Cars are emotional items as well as practical ones, which means our reactions to them are not always purely logical. In a rational world, all cars have value only relative to their usefulness. In that world, a Ferrari GTO is less valuable than basically every Toyota Corolla ever built. We don’t live in a rational world, which is good, because I don’t think I’d function well in a place that relies purely on quantifiable measures.
If it’s true that our love of a car can be irrational then our hate for a car, too, could be based on something more than cold hard facts. This is what I’m curious about exploring today. It’s fine to dislike a car because it did you wrong, but I want to probe the deeper reasons why a car was ruined for you. Why you can’t stand that particular vehicle?
Here’s a tough one to talk about, though I think I’ve mentioned it before. A good friend of mine, an extremely talented actress, was doing a summer stock theater program in New Mexico before heading off to New York for an internship. At the end of the show, she got into her 7th gen Mazda Protegé to meet up with her parents. She never made it. A dumb kid in a modified truck was street racing, collided with her, and killed her instantly.
The world lost an incredible person that, I’m certain, you’d all know today were it not for the accident. It’s rare these days, but whenever I see that generation Protegé I think of her and, while I cherish any time I have to remember her, the car is never going to be separated from that terrible moment when I found out what happened.
Sorry, this is a bit of a downer, but it was just her birthday and I was thinking about her. It’s also a good reminder to not street race. It’s not worth it.
Ok, here’s the question: What car has been ruined for you? Why?
The 1st-generation Frontier, my dad had a 2002 that should’ve been great and it was a total pile. It was a top-trim model and it looked great. Forest green, quad-cab short-bed, 3.3 (unfortunately no supercharger), roof-rack, off-road package EXCEPT it was 2WD. I can only assume it was a custom order originally because I can’t fathom why a dealer would spec a truck that way. Here are all the reasons why it sucked:
Mitsubishis and Mitsubishi accessories.
Aside from the fact that they were what was shooting at my Gramps during the war, I’ve known several Mitsubishis, none too good,
Had an ex with a Dodge Ram 50(Triton), emissions module went on it and couldn’t rev
it over 3k it’d start bucking like a mule.
The family had a Montero, valve seals dropped so it started burning oil, a LOT, I worked at a Chrysler dealer at the time, the mechanics were like “oh that’s an easy fix, just like $1,000 to put in new seals.”…in the mid 90s that was a lot of money for a known issue, wasn’t my truck so passed on the info, think they just kept putting used/heavy oil in it.
Working at the same Chrysler dealer, a customer brought in their Stealth(3000GT) complaining about ‘windshield glare’, somehow Dodge agreed to pay for their dashpad to be replaced, had to disassemble the entire dash/center column to be able to replace it, I cannot guarantee it was put back entirely correct…swear the other guy working it with me used drywall screws.
Also had a Jeep Compass that’s partly Mitsubishi, terrible MPG for the size of the car/engine and CVT penalty, and the awd system/traction control wasn’t the best in New England snow, didn’t realize it was Mitsu related at the time but found out after and it all made sense.
Which sucks cause as a kid in high school about to get his driver’s license I lusted for the Eagle Talon Tsi AWD, never meet your heroes….sibling’s ….disappointing engineering mistakes…
I’m a long time classic Jeep fan. Like the Gen 1 Wrangler ever since I watched MacGyver as a kid.
However one of my coworkers who rubs me the wrong way is an exclusive Wrangler driver. I often browse CL and think of getting one, but then the overpowering association with that person just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Tesla.
Because their CEO is a complete moron and a dick.
Fuck that guy.
I’d rather buy an EV from literally anyone else (but Nissan)
Oh, and BMW.
Because it’s like the Quandt family all suddenly went from nearsighted around 2001 to completely blind and angry after about 2020. And their engineers forgot that driving enjoyment is the main reason we loved BMWs. Now they’re just ugly appliances for angry/careless people who will lease anything with a formerly-desirable badge.
The most ruined would be the first generation Oldsmobile Aurora.
Dad had one, a maroon ’95, as I was just getting into cars. I loved that it only offered a V8 at a time that Honda and Toyota were dominating with their 4 cylinder cars. “No replacement for displacement” was the mantra I was told by the early message boards.
A few years later, I was “lucky” enough to get one myself, also a ’95, though in blue-hair blue, with the blue interior, naturally. I was in love with the design, the “power,” and the joy of having what I thought was a cool car. $8,500, which was a lot, but who cared?!
About a month in, transmission solenoid went out. $1,800, but “only” $200 more to rebuild the whole thing. Well shit.
In between that and the final month of ownership, it was a litany of not knowing how much the shop I was using was screwing me over, and general bad habits I didn’t know were bad. Hooray youth, I guess. Lots of overpriced oil changes. Too much time, money, and effort chasing down out-of-round tires that caused an everlasting vibration for more than a year. And a little bit of learning about cars as I started maintaining it myself so I didn’t have to spend more and more at the shop. Changing the alternator and serpentine belt; spark plugs; even down to jerry-rigging a fix on the fuel rail since I couldn’t afford yet another repair.
