Alas, my accursed Range Rover may have roved it's last. I drove from Baltimore to SC and only had to stop 3 times due to over-heating and 100 miles from Charlotte, a belt snapped and took the car's ability to car with it. If the mechanic can't fix it for the price of a cheeseburger, I'm junking it. This has been hands down the worst thing I have ever purchased. The car's engine worked fine, except for the belts and hoses popping off. The electronics did.not.function. The car shut the fuck off at 70 miles an hour on I-95 on the 4th of July. If you hit the high beams, the car would shut off...in motion. Half the time, the transmission sensor read a "fault", so it would stay in park until Satan himself was appeased by my suffering. No a/c, no front windows, so for 10 hours yesterday and every day for the past year I was craning my neck back to get a breeze. No radio. No locks. The key itself would not open the door, so I could never lock the car after it was broken into. I had to call a locksmith and pay $100 to find out the key was only useful for starting the car. The sunroof would close/open once per week. The rear window on the driver side would only roll up or down when the car was cold. Rain? Hahahaha fuck off you gettin wet. The lugs had been replaced, so they were 3 different sizes, several of them rusted on. The spare tire wouldn't seat in the rack, so it rattled like the Evil Dead were trying to escape. The grille inexplicably shattered like an egg and the cheap plastic replacement? $300. The bumper lost a fight to a bush, so the left corner I basically cut off with poultry shears. Oh, and I had one headlight and brake light always off when the electrical system was acting like a twat and no amount of coercion could give me 4 lights at the same time. Now, to find a car payment. Yay? Focus: Talk about your piece of shit cars.
My piece of shit car story is one that was not a piece of shit, it just felt like it. When I was graduating college, my 2001 Accord was in the process of shitting the bed, and rightfully so. I beat the shit out of that thing. Eventually I drove it until it didnt run anymore. It just stopped working in my parents' driveway. My dad and I took a look and figured out the expense to repair outweighed the value of the car. We decided to donate it to Cars 4 Kids because the write-off was also cheaper than the value of the car, not because we particularly gave a shit about whatever cause it celebrated. Plus they offered to come pick it up. So I was immediately left without a car and since I had just graduated and had not yet moved to New York, I needed another one. Thankfully (maybe luckily is a better word, or maybe not) my neighbor's body shit the bed and stopped working as well. Since he was now dead, his wife had no need for two cars. She offered to sell it to me for $1000. It was a 2005 Acura RL and had maybe 25,000 miles on it. For anyone that knows anything about cars, thats a steal. So there i was, thinking I was hot shit with a lightly used RL. The downside was, this thing kept having mechanical issues all the time. For a car that was only 4 years old at this point and was not falling behind on brakes or regular service, it was a real pain in the ass to deal with and very expensive, especially for someone with little money. Combine that with destroying a rim after a hitting a piece of rock on the highway, having some jackoff take a hammer to a side of it when I lived in the ghetto, the thing never stood a chance. I eventually had to get rid of it because I just couldnt afford the upkeep for the $4/gallon for premium gas at the time. It just wasnt worth it.
My first car was an '89 Toyota Camry. My dad bought it cheap with a ton of miles already on it, originally for my sisters then it went to my brother and ended up with me. Not long after getting it, the rear wheel wells started to rust out horribly so of course my dad and I did the body work ourselves. Turns out my dad is okay with Bondo but not painting so it had this odd flaky tricolor pattern with a touch of rust for the remainder of its life and looked like a turd half painted gray. Mechanically, the distributor cap was always getting loose and made it finicky to start when it was wet out. Even better when it was really cold out, the passenger door didn't like to latch shut so I did lots of trips to and from school and wrestling practice holding the door shut as my brother drove. It would top out at all of 101 mph after you thought it was just going to rattle itself apart at 90. My brother and I thoroughly fucked the axle bearings and brakes as we had fun spinning and sliding it around on slick roads in winter months (although while dumb at the time I do credit that with helping us learn how to handle ice). My sister had it for a few more months after I graduated from high school until it was really falling apart and we scrapped it for a couple hundred bucks. I drove it into the scrap lot, popped the badges off for old times sake, and the Yota was officially done for. So... I think it qualified as a piece of shit but hey at least it got decent mileage and we were able to keep it running for cheap which was the goal all along.
