Your worst car story?

[MarkV]

What is your worst classic car story or event or car you have owned?

[Dave@Moon]

I bought a 1970 Plymouth Duster that looked really nice at Carlisle one year. It was a sharp car with every appearance option on the outside and a standard interior. With correct Ralleye wheels and striping most people mistook it for a 340 untill I started it up.

It literally broke something major <span style="text-decoration: underline">every</span> time I drove it. My first clue was when I brought it home and got in the back seat to put my Slant 6 Club of America decal in the window. My hand went straight through the visually perfect but totaly dry-rotted upholstery.

The next time I drove it the exhaust manifold cracked in half about a mile from the house. I lucked into an NOS manifold, installed it, and lost the brakes 3 miles from the house (on a steep hill in heavy traffic) test driving the new manifold! At least the master cylinder was still a NAPA stocked item. I eventually put a total of about 500 miles on the car, and over $800 in parts (including the Year One upholstery kit).

In less than a year I traded it in on a used Chevy Celebrity. All told I lost about $1200.00 on that car, or about $2.50 a mile.

[Starfire61]

Well....did you at least have $1200 worth of fun????

[Dave@Moon]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: 61Oldsguy</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Well....did you at least have $1200 worth of fun???? </div></div>

Does that sound like fun?

I probably shouldn't have dumped the car so quickly, but I literally was afraid to drive it in case something else went on it. It's not fun when you can't reasonably trust the car to get you home.

[mrpushbutton]

1974 MGB-GT British Leyland made a mechanic out of me.

I was already an electronics technician, those skills came in handy

[Argyll]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: mrpushbutton</div><div class="ubbcode-body">1974 MGB-GT British Leyland made a mechanic out of me.</div></div>

Anything British makes mechanics out of all of us!

[Steve_Mack_CT]

I did a pretty high quality restoration on a 1956 Chevy 210 - just about everything but it's mint, original interior around 1983. I was the third actual owner, and the intermittent owner did not touch this car in any way and sold only due to a job lay off. (I also tried to buy from the original owner, but learned someone else had been sucessful a couple years later, and as they say, timing is everything..)

OK, the stupid part - I finished the car and traded it for a P.O.S. Corvette. Problems... Regret that move to this day.

On the Brit comments - I had a TR-6 I would drive cross country before I would take that Corvette. My interest in them is gone but glad to see them appreciating. Truly underrated cars.

[Paul Dobbin]

I bought 1964 FIAT (Fix It At Tony's) that looked nice.

Took it home and invited my wife out for an Italian meal.

On the way to eat, we noticed a big cloud of smoke like the old fashioned mosquito foggers, I had a blown engine.

Another customer came over and said he had an engine for one of those and would install it a guarantee it.

A few weeks later I picked the car up and invited my wife out for the Italian dinner we missed the last time.

On the way, we saw another fogger cloud out the back again.

I called the guy who put it in and he said I must have abused it, but he would tear it down and see.

He found that one piston had a mechanic's rag wrapped around it for rings. He honored his guarantee.

We didn't try to take it to dinner again, but put it up for sale immediately. After having in on a main drag for a month with the price on the windshield, no sale. So I raised the price 25% and sold it within an hour to a guy

that drove past it 60 times and never paid attention.

Moral of the Story: #1 Never buy a FIAT.

#2 To cheap never sells.

[Guest Moepar]

My two worst cars were:

1) My first car, a 1973 New Yorker. This was when things started going squirelly for Chrysler in the '70's, & darn near everything on this car screwed up at one point or another. For the first 6 months I owned it, it constantly broke (again & again) within 36 hours of the last repair. Always something different, too. Then it broke every other month for a while. When it went for three months without a malfunction, I knew it was saving up for me, with a transmission failure & several electrical malfunctions all at once (I was a student at the time, & felt lucky to make up to $60, a week which this car sucked down in one way or another). My grandmother got annoyed that I had to constantly borrow her car to make it to college, & helped me find a better used car. When I sold the car I told the man that IF I <span style="font-weight: bold">ever</span> saw that POS again I'd be throwing rocks at it!

2) a '63 Corvair convertible that Gomer Pyle had been into. It looked great, too bad to many monkeys had been into it - it sucked every last bit of money I had to try to get it running. I had to wind up selling it for about $2,800 less than what I paid for the (*$^ thing!

Paul - I have to disagree that too cheap never sells - two of the best cars I ever owned I bought for "too cheap". One was a 1963 Le Sabre I got for $100. I did a tune up on it, put in a new battery, did nothing else to the car (except regular oil changes, etc) for four years. Sold the car for a great deal more than I paid for it because someone else just had to have it more than I did.

