I had never seen a car that just fell apart before. The cover on the climate control was just glued on and the glue they used was temperature sensitive. The fist summer we had it the whole thing just fell off. But not without leaving strands and globs of gooey glue all over the place.
Several of the other dash controls failed within a year as well. I don’t remember which button it was but there was one where you pressed it in and it stayed in and then you pressed it again and it popped back out. One day we pressed and it went all the way into the dash. There was just a hole left.
From the day we got it to the day we sold it the windshield leaked, despite having it replaced three times.
There was actual language in the owners manual telling you to be absolutely sure not to get a drop of gas on the paint job because the gas would wash the paint off.
It was actually my mothers car, I never would have chosen that thing.
I was just coming in here to say, not mine, but my godfather’s Gremlin. Actually, at one point he had owned a Pinto, but decided a Gremlin would be a better option. He was not correct. It was an orange pile of garbage that stayed together as long as it did by…magic, possibly. I know that by the end of its life it was mostly composed of duct tape and hope. It ran mostly on my godfather’s energetic cursing.
I had a Gremlin called The Booger Bomb and I would not classify it as the biggest POS I’ve had, that honor goes to the Pontiac Phoenix. It would not stay aligned, would barely stay running, and one time I could not get it into gear when a semi was bearing down on me. What a piece o’ shit. Just a downright nasty-ass car.
At least the Gremlin would usually go down the road. And it had an aahhhoooohgaa horn. The rusted out floorboards were a bonus for disposing of empties and butts. When the post that held the door shut rusted off, we just used a leather dog leash to hold it closed, no biggie. And after a while you learned to top off the oil every time you got gas.
The radio antenna that broke from the base and whipped around was for reminding pedestrians not to get too close. The best part was that you could take your hands off the wheel and the car would swerve from one side of the road to the other, you had to start in the middle of the road or you would end up in the ditch.
At least it had a good stereo and it never failed me when a semi was trying to drive up my ass.
Somewhere in the mix was a 1980 Buick Regal, 6 cylinder that you had to have binoculars in order to see if it was safe to pass. Somehow that POS car made it to 205,000 miles
Didn’t every family have one of those? Ours was a 1971 Ford Country Squire stationwagon. Nothing says ‘quality’ like wallpaper bonded to aluminum and meant to look like wood. It had fold away 3rd seats under the cargo bed and the flooring below the seats had completely rotted out. I still remember saying,
“Dad, I Really don’t want to sit back here. My feet are hanging right above the road.”
“Oh, you’ve got your seatbelt on, you’ll be fine.” :dubious:
My brother eventually inherited the car for college & had a cross-bar with a rope placed to hold the rear seats up. He and his dorm friends even supposedly had a routine to dump the empties:
“Bombadier to Pilot, Bombadier to Pilot; Tailgater 6 o’clock. A little to the left…steady…steady… One Away.” When they’d get pulled over, the rope would be pulled & the seats would fall flat & lock closed.
An early 70’s Plymouth Cricket that I bought in 1978, it had blue/green carpet glued to the dash, the windows would go up or down, the doors could only be open from the inside (had to stick my arm through the vent window to grab the handle from the outside), and it had been painted brown with a paintbrush. We called it “Cowpie”, it was a complete POS but it ran so I was happy.
2000 BMW 323i - I bought this car CPO from a BMW dealer, and am I glad I did! I had it from 07/2003 - 12/2004 and it had over $10,000 worth of work that had to be done to it (and I *babied *that car - it was NOT b/c of me).
Here’s a list of the crap that happened to it (that I can remember):
[ol]
[li]Wind whistle when driving - took 6 times (and getting a district tech involved) to get it fixed[/li][li]Front left turn signal socket burned out (not the bulb, the SOCKET)![/li][li]Front right turn signal socket burned out (different time than the left)[/li][li]Inside sun screen (inside the sunroof) clips broke TWICE - would have cost me $400 each time to fix if not on CPO[/li][li]Water pump had to be replaced[/li][li]Fuel pump had to be replaced[/li][li]Got the rear brakes replaced - driving down the highway, smoke started pouring from the rear right - caliper had frozen up[/li][li]After getting the brakes fixed, couple of weeks later, heard a bad squeal - took to dealer to have them tell me “we’ve never seen anything like this - your new brake pad has completely disintegrated - it’s gone”[/li][li]Had to have the ENTIRE REAR END of the car replaced - that woulda cost me almost $4k[/li][/ol]
The final straw, after having all of this done, I heard what I thought was a rock in the tire on the way to the beach. Kept an eye out and never lost any air, so I waited until I got back.
Took it to a tire place, where they told me there was an unusual wear pattern on the tires - had it ever been wrecked? (I did a CarFax on it and nothing showed up). They told me the tires should be under warranty, so take it to the dealer and they should replace them.
Took it to the dealer and my service guy said he’d have to talk to the service manager. Service manager says it’s completely normal and they won’t replace the tires.
I started test driving other makes the next day and ordered my first MINI about a week later. Have never been happier since!
ETA - I know there were a couple other things they had to do, but can’t remember (or have blocked it for my own sanity)…
