Your best and worst cars

[DoubleChevron]

Gee you guys have had some cars ...

Lets see, there both the best and worst cars. I drove my '78 CX2400 C-matic ... er, 4spd .. um 5spd (yeah I put a few 'boxs in it) for about 12years (from 16years old "L" plates, through to 28yearsold).

I still have it up the back ... replaced with an '85 Series II CX2500 GTi Turbo... I'm hoping it'll do me for another decade or so yet

I also have an a '63 ID19 that's a rippa to drive, unfortunatly it now needs extensive rust repair "underneath" as I didn't have a shed to park in in over the last 5years, the roof leaked allowing the floors to rust horribly. I also have a "very long term" restoration ... a DS21ie 5spd pallas. Hope to have it painted and pretty in the next year or so. Then tidy the mechanicals, ... and interier ... a long time off. Hopefully it'll be ready by the time we have the new "antique/collector" car registration out here.

seeya,
Shane L.

[howard]

Best car is what i have now my Peugeot 306 1.6 LX, a modest car in terms of price but it has been really reliable for me and meets all my needs in a car

Worst car was probably my first car a Fiat Uno that i bought for about £500, fine for the first couple of months but then it was just a total scrapper, no wonder fiat stands for Fix It Again Tony

[Xaccers]

Best car, hmm, hard choice, my Laguna II Privilege was lovely, but the turbo blew up (Renault replaced it, which was nice as I was well over the service interval), went through tyres like there was no tomorrow, having to pull over onto the hard shoulder to "reboot" the car and at £150ish each, was a major drain on my finances. Oh and the headlight washers were tempremental, though the windscreen ones were fantastic, and brilliant at stopping tailgaters! So all in all, maybe not that car...
My 205 GRD I had at uni was great fun, nothing wrong, but a tyre blew (or something) on a bend and sent me careering along a fence and up a pole which broke two of my ribs and left me upside down in a ditch, but apart from that it was a lovely car!

My girlfriend will dissagree (she loved my Meganne that I got after the Laguna II) but I have to say my current Xantia estate is fantastic.
Massive carrying load, lovely drive (now that I've changed the spheres) practically indestructable engine (my previous xantia survived it's engine being filled with water , and my current one had a cambelt snap a week before I was going to get it replaced) great fuel economy, fun albeit frustrating at times to work on, can run on 100% SVO when the weather gets a bit warmer. Shed loads of oomph, considering it's size and age, it pulls away faster than my mum's Xsara 2.0HDi (surely 2bhp can't make that much difference?)
What more could I ask from a car?


Worst car: 1.4 Astra estate back in 97 that I got stuck with as a "company car" which was supposed to be used for carting PC's around in but as we had a transit for that, was a bit pointless, and I was paying extra tax on the horrible thing!
It would get 40mpg at times however, but that was mainly due to the ECU starving the engine of fuel on the motorway (yes, it would try and stall!) while Vauxhall claimed there was no problem.
Left the job because they wouldn't let me use my own car, and got myself my first Xantia.

[visagti]

My best and worst are probably Visa, so many rust problems and little niggles.

Those aside worst was a mk11 golf driver, everything went wrong. It would drive for 5 minutes stop, you waited 5 more then it would go again??? never got it sorted out. Every 2 weeks in was in the garage.

Best by a mile is the car I have now Subaru Impreza, had it from 9 months old ( W reg 2000 ) and it's only had 1 side light bulb and has never had any sort of problem in approx 5 years.

[jeremy]

Worst cars - Rover P5 - yes the big thing that most people love and which was used by cabinet ministers for many years.

Why - well there was their corrodability for starters but the general design was - well - just not there. The rear suspension was designed after the usual Motor Industry liquid lunch - Hic I feel sleepy - well lets use cart springs like last time - good that'll do lets go home. The front looked a bit better with torsion bars - but no one realised there was only about 1/2 inch travel from the bump stops - which was a little more at the wheels but not much.

The interior had loads of wood - but really didn't do much more than a contemporary Morris Oxford and its performance wasn't much more either. The ride was poor compared to Jaguars (cheaper) when new - and when the thing was compared to the S type and 420 - well you wondered why anyone was silly enough to buy it in the first place.

The P5B (V8 ) was slightly better but still a pointless and rather poor alternative to a Jaguar.

Incidentally my Father had 3 of these things (2 x 3 litres and one 3.5) and the reliability can best be described as abysmal as was the quality both of construction and components used. Poor chap spent a fortune on maintenance and the times any of them worked properly were very few.

[SteveG]

What a collection of cars we've all had

Without a doubt the worst car I ever had was a 1979 Mk1 Vauxhall Cavalier - the rear wheel drive one. Under-powered, over-geared and over-rated - and that was when it was new! Glad to see the back of it when it got to be three years old.

Also without doubt, my favourite car is my Discovery. I just love it to death. Big, brutal, thirsty and ever so non-PC The sound that V8 makes is just wonderful, especially with the custom exhaust system fitted, and the look on the boy racers faces when it leaves them for dead at traffic lights is a picture.

I also have a most loved car which I deeply regret selling last year. It was a 1970 2.25ltr 109" Series 2a Land Rover. I bought her for just a hundred quid from a guy who was emigrating. No frills on this little madam: no power steering, no aircon, no synchromesh on 1st or 2nd gears, no window winders (never mind electric windows), no air bags, no ABS and no brakes when in reverse either She had done a genuine 460,000 miles on the original engine and gearbox but the chassis had been replaced by a galvanised one in the '80's. It was still rust free when I sold her.

[bxbodger]

Blimey Jeremy, you must have been posh, riding around in P5s!! I think that Rover lost the plot a bit though by lowering the roofline and calling it a coupe..... My Dad only pretended to be posh by being a serial secondhand Wolseley buyer-we couldn't quite stretch to Rovers- I learnt to drive in his 16/60, an Austin Cambridge with added wood and back seat armrest......

People who have never driven cars of this era can't really appreciate how lucky they are now: when I see someone describe, say, a Daewoo Espero as a 'bad' car, I'm tempted to scream "go drive something with cart springs and drum brakes and no synchro and without the optional heater" and THEN come back and say what a bad car is!!

[genius149]

I think I can empathise with Jeremy about the P5. I owned the rarest of the rare mk1 1960 model for about 6 months back in the 90s with a manual box, optional disk brakes, sun roof and valve radio. Although a personal favourite, it was rotten and did 10mpg on a good day, but it was by no means the worst.

Worst Car - Triumph TR7. It was bloody awful, electrics were even worse than than anything the French made. A close second was a car I (thankfully) only owned as a stop gap for about 6 weeks - a 1750 bright orange Allegro with no clutch and dodgy brakes. It was a pleasure to scrap it.

Best car(s) have to be my current Lexus GS300. Completely worry-free driving with plenty of creature comforts to keep me entertained on the daily commute. A close second was my 2.5TD XM Exclusive. Brilliant, comfy car, but fell apart around me.