My first new car was a 1992 BMW 325is. It was a beautiful car, but completely unsuited for New England winters. It was a rear-wheel drive vehicle that didn’t even have a limited slip differential. Every winter I managed to get stuck somewhere. It also had all kinds of quality control problems, from issues with the interior door lining detaching to intermittent engine hesitation to intermittent electrical problems. It was also overpriced and cost a fortune to repair.
My next vehicle was nearly as bad: a 1997 Nissan Pathfinder without 4WD (rear-wheel drive only). The salesman was my father’s neighbor who owned a Nissan dealership in Texas. To make the sale he said nobody really needed 4WD, adding that if the weather was bad enough to require 4WD, you shouldn’t be on the road in the first place — says the guy in Texas to someone living in New England. If that were the case, I wouldn’t leave the house for months in the winter here. At least it was fairly reliable otherwise.
Finally I learned my lesson. I got rid of both of those vehicles. Every vehicle I’ve purchased since then has had 4WD or AWD (mostly Toyota 4Runners and Subaru Outbacks).
The worst car I owned, though, was my first vehicle: a 1980 Volkswagen Rabbit that was given to me by my parents. It was vastly underpowered, barely able to get up to highway speed even with the accelerator pedal floored. It also started spontaneously disintegrating when it was only 7 years old. The driver’s side door handle and parking brake both completely detached. The rear view mirror fell off. The horn and turn signals stopped working. Last but not least, it leaked oil like a sieve. I finally took it in to get it fixed so I could pass inspection and was told it was unsafe to drive, so I junked it.
If you Jeep was indeed a 1987, I think your anger is a bit misplaced. IIRC, Chrysler acquired AMC (and the Jeep brand along with it) in late 1987, so your Cherokee was designed and built by AMC, not Chrysler.
My high school years were spent working on these cars. Not because I’m any good at it, but my friends’ cars were so crappy that anything we did would probably be an improvement.
Tommy built a dune buggy at the age of 12 that would run for one afternoon at a time. But that’s better than Tim’s brother and his Karmann-Ghia that never did quite start.
Oh, and Big Al The People’s Pal had a $15 car, where the seats were bolted onto 2x4s with nothing but the asphalt speeding by beneath you. It finally gave out and he left on I-94, figuring that it’d cost more to tow it than it was worth. And, since he’d never registered it and he’d hand-painted the plates, he was right that no one knew it was his. Fun times…
— says the guy in Texas to someone living in New England. If that were the case, I wouldn’t leave the house for months in the winter here. At least it was fairly reliable otherwise.