Edmunds 100 worst vehicles of all time

[Benzadmiral]

Originally Posted By: mechanicx
Originally Posted By: CROWNVIC4LIFE
Originally Posted By: mechanicx
I didn't see the 80's Escort or Tempo on there. I'd put it on an all time top ten worst. Edmund's list is pretty bogus.


My buddy had a 85 and 86 Escort..He had zero issues with it..Even the nasty streets of Times Square could not kill it.


Well they were generally not durable. Short lived timing belt and water pump, seemed to like to eat tires and tie rods, prone to rust, TFI ignition module etc. The real problem was the general cheapness and [censored] of the whole car. Over all the car was about as rough, cheap and [censored] as can be. I can't think of any car from the era that felt so cheap and [censored].

Seconded. I had an '84, and as I recall, except for the tie road and tire issues, mine had all those problems! When I moved up to an Olds Cutlass, I traded the Escort without a twinge of regret.

 

[Jarlaxle]

I loved mine: 1984 L 5 door...diesel. Its still going with over 300,000 miles.

And I can do a full frontend job on it in an hour!

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: mechanicx
I can't think of any car from the era that felt so cheap and [censored].

It was built to a price point. Wasn't it one of the least expensive new cars at the time?

 

[rslifkin]

Quite a few of the cars on that list don't really belong. Then again, hideous as they may be, I'd drive a V8 Pacer (with a 360 or 401 swapped in) in a heartbeat. Who doesn't love a high-powered bubble on wheels?

 

[VicVinegar]

Originally Posted By: chevyboy14
I actually had a 96 Corsica with a 3.1 it was a great car . Mine had a chip and some stupid stuff done to it. I was a lot younger and dumber but it was the best car I've ever had. I drove the [censored] out of it neutral drops donuts 4wheeling jumped rail road tracks. Even ran from the cops once had a case of beer in the trunk 16 yrs old . Did I mention stupid? I was pretty dumb. I look back and laugh but really did some dumb stuff. But I beat the snot out of that car and it never broke NEVER!! I didn't loom but I hope pinto is on there as well as the tempo. Those were [censored].


While I did not engage in police chases with mine, my first car was a '94 Olds Achieva, or the Oldsmobile Corsica/Grand Am with the 3.1. I also used to neutral drop it, drift through turns in the snow and would drive up into snow banks with it (29 year old me shakes his head at 16 year old me). It never got stuck in the snow, held 9 people once (did I mention it was a coupe?), and was reliable.

 

[mechanicx]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: mechanicx
I can't think of any car from the era that felt so cheap and [censored].

It was built to a price point. Wasn't it one of the least expensive new cars at the time?


Lots of other cars were made to a price point and were not that bad. The Cavalier and Sunbird were priced about the same and a lot better and more substantial cars. The Escort was just bad as was the Tempo. Most of Fords 80's line up looked and felt cheap even if the sticker price wasn't.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: mechanicx
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: mechanicx
I can't think of any car from the era that felt so cheap and [censored].

It was built to a price point. Wasn't it one of the least expensive new cars at the time?


Lots of other cars were made to a price point and were not that bad. The Cavalier and Sunbird were priced about the same and a lot better and more substantial cars. The Escort was just bad as was the Tempo. Most of Fords 80's line up looked and felt cheap even if the sticker price wasn't.


A buddy of mine had a Celebrity and a Tempo. The Celebrity wasn't any nicer.

I actually liked the 80's Escort GT, it was a neat little car. Ford had a strange style thing going in the 80's. Either you liked it or you hated it.

 

[mechanicx]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: mechanicx
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: mechanicx
I can't think of any car from the era that felt so cheap and [censored].

It was built to a price point. Wasn't it one of the least expensive new cars at the time?


Lots of other cars were made to a price point and were not that bad. The Cavalier and Sunbird were priced about the same and a lot better and more substantial cars. The Escort was just bad as was the Tempo. Most of Fords 80's line up looked and felt cheap even if the sticker price wasn't.


A buddy of mine had a Celebrity and a Tempo. The Celebrity wasn't any nicer.

I actually liked the 80's Escort GT, it was a neat little car. Ford had a strange style thing going in the 80's. Either you liked it or you hated it.


I hated the way the Escort and Tempo were designed. No front subframe and the the stabilizer bar served double duty as a strut rod for the lower link and constant rate concentric springs on the strut if I remember right. Nothing but cheapness you wouldnt find on even a Cavalier then and no car today. The Escort and a lot of Fords didn't even come with clear coat paint standard. I mentioned the rust. The 1.9 has to be the rough 4cylinder I ever seen. Those cars would rattle and vibrate to the engine. I already mentioned my dislike for EEC-IV diagnostics and that Fords seem hard to work on. Some of them didnt even have a check engine light...

