Wait a minute! When the transmission on my 2000 Windstar failed at 24,000 miles, the dealer assured me that was a one-in-a-million incident. But Ford only sold 222,000 Windstars that year. Clearly, neither of us could have had early transmission failures!
My least favorite car is the one I did a test drive but ended up not buying, a 1980 Citation. I just graduated from college and was looking for my first real car. The Citation was supposed to be GM’s big entry with front- wheel drive (beyond the Olds Toronado) and got lots of press. I recall one review, probably in Popular Science, that tried to be kind with statements like “it’s a car you actually have to drive” meaning it didn’t track well. In the test drive it felt like I was driving an old pickup truck. It didn’t help that it was painted yellow, as in “lemon” yellow. I bought a Toyota Tercel instead, and never had a problem with it
Might could be I got that one mixed in with a couple other old ass cars I had–there was an early-mid 50s Plymouth two door wagon and the 63 Galaxie that bust a tie rod and broke my hip, could be conflating with one of those. Even so, no guarantees because both those vehicles had been shade tree engineered to a fare thee well, like a second jiggered together wiring harness in the Plymouth that was more electricians tape than wire and that was draped all around the inside of the car like friggin’ fairy lights and the Galaxie had this odd habit of just choking and dying on certain left hand turns, come to discover some brain trust had managed to install a Chevy fuel pump mounted upside down in some crackhead manner onto the Ford engine and due to its interesting installation it would slosh and get starved of gas in specific turn conditions. Don’t even get me started on the poorly installed manual transmission on the Galaxie, less said about that the better but part of getting it going was usually bashing on the linkage with a hammer to get it into second gear, where it would go from a standstill to 80mph all in the one gear. Good gods, it’s a wonder I survived my 20s.
My first girlfriend had an '82 Citation. It handled terribly, especially in wet or snowy weather, but the car still has a fond place in my heart, as the back seat was just big enough for, well… 
2012 BMW 328 I picked up used, my third BMW 3 car (previous were '92 and '05 and were awesome). I was used to the BMW 3 series being a nimble, fun car. This one was the size of a BMW 5 series, it had a 4 cylinder engine that sounded like a sewing machine. Decent pickup, but the heavy body wasn’t nimble and wasn’t fun. PLUS it had run-flat tires which were freaking awful and NO SPARE - I had five flats in 13 months, and each time there was no tire servicer that stocked a replacement, so I had to wait a week for a new tire; I bought a smaller compressor that could inflate my flat every damned day for a week each time. Five times!
Fuck you BMW, you ruined the 3-series. I drive an Audi S3 now and love it.
Honestly, I didn’t hate the crap cars I drove when I was poor (72 Nova, 71 Catalina, 73? B210, 72 Capri) as much as I hated that car.
I own 4 e30’s and will probably back you up on this. I don’t know nothing about the newer ones, but nothing can beat the REAL 3 series. Best car ever made, in my drunkin opinion.
If I’m getting the platforms right, mine were an E36 and an E90, both great, especially the E36 '92 which I drove for 14 years, full manual - super fun car. My F30 2012 was just an awful, terrible car. Drove it for a year and traded it. Yeech.
Your dealer lied. Transmission issues were rated near the top of all Windstar complaints, with early transmission failures being reported routinely. Google '2000 Windstar transmission problems" and you’ll get many, many hits.
I had a bf with an F150 that had manually locking wheel hubs for the 4WD, too. It was my job on camping trips to lock/unlock the hubs. Oh, and open/close any LGs.
My worst car was a Hornet. It was a college graduation “gift” that I had to pay $500 for, which probably soured me on it from the start. I drove it until it was 99% dead – about 8 years – and I was happy to dump it. My next (and all my subsequent) cars were Hondas. I always had a long commute to work (40 mi one way when I retired) and reliability was my primary criterion.