And my '76 Olds - a fella bought it from the original lady owner (both new & former owner of car freshly divorce). He figured if he repainted it to make it look pretty again & show it to her she'd go out with him. When he showed it to her, she boo-hoo'd & sent him down the road talking to himself. He no longer wanted the car & sold it to me for next to nothing. I was offered $7,000 more for the car than what I paid for it two weeks later. I decided this car was a keeper & still have it 11 years later.

[Guest GP Gleason]

My first vehicle was a 1949 Ford F1. Great truck!

Worst nighmare: 1984 Ford Bronco II. Had only 37K miles and I cannot begin to start about the problems from day one! Traded it in in less than a year and haven't owned a Ford since then. Only 2 Fords I ever owned.

[Guest AntarcticDave]

Two disasters in my past, a 1973 Triumph Stag. After blown head gaskets, and a local shop that said they could fix it, took it apart, then said they had no idea how to work on it, having British Leyland repair it (expensive parts from England), then a month later had a connecting rod go out. At that point I just told the Leyland dealer to make me an offer, and left it as their problem. It had also had electrical uissues (what a suprise) and twice I'd had anti-sway bars break at their mounting points.

The other was a 1983 Peugeot 505. I'd had a 504 before and it was a great little car. The 505 blew a head gasket. I had it repaired. A few months later a piston disintegrated. It cost almost as much as the car was worth to fix it. After that I was determined to trade it off on a new car. I found most dealers wouldn't even discuss it. I finally found one who offered wholesale on it, and jumped at it.

The only American iron I had that was really frustrating was a 1969 Lincoln Mark III. This car had so many electrical problems the local shop said the only fix was to rip out the harness and start over. They said low serial number Mark III's were notorious for this. I sold it rather than deal with that.

[MarkV]

Funny (not for our pocket books!) and interesting stories! Anyone else have any?

[Earl B.]

Like Dave, I have 2 stories.. first was a 1966 Pontiac Tempest, bought new.. and nothing but problems. Nothing big, but always something wrong it, it seems.. Biggest thing was it came with Uniroyal tires, and they wore out in nothing flat. I also remember a hole in the gas tank.

The next car made up for it. A 1968 Olds that was wonderful, and I don't think ever had any problems other than things that just wore out, like muffler and brakes.

The next problem was a 1973 Lincoln Town car,also bouht new. It was a nightmare, and when we traded it in 1978 or 1979, the majority of the things were still unfixed. The cruise would hang up, headlights would cut off, windows wouldn't work, seatbelt would hang and not undo, auto light dimmer wouldn't work, vinyl top looked like it had small rocks under it, and no padding, horn might work on a good day. I'm sure there were other things I've forgotten about. The best memory of that car was the day it was traded!!! .......B

[Guest prof pat]

During the 1980's my partner and I had an auto restoration shop in the Los Angeles area. We got a call from a client that was so excited that he had found a 1932 Cad dual cowl pheaton, in San Pedro California. It only had 9800 miles on it, and had been stored in a warehouse since 1941. The long and short of it, is that the warehouse was at the pier in San Padro (water front) He got it for only $30,000. Well he had it trailer up to our shop to have it restored. Well when it came off of the trailer, it broke in half, behind the front doors. On close inspection, it had rusted from the inside out, and in the end very little of it was usable, and was sold for the parts that could be saved. I think he got about $6,000. back. Wow that smarted......

[Guest Dave Wyatt]

It was a 1970 Olds Rallye 350. Typical condition for a daily driver in the early 80's, but worth buying. It was owned by a local kid who needed money, but I would not meet his price. I think we were $100 apart. I ended up purchasing the OAI hood and air cleaner assembly off it, along with the rear spoiler for a grand total of $175. My thinking was that after a while, he would call again and I would buy the car for what I had offered.

A few weeks passed by, and a kid on a bike says to me, "you should have bought that car, they are going to demo it." I drove right over to see what had happened, only to find the poor thing with all the windows broken out of it, the body had been hit with the same hammer all over, and a fresh coat of flat black paint covered the Sebring Yellow. To say I was sick for being cheap, would be an understatement.

My inaction cost me the opportunity to save a neat pice of Olds history, that would have been worth far more than what I would have spent on it.

[Twitch]

I had a 1960 TR-3 which broke something every week. Back in 1967 I was spending some $80 a week on it, average. I could easily have been making new car payments!

Well 1st the danged thing cracked a cylinder head though it never got low on coolant. Big $$

Then one cold morning I got it started- something to rejoice in cool weather- and while IDLING it split a piston. More big $$ and the end of my fun with limey trash cars.