My first car was a hand-me-down from my dad: an '87 Mercedes 420 SEL. He gave it to me in 2003, at the beginning of my senior year of high school. He bought it in 1998, and by the time he gave it to me it had right around 200,000 miles on it. The AC never worked, and it left me stranded at school at least once. I parked at city hall and walked to the school during my senior year, and I still remember kids laughing at me when the car would make sounds. Before my dad gave me that car I would also drive the '89 Mercedes SL that we had. It had 230,000 miles on it by the time I got my drivers license. My dad sold it for $500 to some guy to give to his daughter, but my that time it wouldn't even start. My dad always said that he liked those cars because they were "built like tanks." They were still pieces of shit, especially since he bought them when they already had so many miles on them.
I went to work at a pulp and paper mill in the late 80's in BC, and needed a car once I landed. I bought a $300 Volvo station wagon that was robins-egg blue with a bright orange hatch on it, that was a huge piece of shit... but it ran, and the tires on it were worth the $300 I paid for the whole car. It was one of these: I drove the shit out of that thing for almost 1.5 years and it still is my best ROI on a car, ever. I used to go off-roading up mountain logging roads in it, and it survived better than some friends' trucks. The only "downside" was when we'd go shooting, and my friend regularly shot holes in the back seat doors. The first time he did it he forgot to roll the window up so it blew up the glass, but he was good enough to replace it with a pick-a-part replacement. All in all, there was a huge amount of freedom driving that thing around and just not giving a shit about it, at all.
I've never had what I would consider a "piece of shit;" I've had a couple of vehicles that were originally good (I've only driven Ford and GM cars, for the record), but had been abused and neglected for years. I guess if I had to pick one, though, it would be the '92 Camaro RS (305 V8/ 5 speed) that I bought in late '07 for $1,350. It looked good from a distance, but up close, you could tell it had some serious rust issues (more on that later). Spoiler: Car talk It had just about every kind of overheating problem you could think of: -Thermostat was stuck - Fan didn't work - Water pump leaked - Radiator cap wouldn't seal, both due to the rubber seal being shot, and the radiator spout was bent. And the radiator leaked, too. - Front air dam was missing (that's a very important part on these cars) - Temperature gauge didn't work, so you didn't know you were overheating until it was too late. It was overheating as soon as I got it home. Now, that stuff wasn't a big deal for me; about $200 later, I had everything fixed up. But there was a really aggravating driveability issue that really threw me for a loop: Sometimes the car would suddenly lose power, and to compensate, your natural reaction is to step on the gas. Then it would gain power again unexpectedly. This caused a lot of embarrassing moments when it would seem like I was doing burnouts in parking lots on purpose, but it was the car (really!). Also, sometimes it would be running fine, but when I'd stop somewhere, it wouldn't start up again. I would try starting again and again, with no luck. Feeling defeated, I'd call someone to give me a tow back to my shop, and once they got there, IT WOULD START RIGHT UP. At that point in time, my job didn't allow me much time to try diagnosing it myself, so I took it to a guy I trusted; he was stumped. I took it to the Chevy dealer, and they refused to touch it. Yeah, really. Finally, I called on the help of the guys at thirdgen.org, and I was able to find out that the fuel pump was a walking dead man ( I had to make my own test-rig to find out). I changed that out, and the car ran like a champ from then on. However, one night some dipshit ran a stop sign and hit me from the front-right side, causing considerable damage (and no, he didn't have insurance). Every body shop I took it to said that the rust damage to the subframe was so bad that the car wasn't worth saving. Two weeks later, I found my Pontiac (I actually wanted another Camaro), and I've had a kickass car ever since. I've still got that Camaro at my shop for parts. I'll see if I can find some pictures of it.
I'm only on my second car and my high school ride, 94 celica, still runs like a beast. That thing could run forever. Body isn't in the best shape which I kind of regret not taking better care of. I still have it and will drive it when I need to. I don't trust my bmw to have as few problems as the Toyota.
When I was 20 I had a '70 340 Duster with a 4 speed. This was long before anyone had a clue that a car like that one day would be worth a year's salary. It looked good, but it was full of bondo and I abused the shit out of it. The interior smelled like stale beer and sex. There had been so much beer spilled in it the carpet was perpetually soaked and squishy. It over charged the battery something fierce even though I replaced the voltage regulator and alternator and chased all the wiring down. That one still puzzles me. I finally traded it for some cash and a piece of shit '59 Ford pick up I really didn't want. It had a mild u-joint problem. I took it up in the woods that night with some buddies. We got in a beer fight inside the cab. The was the least damaging thing we did that night. I high centered it on a massive rock at about 30 mph, it stopped so suddenly it killed the engine. So we threw rocks at it and beat it with sticks until it would start again. The next day the guy I got it from asked if I could move something for him. I told him I didn't think the truck would make it. He was all "You couldn't have done that much damage, it'll be fine." He arrived at my house and I thought he was going to cry...."How the fuck did you do this much damage in one night?" The whole interior was sticky with beer. It was full of dents and missing paint. We started down the road and the u-joint was thump-thump-thumping. Loudly. He was confused by how it could've gotten so much worse overnight. Probably had something to do with a boulder hitting the drive shaft at 30 mph. A few miles down the road the drive shaft dropped and the sparks from it dragging on the pavement caught the rear differential on fire.I put it out by shaking up a warm beer to act as a fire extinguisher. I just left it there on the side of the road. Eventually it got towed.
