remembered a car – or cars – I absolutely HATED to drive:
EVERY SINGLE TEMPO/TOPAZ from the Hertz counter at the Grand Rapids airport in the early-mid 90s every time I went there on business!
Those things were simply awful excuses for cars, and the one time I got a Lincoln Continental, I took a nice, long drive after dinner in the evening! What a difference!
I have to agree about the sheer awfulness of the Tempo-Topaz. I got them frequently from Hertz, too. They were so awful that on one trip, when I was afflicted with one, had an hour to kill and was near Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport, I “just happened” to get a flat tire, and “limped” into Hertz in the early afternoon, which was when they tended to have the least cars on the lot. Fortunately the next one in line was a Ford Taurus, which was an enormously better car.
Maserati Bora .Thirty six miles of hell.
John, Please give more details about the Bora. I bought one seven years ago and sold it last year. I never got to drive it so maybe you can fill me in on what it was like.
Heavy cllutch made my lleg quiverrr the gearbox was slow too.heat though the firewall in traffic noisy even if it was abloody marvellous sound it got wearing in town.seeing out of the device was not nice ona wet day in NW England.I took it out to its owner as infrequently as i could .The big drawback was it also seemed unhappy on any thing rougher than cheap toilet paper.looked fabulous of course but driving the works hack vx4 90 back was more fun.funny my workmate never fancied the Mazz.
Reading between the lines of old road tests I was not alone in my jaded view.I remember now why we saw it so often …the Citroen hydraulic system.
1998 Plymouth Breeze. Cramped, cheap, nasty, slow, and noisy.
To specifically answer the question, the car I hated driving the most was surprisingly a non-Mach I 1973 Mustang Fastback equipped with the Q-code 351 CJ engine, 4-speed transmission, manual steering, & manual brakes.
I guess most of it was due to the high-expectations I had when looking at the beast. It was dark green with black interior and was a pretty machine to look at. I’m about 5′ 11″ tall but felt like I lost a foot when I got behind the wheel. The interior was dark, dreary, devoid of any gauge option, and the driving position was low and uncomfortable.
The car was basically a rolling blind spot and just plain difficult to drive. Too bad, because it was easy on the eyes.
1981 Chevette. New at the time, with an automatic transmission. Could not get out of it’s own way.
A friend`s 1971 Pinto. I would rather walk than drive that miserable POS.