1990 Aerostar van for me. Leaked oil from day one and the transmission was gone at 100,000 miles. There will be no Fords in my driveway ever again (at least not owned by me).
most disappointing car you ever had.
- Thread starter MSCH
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Honda accord coupe 3,5L with the 6MT.
Nothing wrong with the car, just boring and unrefined.
Nothing wrong with the car, just boring and unrefined.
Bought in 1990 from one of the technicians at the dealership I worked at. 22,000 miles. Lousy quality, in the shop more than in my driveway.
1985 Calais 3.0.
1985 Calais 3.0.
nope, it ran fine... it was just a disappointing car to drive in some respects.. some things on it were pretty darn good, the interiorstayed in good shape... but it was just a tiring car to drive 200 miles a day..
its worth pointing out no one ever bought a 454 equipped truck thinking it would be good on gas... but on the bright side it probably got the same FE empty or towing..
New 76 Plymouth Duster with the slant 6. I bought it because of the reputation of that engine. I knew people who had 100's of thousands of miles on them. It was that deep copper color like GM used to have with a black vinyl top. It pinged very badly, even on premium. Nobody could get it to run right. When I sold it, I filled it with that Sunoco 100+ octane which quieted it down.
Was that the Yamaha engine? A friend had one and it was a beast.
They always do that....get a vehicle just right and discontinue it. Pontiac Fiero's were junk until the last 2 yrs. Then they x'd it.
Phenomenal.
Pretty close - It was a set of yamaha heads and dual plenum intake on a Ford block with a Yamaha tune and for the time a rocking transmission.
Embarrassed many a German wunderweapon in its day.
I would run that thing through the desert full of people and it was big fast roomy and awesome.
My GF at the times brother was a cop and he was astounded how fast it was as were most of my friends.
The follow on Pontiac 3.8 felt every bit 20K cheaper and ran out of wind where the SHO howled - but it was a nice mill - pretty smooth, great down low and mid. I understand everyones love of 3.8's, especially the one with the blower.
The Dodge follow on trade down thrashed and strained on the same routes, and then wanted to stall when coming to that first stop after a sustained hot run - lame. Id been had by looks and specs.
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A couple contenders...
A 2005 Neon I bought in 2015 when my completely awesome Saturn wagon wore out. I drove it 45 miles including some highway time at 78 MPH to take a civil service exam so I could take a job 60 miles away. Wanted to see what bombing up and down the highway would do for it. Turns out the answer was, it would blow a head gasket!
On top of it all, I had just done the timing belt 5k miles beforehand, and was halfway into the motor by doing that. At least the HG job was easy enough. Car also had rot in the rear quarter panels that reached all the way to the door striker-- it was pretty hard to rebuild when there was nothing to attach anything to. At ten years old. It did have a fantastic stick shift and cool exhaust noise.
A 97 Taurus I bought to flip, just had oodles of rust under the plastic rocker panels. Had a giant rock-induced dent in the transmission oil pan, yet the tranny functioned flawlessly. How about that? Also blew a radiator-- changing that cut my hands to ribbons as the condenser fins had been sharpened to knife edges by years of being blasted by road sand. Thing was peppy thanks to short gearing but got lousy mileage, 25 MPG or so, from the base Vulcan 3.0 v6.
A 2005 Neon I bought in 2015 when my completely awesome Saturn wagon wore out. I drove it 45 miles including some highway time at 78 MPH to take a civil service exam so I could take a job 60 miles away. Wanted to see what bombing up and down the highway would do for it. Turns out the answer was, it would blow a head gasket!
On top of it all, I had just done the timing belt 5k miles beforehand, and was halfway into the motor by doing that. At least the HG job was easy enough. Car also had rot in the rear quarter panels that reached all the way to the door striker-- it was pretty hard to rebuild when there was nothing to attach anything to. At ten years old. It did have a fantastic stick shift and cool exhaust noise.
A 97 Taurus I bought to flip, just had oodles of rust under the plastic rocker panels. Had a giant rock-induced dent in the transmission oil pan, yet the tranny functioned flawlessly. How about that? Also blew a radiator-- changing that cut my hands to ribbons as the condenser fins had been sharpened to knife edges by years of being blasted by road sand. Thing was peppy thanks to short gearing but got lousy mileage, 25 MPG or so, from the base Vulcan 3.0 v6.
They sounded good also.
Interesting.
Our '97 Aerostar 3.0, bought new, was as durable and reliable as anything else we've ever owned.
