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Original poster

The Biggest Shitheap You’ve Driven?

81 replies

Smokeahontas · 16/01/2022 20:22

Had this chat with a friend…I think most people have had an A to B at one stage, some worse than others. My highlights

The Corsa that had to be switched off in stationary traffic as it overheated & the passengers side window that would only wind down so far or else it came loose & fell off the rail

However, my £500 Clio with no power steering & questionable bodywork never let me down. 7 years I had it & it started first time every time.

What are your bangers?

OP posts:
AlphaAlpha · 16/01/2022 22:04

My first car was a rust laden fiesta dash (special edition apparently!)
Only had a MW/AM radio so I had to listen to Atlantic 252 until I got a mate to fit a better car stereo (remember waking around with a car stereo?!)
The fuel gauge didn't work so I used to fill it with £10 every 2 weeks or so until I ran out down a back street in a very dodgy part of south London in the days long before mobile phones. Luckily a friend was with me and we accepted a lift to a petrol station from a bloke in a beat up old transit.... clearly I'm still here to tell the tale.
Kids today will never know the pressure of a manual choke!

Plasmodesmata · 16/01/2022 22:05

My parents helpfully bought me an Austin Allegro to learn to drive in. It was like trying to navigate the Ever Given up the Suez canal.

AlphaAlpha · 16/01/2022 22:07

@Plasmodesmata they were affectionately know as all aggro's Grin

RampantIvy · 16/01/2022 22:07

Our first car. A rust bucket Hillman Avenger. When we came home after getting married we left bits of rust in the car park at every service station we stopped at.

Then someone decided to ping the radio aerial when walking past it while we spent part of our honeymoon in Blackpool. Except that the aerial didn't ping. it came out and left a hole in the car.

For the youngsters on here - car aerials used to be on the car bonnet near the wing mirror Grin

countingto10 · 16/01/2022 22:07

Austin Mini Metro - there are no words for it.

My dad’s Fiat Mirafiori, more rust than actual car. Couldn’t open the drivers door so had to climb over the passenger seat and if it rained the windscreen wipers were very temperamental and you had to stop the car and bash the windscreen wiper motor with a hammer to get them to work.

and the Fiat Panda that wouldn’t start in the cold, had to park on a hill facing down so I could bump start it of a morning.

I think it was a right of passage…….

Shadedog · 16/01/2022 22:08

Very old mini, was over 30 when i got it. Spent more time pushing it than driving.

Vauxhall zafira. Belonged to pil but dh and I lived with them and I drove it sometimes. It was awful to drive and broke down every 5 minutes. Every service and MOT cost a bomb. Pil had it from new and it was always shit.

StinkyBumFartyBaby · 16/01/2022 22:09

I can beat PPs Lada, I had a Yugo!
Death trap!

LoveFall · 16/01/2022 22:14

I had a 1972 Toyota Corolla. Besides being ugly, there was something wrong with the carburetor that no one seemed able to find and fix. It would start from a stop when you pressed the accelerator, then would suddenly die. It was still running but pressing the peddle would have no effect.

I used to have to merge onto a highway when leaving our neighbourhood and it would terrify me.

I tried quite a few mechanics and spent too much money on it before giving up and getting a new car.

Ohjustboreoff · 16/01/2022 22:16

I was in working for a family in East LongMeadow Massachusetts in the early 90's. They gave me a 15 year old Dodge omni, you didn't need MOT's. It had a hole in the floor on the drivers side so you could see the road between your feet when you were driving. The family expected me to drive their two children around in this shit tip (Newborn and Toddler!). They of cause had brand new cars, she had a Ford Explorer and he had a top of the line VW Golf!

earsup · 16/01/2022 22:17

Oh....a beige Fiat Panda....nicknamed it F***g start....!!!....total crap...all the electrics were shot...you never knew when lights or heating would just go on and off....lent on it and made a dent in the wing...!!..driver seat collapsed once while driving it and also peddal box rusted away from chassis so brakes didnt work very well....i bought it for 200 quid and sold it weeks later for 60..told the seller exactly all the faults.......was best friends with the breakdown man from green flag...he was out most days...!!...exhaust fell off and back window came loose so just got rid of the thing....

SpookyScarySkeletons · 16/01/2022 22:20

My first car. An old focus. Handbrake came off in my hand once. Then failed MOT on emissions. Spent more on bloody repair (new exhaust, new lambha filter, new back box etc etc etc)

Then 2 weeks later (after MOT pass) the brakes failed on the fucking M62 and I had to move into hard shoulder and use engine braking moving down through the gears without showing my three friends who were passengers just how sure I was that we were going to die.

PaulRuddsWife · 16/01/2022 22:21

A sky blue Ford Fiesta with a manual choke that I was never quite sure how to use, but you had to do something with it to get it to start. It always stalled when I was waiting to turn right at traffic lights and because the choke was a mystery to me, despite how many times it was explained, I would sit there for 10 minutes trying to restart it while other drivers swore and cursed at me.

Eventually I had to just avoid turning right and drove in massive circles for the next year til I could afford another car (that didn't have a choke).

