What is the most unreliable vehicle you have experienced?

2004 Dodge Dakota, what a POS. The list of repairs was so long I can't even remember them all.

 

1986 Chrysler Conquest/Mitsubishi Starion. It was a neat car when it worked, but it had tons of issues. Cool idea though. Rwd turbo 4 cylinder with a front mount inter cooler, limited slip diff, manual transmission, and a wide body.

Honorable mention to my 1997 VW Jetta VR6. All that plastic cooling piping sucked.

 

Plymouth Neon, replaced the head gasket twice in 3 years and a long list of other issues. Seemed like that thing would have some new mechanical issue every month or two.

 

77 CJ7 Levi edition with a 304 and 3spd. Literally fixing it every other time I drove it. Wouldnt start after work-electronic ign control box. Went to the barber-starter solenoid stuck open. Stopped for gas-distributor loosened up and threw my timing off. Went up a hill by the house-steering box busted off the frame. On one of the few days it did make it home, I smelled gas and found the gas tank had a bunch of punctures from rocks getting trapped between the skid and tank. The list goes on and on........

 

I've never had any really bad cars. I've owned a number of cars but never had any I would call a "bad" some had more problems than others, but mostly wear and tear items. Most problems in my younger years were caused by me being abusive.

The 2010 Kia Forte my wife had wasn't really a bad car, but it wore out prematurely. 115k it was ready for the scrap yard.

When I was growing up my parents bought a brand new 1984 Ford Escort Hatchback. It blew several head gaskets, Paint flaking off within the first 6 months of them owning it, and it was rusting at 2 years old. My Dad battled ford forever about that car. It was repaired and repainted by ford several times. They kept that car up into the mid 90s when they traded it off for a Geo Metro(one of the best cars they owned, never broke) and traded that for a 1996 Caviler Z24(another best car, mom drove that thing till it had 250k on it, gave it to my cousin, he almost got it to a 500k when the underside had rusted so bad that the rear suspension came loose from the body)

 

1996 Dodge Ram 1500 (my buddies, not mine), that thing was ALWAYS broken. Luckily he didn't sell his old camry when he got it so he had something to drive whenever it was in the shop.

Lately I have been doing alot of work on my friend's '02 jeep liberty as well though. Can't say I'm impressed with it at all

 

2002 Chevy Malibu what a piece of sh#t!
And a 2000 Cherokee XJ
All kinds of problems on both of them

 

The keen observer will notice there are no Tacomas in this thread

 

Wow, there is a lot of Mopar products mentioned in this thread.

 

Jeep Liberty Diesel-The very definition of piece of shit. The engineers who designed it should be burned at the stake.

 

Most are the time period of Daimler Chrysler. Which utterly sucked.

 

I'm going to say my wife's 06 Subaru Legacy GT. Rear wheel bearings on both sides replaced under warranty only to be replaced again by better ones out of warranty. Clutch needed replaced at 90k, (which required a new flywheel due to a design change an no one making a clutch that fit the OEM flywheel), consumed oil more than any other car I've owned, and some other little problems that were more irritating than anything. Then a valve burned at 190k. We parked it and bought a 2012 4Runner Limited to replace it.

It sat 3 years before I decided to work on it and I only consented to fixing it because I wanted to use it for trade-in on my Tacoma. We got it running and she decided she wanted keep it. Brought it home and I replaced O2 sensors, ball joints, cv joints, tie rod ends, & stabilizer links. Other than a couple of random misfires (like once every 300 to 1000 miles) and an exhaust leak, the car runs great! It went from getting 23mpg to 28-20ish mpg. I loathe that car as I have spent more time under the hood on it than anything I've ever owned. At least my wife is happy.

I still got the Tacoma.

 

I had a 1997 VW Passat during my first go-round of college that was a f*cking clown car. The only door that opened was the rear drivers side, because all other handles broke off. The brakes never seemed to hold fluid and I would have to rely on down shifting/slamming the pedal to the ground to come to a stop. Clutch slipped all kinds of crazy, E-brake/park brake handle was simply an interior design. The primary reason for purchase was cheap price and fuel efficiency, but the thing was a pig and had a 20 gal. tank on it. I think it averaged 25 mi to that gallon (most did around 40). Replaced the timing belt upon initial purchase, so it had that going for it. Good memories in it, but damn it was a nightmare.

To reiterate what many have said, Jeep Cherokees are absolute piles. I had two in high school, and both were electrical nightmares/ticking time bombs.

I'm quite happy with my Tacoma, and thankful it has yet to let me down.

 

1998 Chevy Lumina LTZ (I have no idea why I ever bought this car) or 1992 Pontiac Grand Prix SE (looked cool, but it ate timing belts like no other).

 

wait for it....

 

Girlfriends '06 Liberty, and my 2002 Dakota...

 

1971 Mazda R100, powered by a 2 x 491 cc 10A Rotary Engine. Power was rated at just 100 hp (70 kW) due to a small carburetor.
Fun to drive, but constantly needing work. In the 2years I had it I replaced the rotor tips 3x, rebuilt the transmission, repaired/ replaced the brake lines and emergency cable 4x and a lot more minor stuff.

Granted it was 9 years old and cost me $700 when I got it, and I drove it like I stole it.

Sold it not running for $1200 to someone who had grand ideas of racing it.

 

2000 jeep Cherokee. Distributor, two rear differentials, brakes were never right, steering box leaked, heater fan twice, replaced the drivers tail light bulb at least twice a month, rust in two years.....
It was a Jeep thing, and no I never understood it lol.

 

1984 Jaguar XJ6. The car was fun to drive... When it was operable. I usually got a good 2 weeks out of it before a new problem would surface. Accelerator jammed during the first week I owned it while going down the highway at about 65 mph. Come to find out that the floorboard was so rusted that the bottom of the pedal which was attached by sort of a hinge mechanism came loose. Brake master cylinder failed while driving, replaced the ignition system, both blower motors burned out, pretty much anything to do with the electrical system failed. They used fusible links instead of actual fuses throughout of the car, so if there was a short you had to replace the wire. It had Jaguars first attempt a fuel injection which ran worse than any carbureted car I ever owned in cold weather. I could never get it tuned correctly so it usually ran rich and fouled the spark plugs on a semi regular basis. The thing was also littered with rust inside and out.

That said, it was a fun car to drive when it wasn't in the shop. Lot of good memories in that car.

 

Probably the 1998 Dodge Neon. Build quality was terrible but once we got past the initial issues, it held up ok.

Second would be the Audi S4 I just traded for my Tacoma. 42k on the odo and already had a transmission issue, failed thermostat, and was getting ready for a third set of brakes (I'm not a heavy brake/gas kind of driver, either).