What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

[southkogs]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

Wow that is amazing...old school turbo and 300k miles ... but the 5 speed stick 2.2liter (i think) had no get up and go compared to my automatic version ... The thing about those cars is they talked to you and monitored every system. Back then it was a novelty but was cool.

Mine looked almost just like this one:

Mine was the auto too, and you're right the five speed was completely gutless. The auto was a dog off the line, but right around 40MPH that turbo would really get going and that car would take off. It could corner like it was on rails, had very cool T-tops and talked to you in a goofy digital "speak and spell" voice Those bucket seats were exceptionally comfortable (I had leather!).

Yeah the Pinto was purty much a pos. But a '73 Pinto wagon is one of the finest, best handling winter vehicles you'll ever drive....Just don't be dissin' Pintos, 'specially the wagons ... Heh heh heh

My Rallye was kinda' cool ... and I was wrong, I had a '76. Looked like this:

Except mine was a delightful pea-green metallic with black stripes. I got laughed at some, but really the car was a little too unique to be completely set aside. Manual crank moon roof ... c'mon! By the time I met my wife, the Pinto had pretty much lived out it's usefulness ... she only remembers the "dark days" just before the end :facepalm:

And yes ... it did get rear ended.

 

[BlkY2k]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

Mine looked almost just like this one:
View attachment 174919
Mine was the auto too, and you're right the five speed was completely gutless. The auto was a dog off the line, but right around 40MPH that turbo would really get going and that car would take off. It could corner like it was on rails, had very cool T-tops and talked to you in a goofy digital "speak and spell" voice Those bucket seats were exceptionally comfortable (I had leather!).



My Rallye was kinda' cool ... and I was wrong, I had a '76. Looked like this:
View attachment 174920
Except mine was a delightful pea-green metallic with black stripes. I got laughed at some, but really the car was a little too unique to be completely set aside. Manual crank moon roof ... c'mon! By the time I met my wife, the Pinto had pretty much lived out it's usefulness ... she only remembers the "dark days" just before the end :facepalm:

And yes ... it did get rear ended.

I had a pea green 76 vega that all my buddies used to laugh at all the time. It went in the garage one winter and came out the next spring with a full square tube frame, narrowed dana, 2spd powerglide and a high winding 327. I was the one laughing then when I took all their money. lol

 

[briangcc]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

This was mine:

Painted Toyota white using a $30 spray gun from Sears. It was Acme paint and the first bc/cc job we did. Sprayed it in the backyard with NO PPE - not the smartest move and may explain some of my quirks

In any event, one summer I took it to MAACO for a paint job and rust repair - big mistake. Paint peeled off 1 day after taking delivery from them and they never touched the rust repair I wanted. They refused to honor their warranty. On top of that they couldn't match the color I painted it in so it went back to that butt ugly eggshell white. I went to the Acme dealer and looked through the books for colors. Found a Ford silver that looked like it would match the car OK and added the shelby striping to it and painted the original aluminum circle rims the same color.

 

[southkogs]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

I had a pea green 76 vega that all my buddies used to laugh at all the time. It went in the garage one winter and came out the next spring with a full square tube frame, narrowed dana, 2spd powerglide and a high winding 327. I was the one laughing then when I took all their money. lol

There were several guys doing that with the Pintos when I was in college. Of all the high end work I saw done on 'em, the dude who had the screamer had only put a Mustang SVO cam on and a turbo. That Pinto was FAST.

To round things out, my dad did have a Vega and a Gremlin. I think the only one we skipped was the Pacer.

 

[ngt]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

I'm 34 and have only owned 5 cars since I was 16. I loved 4 of them.

Loved:

1988 Chevy Berretta
1988 Acura Legend
1998 Nissan Maxima
1999 Infiniti G20

Not so loved:

(first car)

1972 Buick Skylark: Rusted floors, leaky transmission, moldy, dents, etc.. I saw it as a project. My dad traded it for furniture while I was at work. haha

 

[jkust]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

Mine looked almost just like this one:
View attachment 174919
QUOTE]

I always wanted a car with T tops. That would have been a hot car back in the day.

I'm 34 and have only owned 5 cars since I was 16. I loved 4 of them.

Loved:

1988 Chevy Berretta

My 89 Chevy Beretta with the 2.8 Liter v6/5 speed was my very first actual fast car. I loved that thing until someone about my age locally with the identical car was killed by the Beretta's massive safety flaw. Basically the seat belts were attached to the door inestead of the floor so in a rollover if the door opened, you slid right out of the seat and the car crushed you. I think the idea was that you always kept the belts buckeled and you just slid under it when you opened the door sort of a passive safety feature that ultimately killed you.

 

[sublauxation]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

Been there, feel yer pain. We always called those kinda cars "Flintstone Mobiles" ...?

I had a K-car just like that in college. Had it packed full of people and we drove through a huge puddle. The carpet tore and sent a wave of water over the guy in the front passenger seat and drenched everybody in the back.

 

[jkust]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

I had a K-car just like that in college. Had it packed full of people and we drove through a huge puddle. The carpet tore and sent a wave of water over the guy in the front passenger seat and drenched everybody in the back.

This thread just gets better. My parents must have had 3 K cars growing up. One was a woody wagon and they were so spartan, there wansn't much to go wrong. I drove through 2 feet of snow during a blizzard back in HS in a K car until it finally overheated. I grew up in the sticks and it was either push the car to its limits or freeze to death in the blizzard since of course my friend and and I were completely unprepared. They were almost unstopable for how inexcusably crappy the were. We made it to within a block of our destination and the car remained in the road for days until the plows came through.

