Interestingly, I’ve never had a car that I considered a POS. Cars I bought super cheap I didn’t expect much from and so was not disappointed if they needed work here and there. My Plymouth Sundance had a lot of little niggling problems, but the worst thing about it was its general gutlessness and absolute lack of character. It was reliable, though.
Ford Pintos have been mentioned here several times; my father owned 2 of them and put more than 450,000 miles on both of them driving back and forth across southern Idaho.
That would be my first car, a beige Toyota Tercel with over 100,000 miles on it when I bought it. It was all I could afford. I loved it at first despite the shabby interior. It was zippy, great on snow, small enough to park anywhere. As it inevitably decayed I was less fond of the thing. It didn’t help, I suppose, that I never had enough money to fix all its problems The headlight switch would turn off at random-great fun at night. The brakes were never the best and the rotors kept needing deglazing. The muffler fell off. The alternator conked out one night while driving back from work-fortunately I had the wit not to stop until I got home. The radiator hose split one day while I was on the highway returning from a job interview. I had previously somehow lost whatever doohickey kept the radiator drain hose from draining when I didn’t want it to so I had clamped it shut with a hemostat. One very stormy night I accidentally drove into a flooded section of road. The car actually floated up off the pavement for a couple of seconds. Forever after that the interior reeked of mildew. The best part of the vehicle’s death spiral was when I ended up having to drive it around the neighborhood every night before I went to bed or else it wouldn’t start the next day.
Old family car, an '86 Ford Escort station wagon. Had nothing but problems with it. Alignment went out constantly, chewing through tires like crazy. Had to get the ball joints replaced, and it still just kept the alignment tolerably well instead of turning to shit in a matter of a few months.
Had to replace the lights twice in 3 or 4 years. The timing belt broke, luckily just as I was starting it since it could have destroyed the engine if it’d been running for more than a few more seconds that way. Oh, and it was oriented in such a way that you have to take apart half the fucking engine to get to that belt.
Starter went out. Smog pump went out. Went through 3 distributor caps in quick succession. Shocks were shot in less than 5 years.
I ended up doing more than half the work myself since I was a broke high school / college student when I had it and I probably still spent more on keeping that piece of shit running than I would have spent on a new car. Knowing what I know now, I would’ve bought a Honda or Toyota and with regular maintenance kept it running reliably for twice as long, with probably no major repairs.
The worst…the British Leyland Mini was a marvel of British engineering. The carburettor was neatly positioned just behind the open grill so as to collect every splash of water. At all times it was vital to have 2 cans of WD40 and a towel in the car. The engine was mounted in just the right position to shake itself loose occasionally. You never doubted why the company went bust.
The floorboards rotted out and were duly replaced by planks. Mushrooms sprouted out of the upholstery and there was a distinctive aroma.
The brakes were such that it had to be parked on the flat part of a rise, that way you could crash start it and it wouldn’t run away in the night when the handbrake failed. In its last few years we lived near the lookout on Mt Victoria. People would regularly steal the Mini and abandon it in disgust 100 yards away. One thief left a note expressing their views about my our crap car. The police laughed.
Eventually I sold it to a chap at work for 2 bottles of wine. I got the better end of the deal.
The next worst was the Alfa Romeo Alfa Sud I purchased in a fit of yuppie madness in the 80’s. It looked wonderful and never worked. Spent more time at the garage waiting for parts than it ever spent on the road. Handled badly, had lousy steering and brakes but …it looked wonderful.
It was a 1976 Oldsmobile Omega. Tan. Rusty tan.
My first car was a 72 Plymouth Duster bought in 1980. Not all that bad actually but the engine (225 c.i. slant six) had been poorly maintained and the performance and economy were rubbish. Next was a 76 Honda Civic. Mechanically very sound but it rusted to bits.
Your stories of cars from the 1950s … sheesh! How old are all of you, 120 or something? 
Both my best and worst car was a 1998 Volkswagen Passat I bought in 2001. It was loaded; every option, including leather and a fairly powerful v6 engine. It was one of those cars that handled high speed so effortlessly, it surprised you when looking at the speedometer; “Oh shit I’m doing 95!” The interior materials were uniformly high quality. Excellent fit and finish throughout.