I could go on and on about what I disliked. It's like they used the cheapest parts and materials and designed one design and upsized it for the different models Escort, Tempo, Taurus et al. Same stupid single beam composite headlamp style. Any Ford in your rearview mirror looked like it might be a cop car. I don't know how anyone can like those cars when they look over the design. I guess I'll give Ford a lot of credit for making the cheapness work as good as it did. Give me a GM model anyday. Heck even the Chryslers were nicer if less reliable.

 

[Spazdog]

Originally Posted By: mechanicx
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: mechanicx
I can't think of any car from the era that felt so cheap and [censored].

It was built to a price point. Wasn't it one of the least expensive new cars at the time?


Lots of other cars were made to a price point and were not that bad. The Cavalier and Sunbird were priced about the same and a lot better and more substantial cars. The Escort was just bad as was the Tempo. Most of Fords 80's line up looked and felt cheap even if the sticker price wasn't.


Which Cavalier and Sunbird are you talking about?

I wouldn't call the early '80s North American J-bodies "substantial" Not until the mid-'80s when the Cavalier got the 2.8 V6. And that's just because it was the only thing that size with a V6. Sure, you could get a Nissan 200SX with a VG30, but it would cost you quite nearly as much as a 300ZX.

Not that I'm defending the Escort. North American models didn't have an adequate chassis until they started using the 323/Protege' chassis and when equipped with a CVH engine...well, it's a CVH. It's not good.

My least favorite is the Tempo. Let's take the perfectly good 3.3 liter L6, hack two cylinders off, re-engineer it's combustion chambers to make even less power, and completely ruin it. It was an ugly little jellybean with a ruined engine that did not handle or brake well at all. A seat of the pants comparison with a Plymouth Reliant K made the K-car seem nimble.

It's no wonder the Accord became the benchmark. Horribly overassisted steering and all, it wasn't nearly as ugly as the first round of Camries and actually was halfway competent in handling and braking. The '83+ Mazda 626 did everything better but Mazda's reputation had already been damaged by consumer ignorance of the Wankel Rotary. So Honda gets to be the de-facto winner by being adequate.

 

[addyguy]

My folks had a 1994 Tempo, one of the last ones you could buy off the lot brand-new.

They drove it for 8 years, and got about 110k miles out of it. Only 'serious' issue it had was 'something' went wrong with the auto tranny, and it needed an adjustment or partial rebuild, I don't really remember, but it wasn't that expensive.

I expected it to be a lemon, more or less, but it suprised me how trouble-free it generally was.

 

[Hokiefyd]

I must disagree about the handling of the Tempo. My grand parents had two cars when I started driving: a Ford Crown Victoria LTD and a Mercury Topaz (same as a Tempo). The Mercury was my first introduction to "small cars" and it drove a ton better than the Crown Victoria. While the Crown Vic was floaty and would wander all over the road, the Topaz was relatively light and nimble and would actually track straight. While I "should" have liked the Crown Victoria better, what with the comfortable seating and V-8 and all, the Mercury quickly became my choice of their two cars to drive when visiting them.

That older chassis may not have handled "good" in absolute terms, especially compared to today's cars, but they were decent for their day.

 

[Jarlaxle]

The biggest problem with the Tempo was...it did nothing well. It rode like an oxcart, it handled like a truck, the brakes were unimpressive (same as the lighter Escort), the power, unless it was a rare 3.0 V6, was pretty weak...and the combination of the underpowered 2.3 OHV engine and the 3-speed automatic turned this "economy" car into a gas hog! My friend's wife had a Topaz...I think a 1993, the last year without airbags (which meant it had those stupid motorized belts!). It NEVER topped 22MPG. It was replaced by a 1994 Crown Victoria PI (a retired police cruiser and livery car with 280,000 hard miles)...the Vic actually got BETTER mileage! 1000+lbs heavier, exactly twice the engine (4.6 versus 2.3), easily ten times the car...and better mileage. It handled better, it was vastly more comfortable especially on the highway. (it was more relaxed at 90 than the Topaz ever was at 65!) Even the brakes were better.

The Vic was scrapped after getting hit with 416,000 miles, still running perfectly.

(Having said that...much as she liked the Vic, she REALLY likes her Dodge Charger R/T!)

