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Worst Car Ever Driven

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Hi All.

I did a search and this doesn't seem to be something that's been brought up. What's the worst car you have ever driven and why?

 

I'll start with the tail of woe that is the Peugeot 2008.

Had to get a rental car for work, not a problem. However the car provided was the aforementioned Peugeot 2008, this years model.

It began when I went to shift into first and had the joy of experiencing changing gear with what is without a doubt the least precise gearbox ever. It was like changing through marshmallow, gates were unheard of. Other than moving the gearstick left and forwards, I couldn't tell you if I got 1st or 3rd, or a mix of the 2. Once the mystery gear was selected, it was off to find the bite point. I needn't have bothered it wasn't a point, it was just as vague as the gearshift, so it being a rental, I did what any self respecting person would do, pushed the accelerator and brought the pedal up with nary a care for the poor clutch, and with that we were..... kinda moving, off isn't the right word.

I was pretty much straight onto the motorway, the slip road was the first point to really put my foot down, so I did, but we rapidly slowed down, I mean its a good thing I wasn't followed. The front  wheel arch sticks so far into the pedal section that they have jammed the peddles rather close, and I hit both the brake and accelerator. (Pic attached) Lesson learned, be careful when accelerating. Once I got over the whiplash of my own stupidity and pressed the accelerator, I waited.... Then the turbo spun up and, OK, it went. nothing mind blowing, but we reached motorway speed before the end of the slip.

There was then a long boring 2 hours of motorway, where I learned the car does NOT have a 6th gear to save my ears from the engine noise (it's not as nice as ours).

Finally we reach the end of the motorway, nearly at our destination, I go to downshift to 4th as their is a bend coming up and what do you know, we rapidly decelerate on the off ramp after I hit the clutch and brake pedal together. When I finally got to my destination, I checked how much clearance I had when I depressed the brake pedal. Give or take 1 inch either side, which wouldn't be a problem other than the encroaching wheel arch on the accelerator and the encroaching footrest on the clutch meaning the foot is shifted in towards the brake when you need to fully depress either of them.

But, for £44 for the day, it could have been worse?

And that is the worst car I have ever driven, maybe I have been lucky, who knows :)

Peugeot 2008 footwell.jpg

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I have a particular hatred of the last gen Ford KA, felt like I was standing ON the pedals instead of pushing them forwards into the floor. Ended up having aching ankles after every long trip. Thankfully it was rare I had to drive it (wife's car).

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Peugeot 206. Hateful car. I literally cannot think of a single good thing to say about it.

Terrible chassis, woeful steering, shonkey build quality, awful mechanics, poor materials. I could go on forever.

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Hmm not sure if this counts. However I'll say it anyway, work vans; in particular the Peugeot Bipper, as a work van they are so small, you can't get anything in the back. They are tiny, they look like toy cars. From what I remember they have no oomph either. But the worst thing of all, is the latches for the rear doors stick out quite a lot, every time you reach into the back you catch your head on the latch. It really hurts, I have had numerous colleagues banging their heads on the latch.

Weird it's another Peugeot. Then again, it's probably not. 

 

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34 minutes ago, Cerastes said:

Hmm not sure if this counts. However I'll say it anyway, work vans; in particular the Peugeot Bipper, as a work van they are so small, you can't get anything in the back. They are tiny, they look like toy cars. From what I remember they have no oomph either. But the worst thing of all, is the latches for the rear doors stick out quite a lot, every time you reach into the back you catch your head on the latch. It really hurts, I have had numerous colleagues banging their heads on the latch.

Weird it's another Peugeot. Then again, it's probably not. 

 

I'm not a fan of any of the small work vans, I cant remember what exactly we had, but it was gutless and as you had, multiple latch injuries. The big work van we had was a Sprinter, thing was awesome (and ate tires), although its pillars sometimes obstructed cars on small roundabouts, easy to work around though.

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Stupidly went for a Renault megane manual hire car on a recent holiday to Italy. I'd been offered an upgrade, a fiat 500XL but an auto and thinking RS meganes i thought the megane would be perfect for the windy mountain roads with the manual box. This was probably the oldest hire car id ever had maybe 5 to 7 years old with 88km on the clock and it really showed. The diesel engine was horrific being slow with no punch, grabbing the next gear was like stirring porridge, the steering was soft and wooly and trim fell of in the passenger area and boot. 