Hard to pick a least favorite car, they all had good an bad points
The Dodge Colt from my father. There’s always something magic about your first car, but my father was a cheapskate. Manual locks, manual windows, manual transmission. I’m sure he’d have bought one with a manual choke and crank starter if he could save a few bucks on it. Totalled in an accident at 250,000 miles
The Jeep Cherokee: Bought at 145,000 miles The first car I picked out, so there’s some nostalgia there. Had the American Motors I6, probably the best engine ever made. Moderately expensive to keep up. Still pretty basic but at least had an automatics transmission, and , but loved the way it drives. Finally got rid of it when the floopan rusted out at 250,000 miles, I think the engine would have gone another 250,000.
The Jeep Grand Cherokee. In many ways the perfect car. Still tough four wheel drive, but leather seats, rain sense wipers, electroluminescent gauges, power seat, power locks, power windows, sunroof. But got 17 miles a gallon and use premium fuel, and moreso was a maintenance nightmare. Besides needing a thousand dollars of this or that every other oil change, the Engine needed an upper rebuild at only 130,000 miles. then at only 180,000 miles the transmission started throwing scary sounding codes, but before I could have that rebuilt, the engine died due to rod nock. To the junkyard it went, and I swore to never buy an American made car ever again
The RAV-4, bought at 80,000 miles, What a let down coming from the Jeep. At least it’s a V6, but boring to drive, no sunroof, no rain sense wipers. But at least it runs and as it’s a Toyota I expect to get 250,000 miles out of it.
The first brand new car I ever purchased was a Toyota Tercel. I shopped around and compared the cheapest cars each company had for sale. They were all shit. You could bend the doors with your bare hands.
Except for Toyota’s Tercel. It was sturdier than its competitors (like the Chevette et al), handled better, was less noisy. Sure, there were no armrests or other amenities, but it was solid.
Despite being a cheap piece of crap, it ran great. All it needed was gas, oil, tires, a battery, and an alternator. I kept it ten years, then traded it in despite the fact it still ran fine.
Charles Portis’ The Dog Of The South featured a 1963 Buick Special with a hole in the floorboards. At a certain highway speed, wind rushing up through the hole would keep food wrappers and other lightweight detritus suspended perfectly in mid-air.
1973 AMC Gremlin
I had the same experiences with the Tercel (see What was your least favorite car? - #62 by JohnGalt), a basic stripped down model. It only came with an AM radio which I upgraded, and I added cruise control before we drove to Yellowstone. It did great in mountain driving. The only reason I replaced it was my new wife didn’t know how to drive a manual.
And I as well. I had a 1984 wagon, SR5 4wd with 6 speed manual and the little inclometer on the dashboard. It was uglier than sin and uncomfortable as hell but it ran and ran and ran. I got it in 2005 when it had 120K miles on it. I had it for 10 years, put probably another 150K miles on it and rarely changed the oil because I was always broke, and finally I gave it to my brother when my growing boys were too big for the back seat. He pretty much trashed it – see my comment above about him being an idiot – and it still ran so he gave it to his stepdaughter. I lost track of what happened after that but I do know she drove it for a while and it was still running around town last I knew.
A used (and abused) 1977 Renault Le Car. Bought it while a poor student for $200. I paid too much.
The exhaust was attached to the muffler by a couple empty Campbell’s Soup cans (chicken noodle) duct-taped together. The exhaust often fell while I drove, scraping up sparks from the road.
Both headlights worked, but not at the same time. Banging on the hood would turn one or the other on. I used to take bets on which one it would be.
The driver-side floorboard was nearly completely rusted out. I could see the road by looking down between my legs. If I wanted to, I could have propelled the car Fred Flintstone-style…which would have been faster than the engine.
Took a lot of first dates out in that car. Didn’t have a lot of second dates.
That was one sweet ride!
You might very well be correct. As I struggle to remember details of that horrible car, images of me trying to shift the “on the floor” come to mind, along with strange noises from the clutch/transmission. I do distinctly remember reverting to double clutching attempts, but don’t know if they helped. Thanks for the correction.