My first car was a 1979 Mercury Bobcat. That's the Mercury version of the Ford Pinto. Seriously, google that. It even had the three pinstripes on each side. The headlights had a short. The faster I drove the faster the lights blinked. I had air conditioning. Sometimes. The fuel gauge didn't work. It was a rolling death trap, but when I wrecked it it held up okay.
I had a land rover I've posted about on here before. Had 114,000 miles when I bought it, so middle aged for a car. At that tally most people are still just doing oil changes and occasionally swapping the tires. I had that piece of shit less than a month before it started breaking down and malfunctioning on, not even kidding, about a weekly basis. I couldn't even count how many parts I swapped before I finally threw in the towel and sold it in a 'found on road dead' state for 1/3 the price I paid. I advertised it to someone as a project car. Even though I was taking a significant loss after putting little more than 10k miles on it, I feel guilty even selling it at all. Poor bastard thought he was getting a really good deal. Sure, it'll run like a dream right after I fix these here few problems. I should have just doused the fucker in gasoline and torched it. I don't know how that company stays in business. Last I've heard they're now building them in China to further double down on their model of selling outrageous pieces of shit. If that car doesn't kill you by malfunctioning on the interstate the rage it induces just trying to fucking keep it upright might. Oh, and if it makes you feel better the A/C was one of the many things that broke on mine as well, but even when it's running it isn't worth a damn. It took about 45 minutes of full blast in the Florida heat before the inside of that thing was even tolerable. I think the idea was you're supposed to stick your head out the window like a dog shouting "Yeeeaaahhh I own a land rover, bitches!"
Guys, do you not read about cars at all? You all seem so surprised that British cars would have electrical problems.... Focus: 1992 Saturn SL2. I bought it new when I graduated from college since my dad worked for GM. It was the "new GM," built to compete with the Japanese, right? While I did manage to get 200,000 miles out of it, I stopped changing the oil because it burned so much that I had already changed it in less than 3000 miles. There was a known issue with the valve guides that caused the oil consumption. I also replaced the alternator 4 times. The geniuses at GM mounted it between the engine and the firewall, so they had unusually high failure rates in warmer climates. My parents mostly bought manual transmissions, and out of many thousands of miles, only one of their cars required a clutch. I put three in the Saturn. Also a starter, AC compressor, three power window motors, and I gave up on the sunroof after it quit working. It was fun to drive when it was new though. Anti-Focus (?): Our 1997 Lexus ES300 that replaced the Saturn. Some asshole hit it at 282,000 miles in 2014 and totaled it, of course. That was by far the best car I've ever owned. We had it for 13 years and put 230,000 of those miles on it. I would have driven that car anywhere. The only things ever replaced on it were the alternator one time, one motor mount because the engine was vibrating a little, and a couple of O2 sensors. Everything else was original. I really miss it now that I commute from Atlanta to Charleston every weekend. I'm stuck driving my truck at the moment until I find the right ES.
Alt focus: I guess I've been lucky with vehicles and mechanical problems. I've never had one that was a lemon. I'd imagine that I average less than $1500 in repairs outside of regular maintenance on any vehicle that I've owned. Case in point, I owned a 2000 Ford F150 that I put 200,000 miles on before it needed serious repair (engine rebuild). That said, it was still on the factory clutch. I have a 2006 F150 now and the only issue with it is that I am going to have replace some front end parts and bearings soon. Focus: No mechanical problems perhaps, but three of the four F150's I have owned had paint issues on the hood. (98, 00 and the current 06) Something to do with the aluminum hood having too high of a steel content it seems.