HoobleDooble · 16/01/2022 22:24

An old mini with a hole in the floor and most of the electrics held together with sellotape. A Clio which, every time I stopped, the passenger window fell down and I'd have to manually wrench it back up again. An Escort with a broken fuel guage so I had to keep a notebook in the car to jot down the mileage when I filled up (no tripometer in that one). Currently drive a 15 year old Zafira which I've had for over 10 years, the wing mirror has been held on with masking tape for at least 7 years, but it's so comfy, familiar and reliable I can't bear to part with him!

MondeoFan · 16/01/2022 22:24

Some of these memories are just brilliant. That's the thing with older cars that you'll never experience with a newer car

Bunnyfuller · 16/01/2022 22:31

A shit brown mini metro.

How that car didn’t kill me I don’t know. Everything went wrong with it one thing at a time from the minute I bought it.

Fucking shit car.

thenightsky · 16/01/2022 22:31

@Plasmodesmata

My parents helpfully bought me an Austin Allegro to learn to drive in. It was like trying to navigate the Ever Given up the Suez canal.
Allegro! We had one as newly weds. Bastard thing needed the suspension pumping up ever few weeks. Weird car.
HalfShrunkMoreToGo · 16/01/2022 22:32

My first car was a fiat cinquecento, had to keep the heater on year round to stop the engine overheating, back window had a carrier bag taped over it cos it leaked like a sieve, it broke down many times, always in the worse possible place.

Giggorata · 16/01/2022 22:33

So many terrible old vehicles… difficult to choose just one.

Should it be the bright pink original mini, hand painted by me and the DC, with a rusting door jamb and holes in the floor, covered by a carefully cut to size Axminster carpet? The driver's door would fall off every time the door was opened and have to be jammed back in, rather like dealing with a dislocated shoulder.
On more than one occasion, DH would arrive home to find it in the middle of the lawn, where I had hurled it in a rage at not being able to get it back in, and gone off to work with no door.

Or should it be the large, disreputable Sherpa van, pot riveted all the way round, to “repair” the jagged rusty bottom? The DC demanded that I park round the corner from school, as it was so embarrassing. It broke down so often, I kept one of those tiny motorbikes inside.

Or the ancient Commer van, whose suspension had gone very spongy and weird, so that it bounced up and down very slowly as we drove along, making us feel a bit seasick? As an added bonus, the catches on the doors didn't work properly, so the doors would be constantly sliding open and shut as well.

NotMeNoNo · 16/01/2022 22:33

Literally the biggest. Very old, battered LDV convoy flat bed truck owned by a charity. Vague steering, bad gears, bad brakes, dodgy electrics, smelt horrible and was filthy from the building site. More worrying was how it got it's MOT every year.

whoopstheregoesmyshouldet · 16/01/2022 22:49

A white Citroen AX. Hole in the floor drilled by my dad to let the water out which it filled up with. Windscreen wipers that filled the interior with smoke...
Used to cut out at low speeds- I was a dab hand at leaping out with a portable jump starter kit

Original poster
Smokeahontas · 16/01/2022 23:32

I’ve just remembered this clip…

OP posts:
Forgothowmuchlhatehomeschoolin · 16/01/2022 23:43

Too many to mention!
But currently my camper van....is 30 years old and got a manual choke, sometimes it starts, sometimes it doesn't but we like playing guessing games with it!

CoffeeWithCheese · 17/01/2022 10:08

Oh I've had a few. First car was an A reg Golf. Bright orange (it claimed to be red on the documents but it had been fucking tangoed), one of the door catch buttons had snapped so I would have to lever the remaining bit up with a pair of scissors, huge holes in the seat upholstery where the straw filling was poking out. I thought I was fucking epic though having an actual car.

Then I inherited my mum's Vauxhall Nova. There was a shelf under the dashboard that had come loose and never stayed up, so every time you went to press the clutch down you had to basically rub half the skin off your shin to do it. Gears like stirring a bucket of bricks - but I loved that car and mechanically it was sooooo reliable as mum is a total idiot about car maintenance so had always had it really really well maintained by the garage. I saw her a few years ago parked in a car park and had to go say hello to her - she's still going strong.

Then had a few decent cars and a time with me and DH only having one car - and then my brother got rid of his banger and passed it to me.

It was the worst piece of shit I have ever had the misfortune to drive. Purple bubble style Nissan Micra. Less acceleration than a fairground dodgem, would rattle and threaten to disintegrate if you went over 50. The brake light had fallen off the back window and was being stuck back on with increasing amounts of duct tape repeatedly. Radio would only pick up a station for about half a street length at a time, heating never worked and it was fucking horrific to drive - the only thing that worked well were the brakes - so every time you touched them in the slightest you'd nearly give yourself whiplash.

MinglingFlamingo · 17/01/2022 10:14

A Ford KA which has less than 30k on the clock and when I got it. Think I pretty much built the car in the 5 years I had it. When i got rid of it I had 40k on the clock arms that's the only reason it got a decent price

sandgrown · 17/01/2022 10:22

My first car was an 850 mini . I lived in Yorkshire and it couldn’t get up hills with 4 people in so I had to ask my mates to walk to the top! It had a shag pile carpet and moss growing in the windows. A hole appeared in the wing and I repaired it myself with filler . It had no radio so we drove round with a portable cassette player on the back seat . I loved that car though . Happy days