I’m glad you said this, as I thought it was just me. Is there a reason for it? My first two cars, a Mk1 Fiesta and a Mk3 Escort did it, I’m sure I’ve had others over the years, and irritatingly I’m currently in a BMW 1-Series which also does it. In the Beemer I’ve to make a conscious effort to shift across into the middle of the seat or I end up with the seat edge digging into my shoulder blade.

It’s a thing. Getting the steering to fit on RHD cars is a challenge and many corners often get cut. Also, you’ve got to account for the front wheels and footwells and a transmission tunnel.

Vauxhalls seem to have an issue here. I drove a late model Zafira and noted that the wheel was still offset. I had the dreaded backache within twenty miles and I had to drive the hateful, sodding thing to Ayr from the south-eastern tip of England.

Hands up if you had the hydrogas suspension failure on the road and have to limp a jacked up Metro back to the garage?

Yes, amusingly enough with a larger lady on the side that went. I remember my dad’s going at the back once, too – he thought it was me and my brothers pissing about at first – though how we’d manage on the move to piss about and make the suspension collapse I really don’t know! (“interesting fact” early metros were linked across axles, later models diagonally)

It’s a thing. Getting the steering to fit on RHD cars is a challenge and many corners often get cut. Also, you’ve got to account for the front wheels and footwells and a transmission tunnel.

Vauxhalls seem to have an issue here. I drove a late model Zafira and noted that the wheel was still offset. I had the dreaded backache within twenty miles and I had to drive the hateful, sodding thing to Ayr from the south-eastern tip of England.

Ah I remember the Metro’s steering wheel was off-centre – but then feeling better about it when I noticed Nova steering wheels were off-centre AND didn’t face forwards.

“curry hook” in the passenger footwell

So that’s what that’s for! Only had my car 8 years, and always wondered!

As somebody said, it’s all about expectations. My second car was a Triumph Dolomite, bought from an elderly lady whose husband had died. It was immaculate with very low mileage for it’s age, wood dashboard and door caps, green tinted windows, lots of chrome trim, vinyl roof trim and velour upholstery. And it had a clock. That thing would really shift – I’ve never seen anything so fast. The clock, I mean, the car struggled to do 90 despite a twin carb 1850 engine and overdrive. The overdrive would pop out whenever it felt like it. I didn’t keep the car long as my local mechanic told me about warped heads. I also discovered that the doors had been filled and resprayed (very professionally, but these things soon come back).

My next car was a Renault 4 which was an absolute hoot and the only car I’ve ever made a profit on. I was told that it was possible to replace the floor and to do that the car would be turned upside down. I’m not sure if that is true, but I like to think so. Certainly the Haynes manual told you how to decoke it with a sponge and some water.

My favourite crap car was my F reg Renault 5 Campus, all 997 cc’s and 106,000 miles on the clock of it.

Once I’d sorted out the vacuum advance on the throttle it went like a little rocket and the turning circle was so tight it almost folded itself in half.

There was nothing you couldn’t fix with a screwdriver & hammer and I could get 2 MTB’s in the boot.

The only problem was that the A pillars rotted away, along with the bottom of the doors, but other than that it was indestructible.

I still miss that car, it was great fun.

Same could be said about most modern Toyotas I guess.

Certainly any modern Toyota where the handbrake is operated by a switch under the dashboard about halfway down your shin. The sort of place most manufacturers would put the bonnet release.

Certainly any modern Toyota where the handbrake is operated by a switch under the dashboard about halfway down your shin. The sort of place most manufacturers would put the bonnet release.

I have just got a Volvo XC60 with a manual gearbox and its the same thing – a weird handbrake hidden away where you’d expect to find the bonnet release. And the annoying thing is that whilst it auto releases, it doesn’t auto engage. I know it is only a matter of time before we leave it without the handbrake on and it rolls away (last car had auto on + it was and auto box which had to be in park before you could switch the engine off).

My parents had some rotters (literally). Winner of the worst was a close result between a Metro and a Peugeot 104.
The Metro had all the problems they all had. Also no intermittent wipe and a crappy 4 speed gearbox. The memory of driving along with the puny engine thrashing away at 4000rpm and flicking the wiper switch every few seconds makes my teeth grind to this day. I still can’t believe they chose it over a nice mk ii golf they were considering at the time.