A 1985 Pontiac Fiero GT. It was my first car; got it in 1995 when I was 16 from a guy who beat the shit out of it. It's gone through 3 engines, 3-4 clutches, a distributor, an alternator, a new nose, coolant pipes, at least one new headlight housing, and other shit I don't even remember. Somehow I still have it; it's in my garage right now up on some jack stands waiting for me to replace the idle air control valve, two tires, and adjust the shift linkages. In the 20 years (holy shit) I've had I I've probably put maybe 20,000 miles on it. I literally have scars on my body from the injuries it inflicted on me throughout the years I've wrenched on it. When I think about that car and my memories with it I feel like an abused spouse who's had all hope and joy beaten out of them, but still can't bring themselves to leave. Maybe because even at 37, when it's running decently I still do stupid shit in it, which may end up being the end of me. That fucking car...
Not by any means a piece of shit, but this one was a money pit: I owned a '69 Camaro for five years. Yes, I know, I'm a moron for having sold it. To be fair, I never had to change the oil filter because I was putting in two new quarts of oil every five hundred miles or so. That thing made me pay $9k for a new driveway when I only payed $5k for the car in the first place. Still, it was a cherry ride, and I got laid a few times purely based on it. And yes, that's me wearing a straw cowboy hat in it, because fuck you, I was driving a first gen Camaro
It's funny that Land Rovers and Range Rovers can sometimes be seen as high end or expensive vehicles here. All the years of my life I've spent in developing countries and I associate them as being bare bones junkers that are invariably white and driven by snotty NGO employees or the wives of the expatriates. I can't imagine owning one. I'll be 36 in three weeks, and I'm on my second vehicle (which I bought new a year ago). I've driven since I was 16, so do the math. I owned an 1.5 year old F150 that I bought in 1998 and had for over sixteen years. I had it longer than I didn't have it. What a good truck. 2WD but it had a manual transmission, so you could always trust it on ice or in mud. It had a transmission problem a year after I got it, and that was it until it got waaaay older. I expect some minor and growing problems when a vehicle reaches its third decade of continuous use. It was so hard to let that truck go, but I had no place to store it and lack of use would have been really hard on it. A fun story about it, though, is that I almost decapitated people on Portage and Main in Winnipeg with Nettdata in the passenger seat. It sheared a leaf spring at 60km/hr that went banging and clattering out the side and (presumably) down the sidewalk. Thank god no one was near it when it went.
I haven't owned what I consider a POS. I did have terrible luck with one car though. I bought my younger brother's highschool car, a early 90's Ford explorer, after it was stolen and rolled on it's side. It was not insured against theft, so I bought it so my brother could buy something decent to drive and I could further beat the shit out of it. It was a loaded Eddie Bauer edition, I could ride on nice leather seats with the sunroof open and hit trees when I felt like it. It was going to be great. It needed an engine, the thieves all but blew it up, it ran like shit when it got brought to my house. Bought a used one and had it dropped it in. Drove it to the gas station, less than a mile, bought a soda, got back in the explorer, put it in reverse and hit the accelerator. It went forward onto the sidewalk and nearly into the store. I called the mechanic that put in the engine and had him come get it, thinking he just needed to fix the shift linkage or something. I walked home. It was stolen again from his parking lot, before it was fixed, and never seen again. Owned that thing for about a month, had a couple thousand dollars in it, I drove it less than a mile. Before it was stolen it was a good vehicle and may have been again. I never got to find out.
Because some of the older ones were indeed built like tanks, great for a developing country where your car was going to get the shit beat out of it. Nobody is buying a $100K Range in a developing country as a junker. And why do people keep buying them? Well, cause its a way to have an SUV that doesn't drive like a monster. I wont be getting one any time soon, but in my valet days, I was amazed at how the new Range Rovers (2008ish) drove smoothly like a sedan despite being so large. Now if you're buying a discovery or one of the low end models, getting all the problems with a lot less of the performance, well, that's dumb.
The potential for bad that was that situation was mind-numbing. Driving down the road, hit a bit of a pothole, and then 2 leaves from the rear spring go flying away, at speed, as the leaf spring retaining clips fall apart. If it had hit someone it would have made the news. How it didn't hit someone, I have no idea... but at least the ride was a bit softer on the way home.
Yep. There's a reason they used to be used for any real expedition or hard, in-the-field work. They were a hell of a lot better than any Jeep, and built like tanks that would survive anything. Then they went the way of the Jeep and cashed in on the brand while dumping any and all quality or toughness that built that brand in the first place. Think of it like a Hummer. The original, military version was a fucking beast... and it devolved into the H3 which was basically a shitty Suburban with a fucked up body kit.
Not to be a dick, but the H2 was the full size, the H3 was a smaller Colorado based on. But yea total name brand grab. I remember seeing an original hummer in a shop and taking a quick look at it and just being amazed. One thing that stood out was where the axles when into the wheel was at the top not in the middle, more clearance and maybe gear reductions right at the wheel.