jaunty75

There's an Oldsmobile on this list.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11381...-all-time.html

CQR

It's hard to disagree. I never did see the 4.2L diesel, but I did have the pleasure of working on many 5.7's early in my career. And since I live in a landlocked state, they were utterly useless. (couldn't even put them to use as a good boat anchor.) I guess some had good luck with a few of them, as long as they never needed to get anywhere on time, but up at this altitude, you would be time ahead to just walk where you needed to go.

slantflat

Oh Jaunty. Were you sitting around thinking the pot needed stirring? This wasn't even an original article. It says right in the beginning it was lifted from Edmunds. Anyone who writes a 10-worst article on anything shouldn't be allowed to be called a journalist.

Where these articles lose credibility is when the author mixes in his personal thoughts on styling. So what if the Cimerron was a bad idea. It was a good car. It performed reasonably well and didn't break. Just because he didn't like it doesn't make it a bad car. And I seriously doubt the Ion was soley responsible for the end of Saturn, nor the Aztek soley responsible for the end of Pontiac.

I can't speak for how good/bad the Olds diesel is since I've never worked on one. However I do know the later DX version was quite good, but that is never mentioned.

There is an argument for every car on that list. The Trabant wasn't a bad car because it was behind in technology, it was a bad car because its government wanted it to be. And they made a heck of a lot of them and they ran forever. The Edsel has to be on the list just because it's an Edsel? Give me a break.

Filler. This guy is a hack and has contributed nothing with this article.


Mike

GAOldsman

What get's me is that 50% of them are GM Opinions are well..... you know

GAOldsman

Oh and what about Pontiac's Fiero? To me that be on MY top 10 worst rides.

CQR

They forgot the LeCar. Or actually just about any Renault.

jaunty75

Of course there is. No one said that this article is the first and last word on the subject.

I don't understand your anger. So you disagree with him. Fine. That's the whole point. To stir a little debate. No two people would agree on what should go on a 10-worst (or 10-best or 10-anything) list. That's what makes it fun.

Lighten up.


Oh, and, for the record, my father bought a '79 Toronado with a diesel. It was fine for the first 20,000 or so miles. Then it blew a head gasket or something. He ended up part of a class-action lawsuit against GM and ultimately received $9,000. The later GM diesels might have been ok, but the early ones were every bit the piece of crap this article makes them out to be.

boondocker

I've owned 2 Fords I would put on my top ten worst list...you'd never get me in a Ford showroom.

joe_padavano

Old news, blah, blah, blah...

By the way, the Olds 350 diesel did WAAAAY more damage to diesel sales in the US than the 260 ever did, due solely to production numbers.

ent72olds

Well, I can say that the Yugo being on the list lends to its credibility...the Isetta just came out 50yrs too early(see smart car)....Edsels are very nice cars then and now...if a vega is on there, where is the pinto?...and anything Cadillac with the HT4100 should be there...ask me how I know! By the way, the Custom Cruiser may have been junk, but the one they show sure looks cool!

sammy

Blah,blah,blah...INTERNATIONAL TRAVELALL....blah,blah,blah...

Mark71

Hey, I can't argue with your experience. But I have to say, I've had two Fords so far and both were very decent (for their price). Neither one's a Caddy (or an Olds, for that matter), but neither was (is) bad either.

I had an 89 Ford Tempo in school that went 160K miles with probably 500 bucks in repairs (by me). I think most of that went to duct tape, too.

I have a 99 Ford Contour that just turned 100K and other than a bad fuel pump has never really cost me much. If I get 60 more out of it, I'll be a happy Ford owner.

Now ask me about my Chrysler and Toyota experiences....

stetzie

Bash them if you like, but in my case, I liked them.
My 79 Cutlass 260 Diesel went to 120,00 miles and with one injector pump rebuild. Opinions will vary on this, but I've had several Olds diesel powered cars since, and wish GM had the "*****" to continue with them.
stetzie

AZ455

Don't forget the 1980s 2.4L Fox Body Mustangs. What is the point??? Most gutless car I ever owned...

Lady72nRob71

So the toilet-seat-shaped grilles of the Edsel were considered ugly. What about the late model Jaguar grilles? They remind me of a toilet seat also. DejaVu all over again...
I am kinda glad the car diesel was a flop, as I would certainly hate for those to have been popular here. They were popular in Asia and after visiting there, there was no relief any time or place of the smell.

mike's88

At least they didn't mention the "buttless".