The 104 takes the biscuit though. The gearbox took a hefty shove to get into any gear. The engine was tilted so far back that changing the spark plugs could only be done by someone with orang-utan arms. But the crowning glory was a heater that made the entire car smell of curry. What a heap.

a heater that made the entire car smell of curry

I’d pay for that as an optional extra 🙂

Did you buy the 104 off a doctor from Sunderland?

Was it white and constantly steamed up irrespective of what setting as applied to the heater?

If so, could be the very one that I used to get a lift to primary school in, in the passenger footwell!

Anything, simply anything by Ford or Vauxhall currently. They are all built to an exacting budget, and look and feel like that whatever you are in.

Can’t agree on the Ford side. Having viewed most of the options our Kuga is as good as most and better than many of it’s rivals. Liked the Focus we had before it too. Our BMW is another level but then that’s why they cost more.

Vauxhall on the other hand…………

Every ford I have driven in the last 5 years has met or exceeded my expectations, every Vauxhall has been so dull that I feel depressed before I even get in.

Certainly any modern Toyota where the handbrake is operated by a switch under the dashboard about halfway down your shin.

Surely that is simply a foot operated parking brake? We have one of those, very easy to use.

Or do you mean an electrical button?

My first car was a Lada – other than it would sometimes ferry me about quicker than cycling, it was awful.

Surely that is simply a foot operated parking brake? We have one of those, very easy to use.

On the Volvo it is adjacent to the steering wheel just below the headlights switch

fiat 126bis

Fiat cinqueququento mk1. GF years ago wanted one. Test drove, horrible, horrible, horrible, everything about it was horrible.

Astra mk3, crap for the obscenely bad ergonomics, where the seat was in position to kind of average out the pedals and steering wheel. Horrific. As mentioned in this thread I think.

rover 200, with the peugot 2L diesel. Where they clearly took the peugeot diesel and “fitted” a different turbo. Which didn’t manage to span the rev gap between gears. Hill start up an extended incline? 1st gear, 2nd gear, up into 3rd aaaaaannnd down into 2nd again, and up into 3rd aaaaand down into 2nd…

OTOH, a mk1 VW jetta in metallic gold with biscuit wheels and an 1100 with about 7bhp was awesome – nothing went wrong in about two years (except the autochoke, and the cabin heater never did anything except “hot”) and it was driven full-power-everywhere (mostly without exceeding the speed limit). I paid £50 for it. To be fair it had no electrical features so about as simple as things got. I also had similarly sterling service from several poverty spec mk3 escorts, bought for absolute buttons, which should have been as crap as crap can be, but both managed to be reliable transport for ages without going wrong. mk3 fiesta XR2 was great cheap fun too, despite its intrinsic naffness.

A new entry from me: Renault Scenic II. On the subject of electronic parking brakes, ours has just failed. For the fourth time. This year.

My VW Passat had an electronic handbrake. It was a royal PITA. Below 4 deg C it refused to disengage. I have the tyre marks on the drive to prove it! I think manual handbrakes should be mandatory.

I’m currently in France on holiday and have a diesel Citroen C3 rental. Crikey. It is a crock of shit. I’m convinced there’s an anvil under the bonnet given its lack of puissance. Truly awful.

Wife’s 2010 Astra had one in the boot. Replacement Golf doesn’t, not does my Avensis.

Yay Skoda.

Edit though:

I give you…. the Nissan Almera!

I had a Primera of the same era; despite a neurotic ABS sensor, it was an absolutely sublime (petrol) engine and a completely reliable workhorse. Sold it for more than I bought it for, which is a win on the bangernomics front 🙂

Might get flamed on here, but… Landrover Defender 90.

No head room, no leg room, sat bolt upright due to bulkhead. Shit heater, shit radio installed at some kinda crazeee angle in the dash. Trim fitted badly, body fitted worse.
N/A diesel engine gave 55bhp and couldn’t pull up hill without using 2nd gear. Finding 2nd gear involved the ritual sacrifice of a Leeds virgin (bloody hard to find one, apart from me BITD) and the manipulation of a 2 foot long lever into a minute slot while immersed in a bucket of gravel.
Couldn’t fit anything in the “boot”. At all. If anyone was sat in the boot, you could fit even less in.
Windows would self open (i.e., drop).
Doors wouldn’t lock reliably.
25mpg on a good day.
Horrible understeer.
Dad then got a TDi engine fitted which did pull well, but only exacerbated the understeer.
Once (and only once) pulled off a 4-wheel drift in it on the Leeds ringroad on a very wet, very quiet night. How I didn’t kill myself in it, I’ll never know. On the other hand, if the oldies had a “normal” car I would probably have wrapped it around a lamppost so I guess I should be grateful.
Awful car. Would I have another? Yes.