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When I was 19 I used to pick up a lot of cars for my cousin's boyfriend who had his own garage. A Fiat 127 was the worse car I've ever driven. This would have been 1990 or so. It felt like I had to stir the gear lever to find a gear and well it was terrifyingly slow. Pretty sure it had drum brakes all round too, not sure if they were all working. It was a total dog of a car. I think my friends Beetle comes a close second. What an absolutely appalling car by design. Well I guess 1930's technology is the problem there. 

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Merc A180 hire car. Felt like every instruction (speed up, slow down, please turn) had to go through governance before being accepted. 

Maybe it was just in the wrong ‘mode’.

Had a rover 75 for a while which was similar. But it was an old barge so i expected it. Merc should have been better.

Had a few Citroen C1’s. Loved them. No power so you use all of it all the time. All about conserving momentum. No drive by wire. Same reasons Chris Harris loves his 2CV.

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With you on the A180. A whole new meaning to drive by wire. You’d turn in, it would take a set then chamge it’s mind and resettle its self half way round a bend. Wierd. It also had a huge blind spot that you could hide an artic in.

Bloody treacherous thing.

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Vauxhall Mokka courtesy car, it's like they never took into account actual human dimensions when designing it. Everything felt like it was too far away, steering wheel obscured the dials, terrible visibility, just a complete lack of ergonomic design. Hateful thing.

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Hyundai Getz 1.1 for me. Comfortable seats, but otherwise entirely hateful and frankly a bit scary. The steering was so vague that you could go through a corner ten times and never use the same amount of lock, the ride was terrible, the engine was asthmatic, and the interior plastics make a GT86 look like a Rolls Royce. It was ten years out of date on the day it was launched. Unmitigated junk. For balance, I had a 1st-gen i20 as a hire car a few years later. My heart sank when they gave me the keys, but it was night and day better than the Getz, and I thought it was entirely justified that it won a few budget car awards in the motoring press.

 

On the subject of Merc though, I was given an automatic diesel E-Class (E220?) as a courtesy car when the fuzz hit my parked GT86. The gearbox on that thing was appalling. In the Eco mode, it refused to downshift as you slowed down. So if you were braking towards a roundabout but realised you had just enough space to enter without stopping, you'd then find that it had to shift down several gears before you could accelerate. However much space you thought you needed, you had to double it for fear of being broadside across the road in front of someone, with no power to get out of the way.

The alternative was the sport mode, which tried to redline in every gear, accompanied by all the aural delights you'd get from a Routemaster bus.

It also had Mercedes' stupid foot-operated parking brake. Inexplicable and pointless.

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22 minutes ago, Nimz said:

Vauxhall Mokka courtesy car, it's like they never took into account actual human dimensions when designing it. Everything felt like it was too far away, steering wheel obscured the dials, terrible visibility, just a complete lack of ergonomic design. Hateful thing.

Not a fan of Vauxhall in general but that seemed like a particularly bad one. Using the tagline "don't blend in" to advertise a car that redefined bland was hilarious. :lol:

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Oooh, I think I'd give it to the Mokka so far. Terrible inside and out and with none of the historic bargain value of the Fiat 127.

My worst drive... late 90's Corsa 1.2 - steering felt like it was connected by pulleys, zero contact with wheels, miserable power output, unimpressive fuel economy.

Runner up: Nissan Rogue (US X-trail) with CVT transmission. The car was ok in a drab way, but the CVT was an aberration.

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Toyota Aygo ... they forgot one cylinder ... bit of a problem on the hills of Kefalonia ...

But then I should have guessed as my first hire car in California was a Geo Metro .. 3 cyl and auto ... got chased in SF by the cable car and up hill ... it was quicker than the Metro! I even turned the a/c off :-)

 

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13 hours ago, nerdstrike said:

 

My worst drive... late 90's Corsa 1.2 - steering felt like it was connected by pulleys, zero contact with wheels, miserable power output, unimpressive fuel economy.

 

:lol: My first motor was one of them. 1996 euro 96 limited edition B) Wind up windows, Massive steering wheel with non PAS so hilarious amount of turns to get lock to lock. 1.2 8V engine with 40bhp and still low mpg as it was full gas everywhere to make it go.

Even slower when you add 17" wheels like all teenagers did ;)

Although as it was my first car I knew no better and loved it at the time. Although I recently drove one again and was shocked in a bad way!