[57plymouth]

I had two bad ones:

Ford 500. I had it 55,000 miles. It went through three sets of tires, two sets of brakes (all 4 corners), both rear hubs, a power steering rack, and a transmission.

Ford Freestar. I had it 75,000 miles. Four sets of tires, five sets of brakes (4 corners), two transmissions, both CV axles, two alternators, two batteries, an A/C compressor, a broken passenger seat (it just dropped back with no one sitting in it!) and three recalls.

Both of these were company cars, so I had no choice when Nationwide Insurance assigned to me. They were both brand-stinkin-new when I got them, I pulled the window sticker off of both of them when I got them.

Now I'm a Chrysler and GM man for life.

[Guest windjamer]

My best frend in the army was a motor pool sgt. I think it was 1961 he bought a new Rambler wag.It was the bigest p o s on the road. He had a recuring engine problem and the thing was back in the dealers shop every outher week. At the time warentees where a year and soon as the year was over they wouldnt evan talk to him He wrote letters to the manufacture explaning that the dealer had never fixed the car right under warentee but got no place. In disperation we took the thing into the motor pool and painted it army O.D. We then had a frend paint lemons all over it and we mounted a sign on the roof that said ASK ME. Back to the dealers we went and parked in front of the office.Placed a quarter in the parking meter and sat there. Took three quaters befor the dealer bought the car back for almoust the full purchess price.

[jimkf]

My worst car...a 75 Chrysler Cordoba with the 360 lean burn engine. A short time after purchasing it, the car started to run rough. A compression test revealed a burned valve...I guess the engine was burning just a bit too lean! That was fixed and a new computer was installed...and it happened again. So, the dealer fixed everything one more time. That fix lasted about 2 months and a valve in the other head cracked. I gave up and traded the car for a near new Lincoln. That was the best car I ever owned.

Another dog was a Nash Statesman I bought with a rebuilt engine that was supposedly done by a reputable mechanic. The engine lated about 400 miles before spinninng all of the main bearings. A teardown showed that he used 6 different size pistons in the rebuild!!! My mechanic marveled that the engine lasted as long as it did.

[ex98thdrill]

I bought a '66 Mustang from my cousin who lived in Wilmington, NC. The car had a new paint job, new interior, but needed dolling up. Once I got down to get the car, everything on the car was wrong. We towed it back home, and when we got the car home I went in the car to move it and realized that the transmission had dropped on the way home and it was hanging on the floorboard by the shifting knob, and the driveshaft and emergency brake cables were gone. Needless to say my dad and I found another transmission and driveshaft, replaced the emergency brake cables, and I sold it and walked away.

[MCHinson]

Is your cousin still in Wilmington? If so, please PM me with his name. I sure don't want to have any of my friends buying cars from him.

[ex98thdrill]

No it was a her, she has since married and moved to Raleigh. My aunt died in January of last year, my uncle retired from GE, sold the house and left town.

My cousin has another sister that lives down there, but I don't know where exactly she lives. My parents were down there for the wedding, and the wedding was down near where your region had their car show, but other than that, I couldn't tell you.

My cousin bought the car, drove it a while, and sold it to me. She was young and didn't know any different, so it wasn't really her fault.

[MCHinson]

OK, glad to know that it was not intentional and I don't have to worry about any of your cousins scheming to unload junk cars on unsuspecting buyers in these parts.

[ex98thdrill]

Yeah she's okay for a lawyer!! Wearing a badge and having a cousin for a lawyer makes for some interesting insults at family get togethers.

But on the flip side, I get paid to work, she gets paid to practice.

[MCHinson]

I know what you mean, one of my sisters is a lawyer too. It amazed me what she did not learn at the Harvard.

[57plymouth]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jimkf</div><div class="ubbcode-body">My worst car...a 75 Chrysler Cordoba with the 360 lean burn engine. A short time after purchasing it, the car started to run rough. A compression test revealed a burned valve...I guess the engine was burning just a bit too lean! That was fixed and a new computer was installed...and it happened again. So, the dealer fixed everything one more time. That fix lasted about 2 months and a valve in the other head cracked. I gave up and traded the car for a near new Lincoln. That was the best car I ever owned. </div></div>

That Lean Burn stuff was horrible!! The only nightmares worse than that were the Caddy 4-6-8 engines and that stupid Cross Fire Injection Chebby used.

[Dandy Dave]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The only nightmares worse than that were the Caddy 4-6-8 engines </div></div>

IHC also used a similer system on their 8 cylinder diesel trucks of the 70's. Total trash! Dandy Dave!