Princess… I have the pics from the concept drawings, I’ll post them up, they are as pretty as the P1800 (and its concept drawings were way better than it was too)

My dad had a 126Bis, brilliant little cars for pootling round town! He swapped it for one of the last original shape Pandas 😀

Yay Skoda

I love mine for this simple little thing:

Simple genius.

My nan bought one of these:

Only drove it once and it was awful. Got scrapped after she lost her week’s shopping due to the entire boot floor disappearing on the way home from Safeway!

Mum had one of these:

Terrible to drive, it died after we couldn’t get hold of a rear 3/4 window for it and the damp got into the electrics. Not even available from Suzuki!! It’s now doing sterling work as an autograss car 😀

Worst car van is my MK7 Transit, never wanted to buy it but couldn’t afford a Sprinter. As an engineer and someone who services/tinkers their own cars – it was clearly designed on CAD with no concern for however would spanner them down the line with multiple annoying design flaws.
Also massively uncomfortable – I can’t drive it for more than an hour without getting massive shoulder/neck pains. A European roadtrip was absolute agony.

Rusting before my eyes despite being waxoyled and stored under a covered yard.

Best car is our aged volvo v70 – curry hook, and car park ticket holder (as above). Designed with thought about who would work on it in years to come. A joy to spanner.

Might get flamed on here, but… Landrover Defender 90.

No head room, no leg room, sat bolt upright due to bulkhead. Shit heater, shit radio installed at some kinda crazeee angle in the dash. Trim fitted badly, body fitted worse.
N/A diesel engine gave 55bhp and couldn’t pull up hill without using 2nd gear. Finding 2nd gear involved the ritual sacrifice of a Leeds virgin (bloody hard to find one, apart from me BITD) and the manipulation of a 2 foot long lever into a minute slot while immersed in a bucket of gravel.
Couldn’t fit anything in the “boot”. At all. If anyone was sat in the boot, you could fit even less in.
Windows would self open (i.e., drop).
Doors wouldn’t lock reliably.
25mpg on a good day.
Horrible understeer.
Dad then got a TDi engine fitted which did pull well, but only exacerbated the understeer.
Once (and only once) pulled off a 4-wheel drift in it on the Leeds ringroad on a very wet, very quiet night. How I didn’t kill myself in it, I’ll never know. On the other hand, if the oldies had a “normal” car I would probably have wrapped it around a lamppost so I guess I should be grateful.
Awful car. Would I have another? Yes.

No flaming here. Without doubt the worst vehicle I have ever driven was a works 110 Defender. Unforgivably bad in virtually every way. To think people were spending vast sums to secure the last examples blows my mind. Hateful, awful.

bearnecessities – Member

I had a Primera of the same era, it was an absolutely sublime

😯

I will allow “not completely sh*t” (as I said, the almera was somewhat redeemed by the genius curry hook), but sublime? We need to have a serious talk about your aspirations! 😀

Actually, the worst car I’ve has was a Mk1 freelander. Absolutely terrible in almost every way. According to wikipedia:

The floorpan was based on that of the Austin Maestro, and minor components such as interior door handles were Maestro items.

Might get flamed on here, but… Landrover Defender 90.

Landys need to be kept in context. First and foremost a working vehicle, it really had no place on the roads! I used to have an old series LR and it really was back to basics (minus the basics).

A gearbox with a huge gearstick meant locating gears was hit and miss. Steering so vague I often wondered if it had just completely disconnected. And brakes, well it took quite some stopping – four drum brakes with no servo wasn’t the best way to stop a two-ton vehicle.

But for short journeys, an absolute hoot to drive. And off-road just fantastic fun.

I’d have another in a heartbeat…. 🙂

I had a Defender when I lived in London (there was a genuine reason for it!). For what it was, I couldn’t fault it, and was the last car I owned that I could fix myself. The lorry wheel grooves on the M25 used to send it mental though.

Not sure if anyone’s voted for the old Vitara. Nearly every farmer round our way has one, so they’re good for something in stock form, but mine came with factory ‘fat boy’ wheels and was lethal on wet roads. I had to take mini roundabouts and sharp bends at walking pace or it’d just spin.