Then the final month: I started leaking coolant at an alarming rate, over 2 gallons every drive to, and from, work, about a 25 mile trip one way. Turns out, the plastic reservoirs on both sides of the radiator split top-to-bottom between the fittings for the coolant lines. About $500 later, I had a new one installed. Then, about three weeks later, the housing around the water pump cracked. $350 to install a new pump and thermostat, since they were right next to each other, and you might as well get in there only once.
After that, I found a deal on a ’99 WJ Grand Cherokee, and dumped that Aurora in a hurry. Lots of good times in that car, but when I totaled all the money for maintenance (that I was overcharged) and repairs, it was over $6,500. Good riddance.
I saw Doug’s video a few weeks back, and while it was fun to remember for a minute, all the rest of the above BS just as quickly took over.
The Aurora was such a missed opportunity among many.
Sad I’m late to this one.
It’s gonna be the 1997 Dodge Stratus for me. That POS was hellbent on sending my family to the poor house. My parents replaced it was a Camry and refuse to ever consider an American car ever again after the Stratus. It was comically unreliable and unfit for its role as the only newish car we had (my mom drove a variety of beaters back then). My recent purchasing of a Chrysler product got me (jokingly, I think?) called a traitor.
It’s too bad because it was a pretty good looking car for the time. My dad loved it but it did not love him back.
The Chevy HHR has a special place in hell for me. Specifically a beige one. My brother was suckered into cosigining for one and, surprise surprise, his deadbeat friend couldn’t keep up with the payments. So he took it over and foolishly gave his (my dad’s) Toyota Solara to this deadbeat friend, who proceeded to trash it before getting it impounded because her license was either expired or suspended, I can’t remember.
Then, under my brother’s ownership, it develops a severe misfire in cylinder 3. Likely a headgasket or cracked cylinder wall, idk. Who knows what happened during that car’s life as a rental. So the $4,000 offer he initially got from Carmax dropped 50% instantly. He went into a 2004 RSX severely underwater. This was back in… 2015 I want to say? He only just paid off the RSX.
Had it not been for that HHR, my brother’s credit would be good enough that he could’ve bought himself a brand new TL instead. Fuck the Chevy HHR.
Can’t really think of a car that does this to me, but I know of an airplane that does.
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777. I was a 9-year old aviation geek when I first flew on one to visit family in Malaysia and I remember how excited I was about it. A few years prior, my parents had shown me the documentary “21st Century Jet” on PBS talking about how Boeing designed and built the 777, and that had cemented my dream to be an engineer and work on airplanes. For childhood me, stepping on board that airplane was like meeting your hero and not being disappointed. From then on, every 4-5 years or so my parents would take me to Malaysia, and for nearly all of those trips we flew Malaysia’s 777s. They were proud of them too – they called one the “Super Ranger” because it set the record for longest nonstop flight at the time when it was delivered. Another was painted up in an ornate special color scheme that was the highlight of any aviation enthusiast’s day if they saw it – I even got to fly on that one once. I had lots of fond memories of those flights, even though they were brutal 21-hour affairs in the days when all you had to pass the time was whatever was on the in-flight entertainment or the magazines in the seat pocket. Eventually, though, Malaysia Airlines stopped flying to the US due to lack of demand, and so we had to find other ways to get there.
Then comes 2014 – already a crap year for me due to a lot of other factors.
First came the disappearance of MH370, which I’m sure everyone knows about by now. Obviously a tragic occurrence, but somehow the lack of any images of wreckage or any knowledge of the circumstances made it a little easier for me to deal with. Still, it was an uncomfortable thought – that one of my childhood “heroes”, so to speak, had fallen and taken 239 people with it.
And then came MH17, which was shot down over Ukraine amid what would become the war going on to this day. That was the real trigger for me – there were images and videos of the aftermath everywhere. The billowing cloud of black smoke in the distance of one video. The severed vertical fin, lying on its side in a field, with the logo I always thought looked like a weirdly stylized “CE”. The smoldering remains of the center part of the aircraft, with the fan disk from one of its engines and the landing gear still recognizable. A twisted piece of the rear fuselage, with the registration number on it, confirming that I had actually flown on that aircraft at least once (it was the one with the special paint job, though it had been re-painted later). A piece of the nose, with an instantly-recognizable red and blue stripe – riddled with puncture wounds from the missile’s warhead. And of course the graphic pictures of the bodies, strewn across the Ukrainian landscape – the fact that they were recognizable indicating they had spilled from the aircraft as it disintegrated more than 30,000 feet above the ground.
Even though I didn’t know any of the 298 people on board that flight, I still felt so sad. For the family and friends of those people, of course. But also because it was like witnessing the brutal death of a friend and a hero of mine.