Funkwagon455

Oh man, I was trying to resist the urge but there it is!!!! One day I challenged my wife: OK you can drive a Pontiac Aztec or a Nissan Cube.....what's it gonna be!??? Based on our quality issues with the Pontiacs, we both opted on the Cube My wife had an '84 Fiero before we were married, It was a 4 cylinder with tiny wheels, but man that car still drove like it was riding on rails and was a lot of fun at the time. It would have been even better as a GT with the V6 and bigger wheels.

Frank3

My dad tells me the toilet seat look about Edsel wasn't as prevalent as the grill looks like a vagina . His words , I'm sort of attracted to it .
Whats wrong with a Vega , once you sleeve the the block . And Toyota is no better , I put my foot through the rusted floor in my '72 Corolla .
Fiero was treated like Corvair , car got fixed , just too late .
No mention of Alliance , or the K car .

garys 68

I'm not sure if the exclusion of every post 1970 Jaguar/Rover/Triumph is an oversight or just too obvious to mention.

Napoleon Solo

Easy on the Jaguar stuff guys...I own a vintage RHD XJ6 I brought back with me from Australia. Grace, Space and Pace. Classy as hell.

Bluevista

Hey!!!

It's a Cutlass Cruiser not a Custom Cruiser.
The engines may have been bad but there's nothing wrong with the cars in general.
They're throwing out the baby with the bath water with most of the picks.

DreWRoolZ

ooh i have a story about the 7th worse car.. the 1958 Edsel Corsair this guy came up to our shop and said someone he knew saw a "pretty blue edsel" sitting up at our shop so he came up there to ask us if we knew where he could find parts for his. I explained to him it was my '60 Olds 88 and showed him a picture of it lol they do look quite similar in some ways

bccan

My sister had a Mustang Ghia like the one pictured. Somewhere around the age of 12-14 years old my brothers & I snuck it out @ night to go driving. I think we took it twice & found it so bad we never even bothered with it again. THAT is a crappy car! We woulda driven damn near anything w/ an engine & tires & had fun with it, except one of these.

My mom had a Vega for a short time until a new car came in, that was a POS too.

Had a friend w/ El Do diesel - that was a damn nice car.

OLD SKL 69

Interesting list. Aztek #1, not sure about that. Yes it was ugly but you could say the same thing about the Pacer, and that wasn't on the list. Where's the hyundai excel or the smart car?

cutlassjoe

My Mom had a 1981 Ford Granada with that 4 banger. It had A/C so if you turned left with the A/C on high the car would stall and take a long time to restart....

droptopron

To say the Aztek single handedly killed Pontiac is pretty heavy handed. It was a serious misstep but it was never meant to be a high volume car.

Jetstar 88

Because the Pinto wasn't nearly as bad as the Vega. You still see Pintos in the wild, compared to when the last Vega died, which was most likely in 1984.

Lady72nRob71

Recalls aside, the Pinto was a good car - as popular as the civic is today. Anyone who owned one would prolly say the same. 180k sold per year for almost 10 years proved something... It was looked down on as it was small and "eco", something people hated back then. Noone liked small cars then. They were tough, reliable, and fun to drive - many reasons i still have the one my mom bought new in 78. And yes, it has been hit in the back 3 times with no issues. 156k miles on it with still many original parts, clutch, starter, and exhaust included. No rot either and it resides outside. It leaves me stranded once every 10 years, not too bad...
The Vega's aluminum linerless block had a lifespan almost measured in minutes, so that there made the biggest flop.

boondocker

Not all Fords are created equal, people I know have had there Taurus' and Tempos many years without trouble. I purchased 2 new fords within 5 years of each other and believe I ended up with lemons (car companies don't make lemons anymore do they?)

'92 Ford Escort wagon:
Caught fire a few months after purchase, ended up replacing all wiring and many electrical components. (should have been written off)
Paint started peeling after two years, just about everywhere, rust started with a vengance in the forth year (ended up painting and selling).

'97 Ford Taurus wagon
Transmission failure in first year, replaced under warranty
Front end issues in second year, ball joints, connecting rods etc...
Rust started in third year
Electrical problems, fixed under warranty (this one left me stranded).
Traded in on a '02 Honda CRV (wifes car, still have it no problems to date)

Mak

I had a 79 Cutlass Supreme Diesel for a short time in the mid-eighty's (I picked it up cheap, lol).
I still remember how terrifying it was trying to get across an uncontrolled, 4 lane intersection near my house... you had to floor that thing just to get it to start rolling!