I too have owned a S2 Landy fitted with a diesel Perkins engine so it would tow Shire Horses, agree with keeping them in context.. not many vehicles would be able to tow a FatNed in a box out of a Show field after rainfall..
Crap on the road though, but then 40mph is just bearable. Odd isn’t it but I have quite a soft spot for that Landy all these years later, even though most of it didn’t work and the windows would fall out if it was windy…..

Odd isn’t it but I have quite a soft spot for that Landy all these years later

I feel the same for my old Landy also!

and the windows would fall out if it was windy…..

Mine was the same. Also had the rag top so it was so draughty that shutting a window had very little effect. And heating? Turning the heating on just meant putting a jumper on…

the best thing about building your own 90 is you can fix all these faults….

the heater in mine will roast a chicken 😉 its when you see how they are built and what they use for air flow – and how badly built they were thats when you see the captain obvious fixes to stop the hot air leaking out everywhere before it get into the cab !

tbh it sounds like you all drove ragged dying landies ….. which are probably still all running now 😀 i couldnt believe the difference in how mine drove after rebuilding it with new/refurbed parts – as in the steering made more than suggestions at steering , the throttle made it go (i doubled the power) and the brakes nearly stuck you through the windscreen where as before they were merely suggestive at best – a comfort factor if you will 😀

Honda Civic.

Not sure if it was the i-shift box, the rear window or just overall. It’s a not very nice car though.

Whether it’s the worst in the world may be a big ask… but it wasn’t nice

tbh it sounds like you all drove ragged dying landies ….. which are probably still all running now

Mine was ex-military so undoubtedly had some ragging. And yes, still probably going strong somewhere 🙂

My 75 SIII 109 pulled the loaded skip lorry out of the quagmire the bikewash left at last weekends BDS.
It’s my transport to events, it’s my tent (full canvas hood) and more often than not I help ferry other marshalls, poles, crash mats etc around. If someone asked to swap it for a VW van I might be tempted just so I could sell it and get another couple of old Landies going.

I wouldn’t drive an old car. I don’t want to die in an accident…

I had a series 2 land rover for a while and while it was noisy, had a huge turning circle, and had no synchromesh on second, you could drive with impunity on packed snow which cars couldn’t begin to think of driving on. It’s all about expectations again. However, I would have expected it to take a shallow ford in its stride. The reality was that the distributor wasn’t remotely sealed and the drum brakes took a quarter of a mile of gentle drying before they’d stop the beast. And being petrol from the dark ages it was a bit of a Georgie Best (and not in a good way).

I wouldn’t drive an old car. I don’t want to die in an accident…

Yet you ride a bike which is far more likely to get you killed per km covered.

There’s risk compensation, I was lot more cautious in a Lotus 7 than a G4 Escort. In the Lotus death or serious injury was probable, in the Escort only my wallet would have suffered. This is one of the problmes with air-bagged X5 drivers, they have a sense of invulnerability that is dangerous for everyone else on the road. Ignoring the fact only ****s buy big beamers.

May I offer the Metro Turbo?

Fast enough to get you into trouble, but with brakes and suspension not quite good enough to get you out of said trouble. The only car I’ve ever managed to get airbourne (ahem…)

Nickc
You can’t be trying too hard if that’s the only car you have had airborne :D..
I would like to go back a few threads and with regard to the Rover 200 ..if it’s the 216 with the British Leyland engine then I would agree ..pile of shite.
However the 213 had the superior Honda engine and was a great little car ..I had one as a company car once from new ..

I was enjoying coffee outside at a local café, when I noticed a late 1990s Mercedes E class parked on the pavement next to me.

Now, the previous generation E class (W124) seems to be one of those ageless, classless type cars that keep going for ever. Customers paid a premium on the understanding that even with poverty spec (steel wheels, no radio) that the car would outlast you and as such was the chariot of choice for many a European taxi driver.

This model, of 1999 vintage suffered from rampant rust and had multiple perforations in the bodywork. The trim appeared to be hanging off in places and the paintwork was pretty shoddy. It’s not unique, virtually every single W210 I’ve seen is rusty, with peeling paint.

Had this car been sold as a Rover, I’ve no doubt that we’d be slagging it off as the epitome of crapness. I feel very sorry for everyone who paid a small fortune for one of these, expecting it to last a decade or more.