What was wrong with it? Everything else. Every month or two, the car would suffer some issue that required no less than $800 to $1000 of work. Not struts or something that could be fixed anywhere, but specialized things that could only be repaired at the dealer or a high-end mechanic that specialized in European cars. The engine was on the verge of seizing up at 90,000 miles due to oil sludge resulting from a faulty oil pump, and I traded it in on a Subaru Forester. I told the dealer abut the engine, and they didn’t care; they just sent it off to auction,
1987 Dodge Shadow with 2.2 Turbo ticking time-bomb engine. Crappy stick, crappy clutch, and tires that went from full rubber to bologna-skins in 3 months flat.
I probably shouldn’t post, because the conveyance I have in mind was a “car” only in the loosest stretch of the imagination…
It was a 1976 Fiat 128 station wagon. Owned by friends of my parents, they needed to upgrade to something with 4 doors. My parents (who had a fondness for Fiats despite never owning one, probably because the local Fiat dealer was a member of their church and let them hold services in the showroom on Sundays before the church was built) decided to buy it for me when I went off to college my senior year.
Now, my older brother owned a Fiat. The year before, he was driving me down to college (from PA to NC) and the car’s clutch cable broke somewhere near Quantico. Through sheer luck, there was a place nearby that could tow the car and fix it that day. Phew. But not a good sign.
So, a year later, when I was the recipient of a Fiat (and delighted to have transportation), the car had problems from day 1. The nearest place that could work on it was Durham (I was in Chapel Hill). The car spent at least 1 day a month there. The folks there started to recognize my voice when I called to make appointments.
The clutch cable broke, when I was driving home after a day of classes. Luckily, some friends lived nearby and they helped push it up the small hill to our parking lot. I fed them brownies, of course.
Recognizing the clutch cable as a recurring problem, I bought a spare (which was useful the NEXT time it broke… saved me 30ish bucks when the ENTIRE CLUTCH had to be replaced). The head gasket died. The windshield washer motor died. Twice. And it’s not all that much fun driving on the interstate in the rain with no windshield washers.
The radiator sprung a leak. The radio died. Mom and Dad had to subsidize the car repairs while I was in college; then after that I was on my own.
Every time I started to save up money for a down payment on something else, the damn thing required another 200 dollar repair. Of course, in that city, the dealership which “fixed” Fiats was a den of incompetent thieves, as far as I can tell - quite often they literally broke something else when making a repair.
I finally got rid of it after just over 2 years of ownership, by dint of having gotten laid off, finding another job quickly, and therefore having a bit of extra cash from the first job’s severance pay.
I replaced it with a Dodge Omni - which was an improvement. That tells you how bad that Fiat is.
It was a while before I forgave my parents for their “generosity” (they meant well, really they did…).
In fairness, that Fiat only stranded me away from home that one time (and it wasn’t far from home), compared with my brother’s car stranding the two of us in Virginia.
Oh, to clarify: the “den of thieves” was NOT the one in Durham, but the city I moved to after graduation. The guys in Durham were honest and competent… but there’s only so much you can do when you’re starting with a pile of junk, no matter HOW good you are!
The Ace Hardware in my neighborhood is now set up to make “chip keys”. It’s not as simple as cutting an old-style key (which I got to be very good at when I worked at my dad’s hardware store in high school), but they only charge about $100 or so, which is a (relative) bargain.
I don’t disagree with you, but chip-keys (or keyless ignition with chips in the key fobs) are where most, if not all, of the automakers are going.
Almost forgot to post about my own POS.
1987 Chrysler LeBaron coupe. Bought it used in '89. The electronics in it were crap: I had three separate main control chips fail (causing the car to simply stop dead each time), and it had one of the talking information centers (“A door is ajar”), which would start to malfunction whenever the temperature dropped below freezing (you’d get a “rear hatch is ajar” message…on a coupe with no rear hatch). Somewhere in the rear of the car, a leak developed, and rainwater would get into the trunk, causing mildew.