Younger son totaled it when it had done thirteen years and around 175K.
Did the brakes a couple of times and replaced the starter but other than oil changes and a tranny fluid and filter service I did that was all it ever needed.
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- Feb 5, 2023
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I still own it. Reliability is okay. Just normal maintenance items so far. I just don't like it because it's too rough and the seats are way too firm and the function of various things feel clunky and of poor quality. After having Chrysler products for years with the Ultra Drive series transmissions, this rides completely different than the four speed versions. The shift quality is very inconsistent. Sometimes it's rough, sometimes it's reasonably smooth, sometimes it just feels kind of jerky. I've had flash updates to improve it but it's just not as consistent as a four-speed versions. The pentastar engine is very torquey down low compared to the engines from Toyota and Ford. I can't remember for sure how the high feature V6 from GM feels from that era. It has about 104,000 mi on it so far. I keep toying with the idea of getting rid of it. The obnoxious thing is the cost of the maintenance as doing the spark plugs requires removal of the intake and something else which makes it a maintenance headache. The job cost about $800 (versus my Viper cost about a third of that despite having 10 spark plugs replace versus just six so that should give you an idea how labor heavy this is) and with the fact that all these different parts are made from plastic I don't trust myself with it. They just use so much plastic on the engine that when they get to be about 10 years old, it's probably a wise idea to replace a lot of the cooling system. The other common problem is the hengst oil filter housing which is very brittle which I had to have replaced immediately after I bought the car. When it comes to those plastic parts, go with dorman. Also the batteries in the wheel well so enjoy replacing that.
Overall the pentastar is it okay engine, the 62TE like with all ultra drives is going to have to have the fluid replaced every 30,000 mi with ATF + 4 as the only smart choice. If you like a car that has modern handling and seats with an element harder than diamond for padding, it's okay.Most of The people I know personally with this combination have done okay in terms of reliability. There are certainly engines I trust less than this. The 2.4 cylinder from everything I've ever seen seems to be pretty reliable and there are certainly engines I trust less than it. You don't have to worry about direct injection with either of those engines, they seem to be pretty invisible to thieves If you have to drive into cities with car theft problems as my city does. The biggest item you got to wash out for is probably the totally integrated power module. I haven't had problems with it so far. If the car had a softer suspension more found during the '90s, '90s quality seats, and had the ignition switch, turning signal switch, gear shifter, and other such parts that Chrysler Corp used from the '90s, I would be perfectly happy with the car. Just everything feels clunky and cheap. But no real breakdowns.
1979 chev monza, v6 4 speed. Warranty replaced 6 output shaft seals, 4 clutches, 2 driveshafts and much more. All before 12k. I pulled the trans at 15k and found 4 needle bearings missing from the main drive gear.
I never bought a new gm product after that
I never bought a new gm product after that
Gotcha - thanks for the detailed response. I’ve been looking at the I4 versions with the 62TE. They seem to be not as insanely priced as some of the other models.
Yeah, I can see that, did you ever change the passenger side engine mount? Its liquid filled and seems to half fail pretty often. I hear many stories how the Focus was a buzz bomb and then it has a bad mount. Also I think they should have put 195/65R15's on these, I put some on last summer, and it helps the ride and tire noise a bit, and drops the rpms 3%
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- Feb 22, 2021
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- 910
2001 Honda Civic ( first generation without double wishbone suspension ).
LOTS of problems for a Honda.
Car annoyed me so much I went to a place that made a large yellow sticker I put on the entire back window that said…..” a reliable lemon “.
The worst Honda generation for problems and complaints.
2006 Generation ( first with oil life monitor ) …..known for engine failures ( porous engine block ).
Just after the warranty ended, all the coolant leaked out and ruined the engine ( needed new short block ).
After fighting with Honda Canada, they paid the entire cost to put a new short block in.
Reliability, fuel economy, low cost if ownership are my top considerations.
Never did buy that BMW, not yet.
LOTS of problems for a Honda.
Car annoyed me so much I went to a place that made a large yellow sticker I put on the entire back window that said…..” a reliable lemon “.
The worst Honda generation for problems and complaints.
2006 Generation ( first with oil life monitor ) …..known for engine failures ( porous engine block ).
Just after the warranty ended, all the coolant leaked out and ruined the engine ( needed new short block ).
After fighting with Honda Canada, they paid the entire cost to put a new short block in.
Reliability, fuel economy, low cost if ownership are my top considerations.
Never did buy that BMW, not yet.
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