Indy_68_S

X2
Rehash of an old Edmunds article that wasn't very good to begin with. Reads like something from 'Wheelbase Media' or one of those other crappy so-called 'automotive journalism' publications....written as fluff by people with little or no automotive knowledge.

The Azteks only real flaw (like the Edsel) was its styling. From a utility/drivability POV they were fine. I 've known several people that had them and they considered the joke to be on everyone else. They got 'em really cheap (some were co. issued) and happily used the heck out of them. Once you're in the driver seat, you don't care how it looks.

And, seriously. How could they honestly omit the mid/late '80s Hyundais ? They made Vegas look like frikken Porsches in terms of build quality, durability, & reliability.

WoofWagon

With a Yugo, you don't go. Not really on the same wavelength as this article. Yeah some of the cars shown were true lemons, but where's the BMW 5 series? I had one, worst automatic transmission ever constructed. Went out twice in nine months and the torque converter alone was over 900 bucks. Hitler's Revenge indeed.

I don't think the Aztek destroyed Pontiac, a lack of identity did. Look at the recent GTO, what was there to tell you from a distance that it was a GTO? Any front wheel drive car could have masqueraded as that car. Pontiac made little effort to fully advertise the GTO as it should have been. They just rebadged a Aussie Holden with left hand drive, big whoop.

As for the Pinto, the 2.0 and 2.3 engine were damn near indestructible. I remember my mom had one during the '70s and that little car would take us everywhere reliably, even pulled down some good mileage too.

I'd like to ask the 'writer' of this article if he had any personal experience with the cars listed. Granted the Trabant and Isetta were tumors on the *** of the automotive world, but the other vehicles had their merits. Many a Vega was turned into a drag strip terror with a simple SBC transplant.......

Highwayman

Vega; I did front end alinements 40 years ago and you couldn't keep an alignment on a Vega. The frame would bend from hitting potholes.


Yugo; a lady I worked with bought one and after some good natured ribbing from coworkers she pointed out that most cars would deprecate when you drove it off the lot by about what she paid for the Yugo. She considered it a throw away car. When it broke down, she planned to walk away and not look back.


Aztek; I was on break outside and saw a new Aztek in the parking lot. I commented to the lady I was talking to that it was one butt-ugly car. She then told me it was HER car. Lesson learned.


Here's a Paul Shanklin parody song, “In a Yugo”


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz2eCFoafXk

ELY442

How about the Chevy Chevette? Try and do a starter on them. You have to take the intake manifold off just to get it out.

Highwayman

I had a brother-in-law that had one of those. He went to roll up a window and the regulator arms bent.

WoofWagon

GM lost $700 bucks every time they made a Chevette. I will say this for the little car, you can stuff a 500 inch Caddy motor in them for a 12 second car. Hot Rod article from about 10 years ago proved it.

Dave Siltman

Being in the car business (Oldsmobile for a loooong time) I have and still do come in contact with some BAD (as in terrible) cars:
Cutlass Ciera diesel ( bet you didn't know they made 'em)
Caddy 4-6-8 or any 4.1litre engine
Late model Caddy (all ---well most have bad head gaskets if Northstar)
4cyl 82-84 Camaros (needed a head of steam to go DOWNHILL)
Early 80s Taurus (head gaskets and/or intake gaskets)
You see the list goes on and on..... there are a WHOLE lot of cars that have had design defects that the normal public knows nothing about. Believe me, it is DEFINITELY NOT ONLY DOMESTIC CARS!!!!! The imports are NOT without FAULT!!!!!
That list is merely an idea someone (probably not in the business) threw together.

boondocker

I think the turning point in automotive quality in general has been over the past 10 years. Both domestic (what is domestic anyway?) and foreign product are way better than they used to be...they have to be to compete. The list from the op is made up of older vehicles...back in the wild west day's.

Mark71

Glad someone mentioned the Chevette. I actually know someone who hit a cow in a 79 Chevette. It was a complex situation that allowed him to do this (during the night in a huge storm, etc.), but the point is, it just annoyed the cow. The cow's head was caught in the passenger's side window which broke when he hit it. It kicked the heck out of the car before it got its head loose. His Chevette was blue with a yellow passenger's door after that.

I was surprised it wasn't totaled.

72 cutlass455

The Edsel was killed by Nader and made him famous. It had too many new items built in to it. Folks were used to fords being simple so it flopped. Many of those ideas went in to cars built at a later date. Both the vega and pinto got over 35 mpg with a carb. One car i didn't see on the list was the amc pacer but most the new cars now look like modified bubbles any how so I guess amc was ahead of it time with that model.