Cheryl's post about driving a stick got me reminiscing about my 1988 VW Jetta.
How I loved that car!
How it hated me!!
I think it had Tourette's syndrome, as occassionally while driving it would just start honking for no good reason. The only way to get it to stop would be to shut the engine off & restart. But, when I WANTED it to honk, it rarely did. The radio would turn on and off...the seatbelt indicator would activate periodically.
It was pretty rusty on the bottom, and one day I felt a very cold draft...I reached down below my seat and grabbed a handful of SNOW! Since we were afraid of it suddenly becoming a Flintstone's car while driving on the highway, my dad took on the repair job himself. He removed the seats, took an old steel shelf, hammered it flat, and then welded the steel to the chassis, and reinstalled the seat.
In the summer time you'd have to turn on the heat so the engine wouldn't overheat.
I drove it for 2 yrs in high school, and then after I moved away to college my brother drove it for another 3.
What's your favorite POS car?
1983 Oldsmobile Toronado
I loved that car and drove it hard for two years. Then it decided to get back at me.
Fun question!!
Mine was my 69 Ford Mustang... god I loved that car.
If you tried to drive in reverse, but had the wheel cut all the way to one side, it would stall out every. single. time. (I would purposely park nose first into spots on an incline, so I could pop it into neutral, glide backwards, THEN start the car).
If you lifted the floor mat on the front passengers side floor, you could see the road flying by beneath you. Lost a lot of lighters out that hole, LOL!!
If it rained, you could forget going anywhere without a loud, embarrassing squeal coming from the belts under the hood. That car hated moisture!
The passenger seat wasn't bolted properly, and you could rock it like a rocking chair.
The drivers side window was screwed up, so if you had to roll it up or down, you had to pull back the door panel and work the mechanics with your fingers.
I loved that car :)
1986 Ford Taurus.
First year they ran. That was the car the WOULD NOT DIE.
It's pain was all mottled (not rusted, the clear coat had a problem their first year). It's electrical system was shot (you had to whack it on the dash to turn the lights on and off). The driver's seat broke (had a cooler keeping it upright for awhile, and then my mechanic welded it in the "perfect" spot for me, since a new seat would have cost more than the Blue Book value of the car). It idled at 35mph (difficult when neighborhood speed limits are 30mph... I got pulled over more time for "suspicious behavior" -aka breaking all the time in front of a cop, but that's what you HAD to do if you didn't want to speed)- and when it finally crapped out in 2003 that durn car has 386,000 miles on it (and change). It had been driven from Bangor Maine to San Diego, Pensacola to Seattle, and everywhere in between DOZENS of times. It knew 101 so well, I think it might have been able to drive itself if I'd ever left the keys in it.
Although... speaking of leaving the keys in it:
NOT AN INSURANCE SCAM (my deductable was worth more than the car - aka $500), but I left it in park idling not once but TWICE in two different cities in the bad part of town. Unlocked. Running. I came back the next day and it had run out of gas.
Yeah. No one would take it.
I loved/hated that car!!!
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2nd place was a girlfriend's truck. The fuel injection system was bad (and we were broke). So we always kept pennies in our pockets. Why? Because it would randomly flood and we'd have to pull into the median, use the pennies to unscrew the fuel line, let the thing drain (10 min), screw it back on and get going. It started with a screw driver (had been stolen once, and the ignition ripped out. We found it a half mile away -it had flooded- and getting a new ignition was worth more than the truck.
My 1988 Toyota coral man I loved that pos. It finally died when it had over 300,000 miles on it. It had awd she plowed through snow like a knife through butter but man could she be temperamental. Lol like you I had to turn the heat on so it wouldn't overheat! Hehe she also honked for no reason :)
It wasn't my car, but when I was a teen my sister's boyfriend had a VW Thing that we all just loved. We would pile beyond the maximum number of passengers into it, and depending on the weather, take off doors, top, any combination of removable pieces and just go, go, go.
It was great in the summer and freezing in the winter, but we were young, and stupid, and didn't care. We all mourned when it finally went to the big car lot in the sky.
I had a 79 Toyota Corolla in college. I taught all the girls in my sorority to drive stick with it. I totalled it twice but it still kept running. Mom said it had been rounded, I hit so many guard rails, trees, bumps. It was the car my sister and I learned to drive.
I now drive a very beat up black conversion van. I hate to get rid of it and it is today at the mechanic's to have it's fuel pump replaced. 2nd one, but it has 206K on the original engine and transmission. I think it has a dent from every stationary pole in Jacksonville NC on it. All 3 of my older kids have and are learning to drive it. My 10 yo wants Darth Vader when he is old enough for a car.