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Ford Escort Mk.II. Wheezy 1.1l engine, cart springs. Thoroughly horrible. There was a pause when pressing any pedal before a response was forthcoming, and that was just a token gesture.

Sent from my LG-Q6 using Tapatalk

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Oh wait... I forgot my shortest and worst journey.

Landrover Discovery with the brakes rusted on and no interior - we removed the pads and it still wouldn't budge, so my mate towed it with me crouched behind the steering wheel until the rust broke loose. Steering was via dead power assist unit to big off-road tyres with a Rover V8 sitting over the axle, i.e. heavy, brakes were nonexistent barring the transmission brake, and it smelled mouldy. The rear air suspension was deflated. I'd still take it over the Corsa.

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22 hours ago, gavin_t said:

:lol: My first motor was one of them. 1996 euro 96 limited edition B) Wind up windows, Massive steering wheel with non PAS so hilarious amount of turns to get lock to lock. 1.2 8V engine with 40bhp and still low mpg as it was full gas everywhere to make it go.

Even slower when you add 17" wheels like all teenagers did ;)

Although as it was my first car I knew no better and loved it at the time. Although I recently drove one again and was shocked in a bad way!

I had one as my 2nd car, and fitted the obligatory 17" wheels. No lowering so it looked like a rollerskate :D

I too had nothing to compare it to, so loved the thing! On reflection, it was probably slower than the 1989 1.0 Polo it replaced. Never has a 1.2 engine had less power!

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I had a 1.2 8v Corsa as my first car. I absolutely loved it haha. 45bhp.

I tend to get to try quite a few hire cars through work as I'm not allowed to drive my own on business, their are some rubbish cars about. Although their is only one 'car' that sticks out.

Land Rover defender. My god, there are no words.

 

Runner up is the A class merc. That was awful car, nothing like it's bigger siblings.

 

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2015 Mini Cooper Countryman... 
...slow, hideous, rattly, uncomfortable ...no acceleration, couldn't overtake anything unless it was stationary ...didn't handle worth a damn ...same size as my old family Ford Focus, but felt about half the size inside ...no room in the boot for anything ...and f**k ugly!!

I had a 2004 Mini Cooper S that I loved to drive, it handled better than most other cars I've driven, was pretty quick, and accelerated well ...but the Countryman was the complete opposite. I'd rather walk than be given the keys to another one of those.

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Guest 86guns

I’m showing my age here but I passed my test in my dad’s Hillman Avenger complete with genuine plastic seats. You young ‘uns don’t know you’re born. 

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On 19/09/2018 at 6:20 PM, bassett said:

Stupidly went for a Renault megane manual hire car on a recent holiday to Italy. I'd been offered an upgrade, a fiat 500XL but an auto and thinking RS meganes i thought the megane would be perfect for the windy mountain roads with the manual box. This was probably the oldest hire car id ever had maybe 5 to 7 years old with 88km on the clock and it really showed. The diesel engine was horrific being slow with no punch, grabbing the next gear was like stirring porridge, the steering was soft and wooly and trim fell of in the passenger area and boot. 

I think you dodged a bullet.

Fiat 500 is my worst drive.

It was the 1.2 which can't go up hills. Power was meagre as expected, but on top of that, the stop/start was just moronic, it would cut power when you didn't want to and then refuse to restart. I ended up sat at green traffic lights pumping the clutch trying to wake it up a few times. Understeer was epic, in a way that no other car I've driven is, way worse than similar small cars. If you braked at more than about 0.2g the indicators flashed as it though you were going to crash. Also the driving position was awkward, and it lacked reach adjust on the steering wheel so I could never get properly comfy.

Still £20 a day, so what can you do?

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On ‎21‎/‎09‎/‎2018 at 10:58 AM, Adamd said:

I had one as my 2nd car, and fitted the obligatory 17" wheels. No lowering so it looked like a rollerskate :D

I too had nothing to compare it to, so loved the thing! On reflection, it was probably slower than the 1989 1.0 Polo it replaced. Never has a 1.2 engine had less power!

Only redeeming feature was how reliable it was for the amount of abuse it was given and how easy it was to work on! So much space in the engine bay.

Mine was lowered on crashy G-max springs :rolleyes:

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I had a renault twingo given as a courtesy car years and years ago when my old car was unfortunately written off (R.I.P :() back when I was younger. 

To be fair to it, it was fairly nimble for what it was, but I hated it. 

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