I got so sick of it that I did the math on when the amount I still owed on the loan would be less than the trade-in value of the car. That very month, I traded it in for a new Mazda Protege, which was still running like a top 10 years later, when I traded it in.
Interesting I’m the first to call out the MG Midget. Cute car, pretty fun to drive. But I spent more time under it than in it. One damned thing after another, and not just little electrical problems (which were numerous), but drive-train stuff as well. Just crap. I finally just walked away from it–keys and all–when two of the four cylinders failed within a few miles of each other on a rainy night.
You’re right; I’m really old. I’m also surprised that a 1959 Dauphine was still alive in 1975. I thought of one other good thing about that POS; the front luggage compartment made one hell of a good ice chest. It was great for beer busts but there was always that nagging doubt about getting it to the site and then getting it home. I never drove it further than I was willing to walk back.
No doubts - 1980 Pontiac Phoenix my father bought new. Damn thing needed a new transmission - not covered by warranty - after less than a year. It leaked coolant into the passenger compartment. The front wheels made rattling sounds when turning right. I ended up with it when I went off to college, and my parents trusted it more than my high school car - a 1968 Chevy station wagon, which gave us far LESS trouble than the Phoenix ever did. The Pontiac had problem after problem until I traded it in - at only four years old - for a Nissan Pickup (which I then drove for 15 years 
).
I can’t believe I didn’t spot any Gremlins in this thread.
Mine was a 1971 bile green Piece -O- Crap. It had no rear seat and the back window was not designed to open (both were options). It was a 3-speed; the clutch popped out about once a week or so. This required me to crawl under the car with a 5/8" socket wrench and put it back in. I kept the wrench in the glove box.
I paid $120 for it; it cost $1800 when it was new.
mmm
Mine was a 1965 Rover TC2000. It always managed to break down in new and interesting ways…bt the engineers who designed this POS really thought abot how to remedy things…like the old Bendix starter-the thing would refuse to engage the ring gear when the temp went below freezing. But there was a solution! You had to crawl nderneath and twist the starter shaft with a wrench-to unjam the thing-smart thinking!. It leaked oil and coolant, and fried batteries. I finally traded it in for a Chevy.
A minor cosmetic problem, to be sure. :dubious:
My '74 Vega (first car I ever owned) was hands down the worst. I wound up starting it by shorting two contacts under the hood with a screwdriver. Years later I read a Dave Barry column in which he described owning a Vega and having the exact same problem.
Second worst car - a Dodge Omni. Mechanically crappy, felt unstable on curves. Its successor (a Dodge Colt) was a good car which I had for nearly ten years until it flooded during a rainstorm in a parking lot and persistently smelled like wet dog no matter how much deodorizer I used.
A Dodge Omni. (Hi, Jackmannii!) In my case, though, it was in a league by itself.
(It was my first car, too, brand-new off the lot, so I can’t even blame previous owners.)
This was my first car, a hand-me-down from my sister. Well, it was actually a 1977 Mercury Bobcat and was a four speed manual. I personally installed the Kraco auto-reverse cassette deck which was the coolest one at the time (and budget). My sister had worn down the transmission so far that the clutch was more of an auxilliary pedal.
The car had many breakdowns and ended being sold to a friend who got it running for a while and then it would quit. Rinse and repeat. By my senior year of high school it had been through 8 of my friends.
I started calling mine the P(art) T(ime) Loser. Mine was a year and a half old when I got it and boy was it a POS. In the eleven months I owned it I had to replace all of the tires and rims (the factory rims kept water in them which severely rotted out the tires). Then the bottom started to rust out. And the engine would occasionally just give out. I ended up trading it in for a Prius and have been happy since.
But the worst car I had was a 1996 Olds Cutlass Supreme. I bought it for $4000 with my truck trade-in. In the year and a half I owned it, I put almost $13K into the car. The frame got bent, each of the 6 fuel injectors went out (at $1300 a piece to replace), and when the shop called to say that the head gasket blew, I told them to keep the damn car. I never bothered to clean out my stuff and didn’t buy another car for almost 8 years.