My first car was a 1967 Rambler. If I got in wrong the wires sticking out of the side of the seat would rip my clothes into shreds. I drove it for years, until I had a child. I needed a new clutch and my brother took it to a friend to get it worked on and he wrecked it into a ditch. Broke the axle. He gave me a Cadillac that was a lot of fun to drive but I missed that rambler.
my older son's 1st car: 84 Mustang...it was a BLAST!! He would call my Mom & say, "Grandma, will you please make your daughter behave. She's doggin' my car & I don't want her driving it anymore."
& he was right....I loved doggin' it! It was a notchback with a V8....& man, could it go!
It required many, many repairs after my son put it in a ditch on a gravel road. Pushed the fan back into everything & from that point on.....it was a smoker....until the day it blew up in our driveway! The sucker burned so hotly....it melted the light covers on my van. Scary, scary moment when I looked out the front window & saw it on fire in the driveway..... :(
My Dodge Colt station wagon and it was a stick shift. I hate to drive stick but this little car was easy to drive and got GREAT gas milage, I never put more than $10 worth of gas in it and it was full and I could drive a month on that tankfull. Then it started overheating we tried everything (sob) I finally had to donate it to a charity for toubled teens.
My first car was a white Renault Alliance. It actually wasn't a POS. Man, how I loved that car. It was so cute. I remember my friends and I dropped a penny into the tape deck (by accident) and the whole stereo system stopped working. Didn't stop us. We just sang!! LOL Such good times!
I also always thought it was funny that my dad and brother had really fancy sports cars, but when they had to park them because of snow, sleet, ice or heaven forbid,it rained real hard, they would come after my little Renault! So unfair! Oh. well!
A.
I had a 1984 Honda Accord that would randomly die at red lights, or really anywhere if it had to idle. It was that standard pale blue color that old Honda's were. It had one headlight that never seemed to work, and they were the kind that flipped up and down.The radio had been stolen out of it before I had gotten it, so there was no music. I got it after my oldest brother got a newer car, and after I couldn't take it anymore, about 2 years, I gave it to my other brother (also older) who drove it until it finally died. I suspect that it had very near, if not over 300,000 miles on it! When I had it though, my friends and I would ride around in it without a care in the world. There was a certain sense of freedom in that old beat up Honda. The wind blowing with the windows down, and pointless teenage driving with friends completely broke singing random songs that came to mind. Fun times.
My first car was a brown 1980 Datsun (that was Nissan before Nissan came to be!) stationwagon hand-me-down from my grandma. It wasn't a POS at all, though. All I had to do during the two years in high school that I drove it was replace the tires once, get the oil changed regularly, and fill it up with 97 cents per gallon gas. My classmates nicknamed it "the doo-doo machine" and subsequently called me doo-doo. : ( That hurt my feelings for awhile, but I got over it. It was a great car. I really miss it these days. I stress out driving now that I have a nice car. Back then, I didn't care if someone smashed into me. Once, a man was tailgating me, so I stopped short of the red light so he'd hit me. He did (lightly) and raised his arms as if saying "what the hell?". I just raised my arms back at him and when the light turned green, I went on my merry way.
Long live the Doo-Doo Machine!!!
1973 VW Semi Automatic Super Beetle.
I loved that thing....
It was only safe enough to drive in town -- couldn't take it on the highway.
Drove it for 2 years back and forth to work 3.5 miles each way...
LBC
OMG I had a 1999 VW Passat, while it wasn't as creepy as yours it had it's share of electrical issues. That thing also broke down more than the old clunker car I had in college! Our mecahnic advised us to get rid of it unless we wanted to fund his education at CORNELL LOL! I loved the idea of that car! We drove up to Redding on I 5 (Brother and I) one evening. It was magical with the blue dash lights and awesome stereo.....Loved the triptonic transmission, it let you have some control over shifting which was nice if someone was being a jerk and not letting you on the freeway or thought they would race you ;-)/
Before I read your whole question I was going to say my '74 Mustang which was an interesting car. Of course I would have wanted a 60s era Mustang but couldn't afford that. The engine would die if you made a hard left turn. I think Every key for that model and in the early 70s fit every other Mustang. Funny stories about people taking the wrong car on road trips in college. I guess it had more character than POS....afterall it had to do something to make a name for itself considering it was a Mustang.