 

[TilliamWe]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

jkust, GM installed those seatbelts on hundreds of thousands of cars, to meet the Passive Restraint mandates, before airbags were reliable. My 1990 Cavalier had them too. And while you know of one person killed when the door opened, I wonder how many rollover accidents those cars were involved in that the doors didn't open and that the people didn't fall out? Actually I know the answer, "not very many." If you based every life decsion on the "one in a million chance" you'd never leave your house. Well, wait, if you live in a high Radon level area, that'll kill you too. Buy the car you want, drive responsibly (i.e. don't flip it over), and the odds say you'll be just fine.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

jkust, GM installed those seatbelts on hundreds of thousands of cars, to meet the Passive Restraint mandates, before airbags were reliable.

Not only that, but the restraint that attached to the door was only the shoulder belt. As long as you put on the lap belt(had to do that manually), you weren't getting thrown out of the car even if the door opened.

 

[jkust]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

jkust, GM installed those seatbelts on hundreds of thousands of cars, to meet the Passive Restraint mandates, before airbags were reliable. My 1990 Cavalier had them too. And while you know of one person killed when the door opened, I wonder how many rollover accidents those cars were involved in that the doors didn't open and that the people didn't fall out? Actually I know the answer, "not very many." If you based every life decsion on the "one in a million chance" you'd never leave your house. Well, wait, if you live in a high Radon level area, that'll kill you too. Buy the car you want, drive responsibly (i.e. don't flip it over), and the odds say you'll be just fine.

No that is a good point. I seem to recall that the Beretta doors liked to open in rollovers but again that was a long time ago. Even so, cars don't roll over that often so your point is valid. What struck me was the pictures in the paper of the car and it was identical in all ways even the little optional pin stripe i didn't see very often and the kids was my age and in college. Sometimes things just hit too close to home.

The thing was both the lap and shoulder belt attached to the same spot on the door not just the lap belt. Coincidentally the fuel pump would work intermittantly at about the time this accident happened and so I decided to just get rid of it.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

The thing was both the lap and shoulder belt attached to the same spot on the door not just the lap belt. Coincidentally the fuel pump would work intermittantly at about the time this accident happened and so I decided to just get rid of it.

I forgot about that. There were a bunch of cars that had that for awhile. Most of the foreign cars had a motorized shoulder belt and a manual lap belt.

 

[southkogs]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

I always wanted a car with T tops. That would have been a hot car back in the day.

T-tops were cool: I'd still like 'em. And on that particular car they did fine, rain/snow/ice, and when you wanted cool pull over and yank 'em off. I got it used, so it's "cool" was fading ... but I liked it.

...Most of the foreign cars had a motorized shoulder belt and a manual lap belt.

My old Escort wagon was set up that way.

 

[jkust]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

I forgot about that. There were a bunch of cars that had that for awhile. Most of the foreign cars had a motorized shoulder belt and a manual lap belt.

Yeah I remember what were probably more urban legend in the pre internet day but the decapitations from forgetting to put on the lap belt when the shoulder belt automatically went.

 

[DECK SWABBER 58]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

Just don't be dissin' Pintos, 'specially the wagons ... Heh heh heh

Just don't get rear ended in one.

My pinto got recalled because of the gas tank rupture in a rear end collision.
Their where two big bolts, bumper if I remember right, Ford installed a plastic shield on the rear of the tank to protect it. :facepalm:

 

[matt167]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

Pinto's were not anymore dangerous than other cars.. one of the news networks had their hands in that, and got their own test car and made the cars blow up, then it became a big deal and the Pinto's rep was gone, regardless of the fact, not many actually blew up. NHTSA ruled later there was no real issue, but Ford added the plastic guard and a new filler neck in 1978 anyway .. NBC did the same thing with the '73-'87 GM trucks with the saddle tanks. Just gave bad publicity and hurt sales, regardless of the fact, they actually had to use explosives to prove their point with the '73-'87 trucks

 

[nwcove]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

i must add another one to my "worst" list. 1971 1/2 ( so i was told) dodge challenger. tagged as a 340 car, but the 340 was long gone and replaced with a 318. had big plans for the challenger, it looked nice, but was a rust bucket with major electrical issues. finally gave up and traded it for a 24' wooden cape island hull. the guy that traded put the car gently into the ditch...no apparent damage, but when they towed it out the whole front clip/frame separated from the car. ( he did end up selling it for parts , got more than i originally paid for it, as it had all the little hard to find badges etc.)

 

[V153]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

Pinto's were not anymore dangerous than other cars, not many actually blew up. NHTSA ruled later there was no real issue, but Ford added the plastic guard and a new filler neck in 1978 anyway .. NBC did the same thing with the '73-'87 GM trucks with the saddle tanks. Just gave bad publicity and hurt sales, regardless of the fact, they actually had to use explosives to prove their point with the '73-'87 trucks

There's a section in Lee Iacocca's book "Talking Straight" that addresses this exact issue.

 

[mscher]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

Audi 100 LS (lunched sedan)
AMC Ambassador
Nissan Stanza

 

[southkogs]

Re: What are the worst 3 vehicles you have ever owned.

There's a section in Lee Iacocca's book "Talking Straight" that addresses this exact issue.

I did a little work with Ford years ago when they were running tests on the "saddlebag" gas tanks (blowin' them up to see what it took), and a couple of their guys were telling me about the sled tests they did with Pintos too. They suffered an undeserved stigma.