 

[2004tdigls]

this model of the Tempo got really good fuel economy, unfortunately walking was faster

http://www.tempotopaz.com/main/index.php?name=FAQ&id_cat=6

 

[Jarlaxle]

Bad link!

 

[Spazdog]

Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
The biggest problem with the Tempo was...it did nothing well. It rode like an oxcart, it handled like a truck, the brakes were unimpressive (same as the lighter Escort), the power, unless it was a rare 3.0 V6, was pretty weak...and the combination of the underpowered 2.3 OHV engine and the 3-speed automatic turned this "economy" car into a gas hog!


Agreed 100%.

It's not that the Aries/Reliant or Celebrity/6000 were that good when I say they are better cars. The Tempo/Topaz was that bad.

They didn't use the HSC engine in anything else except for a handful of loss leader L model and MT5 Tauruses....Tauri....whatever. You can still buy an early Vulcan powered Taurus....not so much with the 2.5 HSC

If it was a good engine, why wouldn't it make it to something else? The 2.2/2.5 Chrysler was in EVERYTHING. Omni to Dakota. The 2.5 151 "Iron Duke" was everything from Camaros to Grand Ams to S10s

 

[ls1mike]

My parents had two Tempos. That is one of the reasons they won't even go near a Ford lot today. They also had a Horizon at the same time. The Tempos made the Horizon seem like the pinnacle of automotive engineering excellence and reliability.

 

[daves87rs]

Well, according to that list, I must have had a bad car.

The first gen Cavalier were tough as nails, with the only downside being if the body held up.

My first car was a 87 Cav coupe (hence the username

), and I never had an issue with it in the 10 years I had it. The only reason I had to get rid of it was the fact it was rear ended for a second time, this time at a higher speed.

Heck, the only reason I had to get rid of my 93 wagon was because my wife would not let me put our infant son into that rust bucket...still ran great though!

 

[Spazdog]

Originally Posted By: daves87rs
Well, according to that list, I must have had a bad car.

The first gen Cavalier were tough as nails, with the only downside being if the body held up.


The first gen Cavalier was hideously underpowered with the 1.8 OHV engine. The 2.0 OHV wasn't much better. By comparison, a Hyundai Excel feels downright sprightly. The Excel also had better chassis dynamics and Pininfarina styling. Came with halfway decent Goodyear tires and a Panasonic stereo.

I'm not saying the Hyundai handled well. It didn't. Just better than the Cavalier.

But they will run. I don't think the OHV 4 cylinders in the J-bodies were that good, but the Mitsubishi 4G15 clone in the Hyundai may actually be worse. The Mikuni Solex water choke carb was bad and everything after that wasn't much better.

The Cavalier would lock up it's A/C Compressor, cook the grease out of the rear alternator bearing because it was right against the exhaust manifold, the heater core would leak and force you to remove the dash to replace it or loop a hose under the hood disabling the heater forever, if you tried to use a cooling system sealant, the heater core would plug up and the leak would continue unabated, the torque converter would stay locked up and kill the car as you came to a stop, the short timing chain would rattle and sound like a diesel, the belt tensioner was junk, cylinder heads would crack causing the temp needle to rapidly fluctuate between death hot and normal,...etc...but through all that, the Cavalier would run.

It's been said that a GM will run longer with something broken than many cars will run. I've heard Cavaliers with a timing chain tensioner that must have completely disintegrated run in that condition longer than any engine deserves to. You get a death rattle like that on start up with a "reliable" engine like a Nissan KA24 or a Ford 4.6 and you're on borrowed time (of course the KA24 and 4.6 have much longer chains)

 

[daves87rs]

I do know one thing, when a cavalier goes to the yard, it is completely used it.

A co worker just junked her 97 Sunfire, after nearly 203k abused miles. Car did not even see an oil change the last 50k or so, just topped off a few times a year...

She kept calling it a POS, which she called it every time she had to put money into it, like for simple things like tires...

 

[Jarlaxle]

The Cavalier & Sunbird/Sunfire might be the worst cars built in the last 20 years. They were AWFUL. They did nothing well. The base 4-cylinders were gutless (and the V6's & the Twin Cam 4 had all sorts of problems, mostly head gaskets), they handled like trucks, they rode like oxcarts, they made Yugos look reliable. They were also deathtraps, especially the coupes: they cave THE WORST death rate per mile of ANY car sold in the US. They are so flimsy that some places do not permit them in demolition derbies.

These cars are the reason thousands of people will not buy GM!