What is the most unreliable vehicle you have experienced?

No, why do you ask?

 

2003 F150 I put 2 different rebuilt motors in it. First one I put in drove it 2 weeks and found out it had a dead cylinder. It was under warranty so pulled that one out and put a new one in the sent. All was good for 6 or 7 months then I wake up to this one Sunday morning crazy don't really no what happened, but the one and only Ford I'll ever own

 

I had a 1991 VW GTI 16v with a ported head and a 268 cam. Great to drive, but holly crap did that thing go through parts. it was almost 1:1 for driving hours vs wrenching hours.

 

I blew up my 2004 Chevrolet S10 with 22000 miles. It was losing power and I had an appointment to get it in the shop but it came apart on the way there. Rear main bearing seized up. Exhaust was falling off as well. They gave me a new engine. I took it to a Toyota Dealership and got a 2005 Corolla and never stopped driving Toyotas since.

Also had a Rendezvous with head gasket go at 60000. A 96 Grand Prix that crushed my arm in the window when it went up by itself. That one also had a host of electrical and brake problems. I had a 99 Villager that had a short they could never fix and the interior lights flashed off and on constantly until I took out the bulbs. There was also a 89 Lebaron we called "Puddles" because it leaked oil all the time. These were all new cars. Please note they were all American made pieces of crap. Toyota and Mazda are all we drive now.

 

Mine is and your screen name is what some of the more brilliant high school sports team mates decided to call me. Lol.

 

It's weird how hit and miss cars are. Except for me, my family has had damned near all GM's for decades. And ive had my fair share. My 91 Camaro Z28 finally blew a headgasket at 314,000 miles. My 2000 Silverado went to 218,000 miles without anything but maintenance and wear items. My parents had an 05 GMC denali with the 5.3 LS that they wrecked at 138k miles. That engine is going into my 99 Camaro SS im building and I have zero issue throwing boost at it.


Btw, I can almost guarantee the Villager was due to the wiring harness pass through under the rear carpet. They were notorious for getting wet and corroding the connectors. ABout a $1100 fix at the dealer. If you were handy you could do it yourself for about $300.

 

Unreliable is not the right term as neither vehicle failed to start or left us stranded, but of all the vehicles my parents have owned in the last forty years, it’s a tossup between the 1993 Chevy S-10 Blazer and 2000 GMC Safari for most problematic!

 

Just a week after my dad bought the Blazer brand new in June 1993, with only 260 miles on it, the A/C system blew a seal at the orifice tube; My dad turned on the A/C before driving to work on a warm morning, and when he did the system purged itself of Freon and blasted most of it into the cab through the dashboard defogger vents!

1-week old Blazer with 260 miles! The dealer of course replaced the faulty parts and recharged the system under the warranty, and my dad got the Blazer back that afternoon with ice cold A/C...

The Blazer did the same thing eleven months later, in May 1994; This time, luckily, it didn’t release Freon into the cabin...

My dad just turned on the A/C for the first time in 1994 and found it to be flowing warm; Again, the dealer fixed another blown seal and recharged the system under warranty.

The A/C was only the beginning, but after 1994 it worked just fine until my dad traded in the Blazer in May 1996. Other issues included all four brakes (front disc/rear drum) wearing out at under 30K miles, an annoying squeak caused by the tailgate not being installed properly at the factory, the clearcoat peeling off of the alloy wheels, the instrument cluster light intermittently shutting off, and a headlight burning out.

The Blazer was reliable in that it never broke down and never had any mechanical problems, but the laundry list of annoying problems made my dad angry enough to write a multi-page complaint letter to GM corporate!

 

First car: '86 Chevy Celebrity with the (low) tech 4 engine. Never came close to leaving me stranded, but there was always something wrong with it. Cruise control not working, some door/window/trunk leaking, AC failing, power steering cutting out. Sometimes the engine would just stall as I was driving down the road.

 

My family has had so many bad GMs but really good luck with Ford. Apart from this being the internet and no one knows what's the truth or not, one thing everyone can agree on is your mileage may vary (pun intended.)

I'll also add that the whole GM ignition debacle was pretty horrible. The fact that most of the same management is in place after that at GM is crazy. When Ford went through the Firestone scandal and recall, afterwards they gutted upper and middle management. Even went and hired the guy who was keeping Boeing in the sky. Part of the reason Boeing isn't doing so well now.

 

I kid, I kid..

I remember the rollovers well. Part of the issue as well was Ford learned in testing that it was prone to rollovers (I want to say without looking it up they used the basic Bronco II platform which had issues with rollovers too) and their solution was to lower the tire pressure recommendation on the vehicle, which added to the likelihood of the delamination.

I read a book a few years ago about it, pretty sure I still have it if you would like to know the name

 

What’s the book? I work in a field now that I often have to talk with people about how to learn from mistakes and to avoid them in the future.

 

M151A2 prone for rollovers

 

Lower tire pressure caused the Firestone tires to delaminate faster. However, the Goodyear tires that were also used on production Exploders, and were on the original test rigs, did not overheat at the lower PSI.

Let me put it this way, if cold weather lowered your Tacoma tire pressure to 25 PSI instead of 28 PSI would you blame Toyota or the tire manufacturer for a failure? Ultimately Firestone tires lost their tread more easily at the lowered pressure but were still defective even at the higher pressure. That's why Ford ended their agreement with Firestone tire.

 

Ford tempo, the bastard cousin of the Taurus. The ex bought it new. Problems amounted to a 1/2” thick pile of receipts after 9 months of ownership. This was before the lemon law. We never got to keep it for longer than 2 weeks before it had to go back in for something else.

 

Inbox me an email, I'll dig it up and send you some pics/etc

 

Perhaps, but even before all that Ford had knowledge of it being prone to rollovers on its own. The particulars escape me but I know the book I mention dug very deep into it

 

I had a 87 blazer that I got when it was about 25 yrs old. It was already worn out when I got it. It burned a quart of oil every 500 miles or so and smoked like a chimney when I first cranked it up. One day I noticed it was smoking more than normal and figured it was about to blow up, sure enough when i pulled the onto the road I lived on the oil pressure was at 0 so I went about another half mile home and popped the hood. It had oil running out of the breather. I guess the motor was so sludged up the oil drain holes in the heads got clogged and wouldn’t let the oil drain back fast enough and it pumped all out 5 ate of it it through the pvc into the breather. Took the valve covers off and the valve springs looked like little mounds of sludge. Scrapped out what I could and put it back together. It didn’t smoke nearly as much after that. Also had an alternator that went out and the computer that controlled the ignition timing. I only had it about a year when I traded it in my Tacoma because it started idiling rough like it had a vacuum leak. Couldn’t trace it down to anything so it might been the intake seals or something. I’ve had the Tacoma for 12 years now.

 

Just FYI Mazda is owned by Ford.

 

Nah. That's a misconception. Ford has shares in Mazda but they don't have a controlling interest. They did for a few years in the 2000s which is when Ford and Mazda shared a few platforms and drivetrains but Ford divested their controlling interest in Mazda almost a decade ago. Even when the relationship was close, other than a few models with common components (or a rebadge in the case of the Tribute), the two companies operated independently.