Malaysia Airlines started retiring their 777s shortly after that – ostensibly because they were old and inefficient (which only served to worsen the quarter-life crisis I had going on at that time – if they’re already outdated and useless, what about me, who grew up alongside them and is even older?), but I always suspected it was partially to get rid of those reminders of their annus horribilis. I can’t blame them – now whenever I see pictures of those planes, it brings up all sorts of sad and uncomfortable thoughts.
Sorry for the wall of text – but having such a reaction to an inanimate object that I had no objective connection with is very strange and needs a lot of background to explain…
Two, one good car and one bad one
Good car: my best friend was killed when he wrapped his bubble-body Corvette engined Caprice Classic Estate (1995?) around a tree, now I can’t look at any Caprice, Impala SS, Roadmaster or Custom Cruiser the same way again
Bad car: 2013-2019 Focus, had an ex who did some not nice stuff to me who had one, can’t see one without getting a bit scared, angry and sad
Those cars honestly had no business having that much power under the shitty stock suspension. Panthers are slow but at least they’re predictable. I’m sorry to hear about your friend.
May your Friend rest in peace.
I hired a Ford Tempo (facelifted with aero headlamps) for the long distance driving in Texas while my car was being serviced. The headlamps were so fucking shitty, and I was forced to drive slower in the rural areas without street lamps or reflective road markings. Much slower than I wanted. Much longer to arrive at the destination than I wanted.
The seat track distance in many Ford products (including Aston Martin and Jaguar under Ford ownership) was so short that I couldn’t move the seat all way back for my legs with 36″ inseam. I borrowed my friend’s Mercedes-Benz 190 E (W201) and couldn’t believe how far the seat could move back!
I vowed never to drive the Ford car ever again. I specifically choose the car hire agencies that don’t feature Ford products for this reason.
I can’t say I’ve had any “avoid at all costs” vehicles beyond general recommendations and reviews (as opposed to specific personal experiences not directly connected to more objective measures).
Closest two things I have:
’93 Nissan Quest my grandparents had. The thing had a gas smell on the inside that no mechanic could figure out, and when my parents borrowed it was among the first times I (maybe 8 years old at the time) learned about mortality, with my mother warning me “if a fire starts or anything happens, get out of the car. Don’t worry about us.”
Nothing happened before it was disposed of, but I’d be skeptical if one was handed to me. On the other hand, I barely saw that generation of Quests when I was young and I’m sure 99% of the remainders have rusted to scrap or whatever by now.
’97 Econoline-150 conversion van. Gave me every reason to hate it (mechanically) but the memories I made with my friends on vacations and short trips, plus the interior in general, mean I’m a glutton for punishment and still looking for a similar replacement.
Still can’t believe how much went wrong with it over the 7 years/~60,000 miles I had it, and I only got rid of it at ~160,000 miles.
The 246 Dino. I didn’t buy one at a reasonable price 15 years ago, and now they cost millions 🙁
But I did get the 356. And still love it 😎
MkIV Jetta in dark blue. The cruelest ex I ever had drove one. Every time I saw one for a good three or four years after, my blood ran cold like I was in danger. Worst of all, this was the mid-aughts in Portland. The place was crawling with them. The only more common car to torture me with would have been an Outback.
Second generation Audi A3 Sportback.
My girlfriend and I were living together in Santa Rosa when her dad bought her a brand new one.
Her choice, she had great taste. It had all the bells and whistles of the time.
Heated seats, paddle shifters, whatever else seemed to matter at the time..
I loved that car, drove it as much as possible. I borrowed it every chance I got.
“We need what from where? I’ll go get it! Can I take your car?”
“Oh dang, sorry honey this is the last Diet Coke. All yours, I’ll run out and get some more.”
Fast forward a year. It’s a little dirty looking. I’ll surprise her, I think, take it to a self service car wash.
Get home all excited about my good deed. A freshly washed Audi looks absolutely amazing in the driveway at dusk.
Not so much when the sun hits it in the morning. When the wet look has dried off and you can see all the scrubber swirls now permanently etched into the topcoat of black paint.
She was not happy with me that morning. I wasn’t either.
Stupid stupid stupid.
We had an argument about it. I felt terrible. She was forgiving but noticeably and understandably upset.
Sorry, gotta go to work..
Got a call from her dad later that day at work. I vividly remember dropping to my knees in the Christmas tree lot of the Home Depot under the noon California sun.
She had a cerebral aneurysm later that morning and was air lifted to a hospital in San Francisco. The blood pressure basically crushed her brainstem.
I rushed home, packed an overnight bag for her and took her car to get there as fast as possible.
Fucking ICU! Fucking machines keeping her alive!
I lived out of that car for a week in the hospital parking lot. Then drove it across the country to visit family and friends after her parents had to make one of the cruelest of decisions ever inflicted upon a mother and father.
I don’t see them often. But A3’s are a bit of a trigger for me.
Thank you for sharing Matt.
It helps to not pretend this shit didn’t actually happen.
Cars are great! But they aren’t that important in the end. Loved ones matter more. Never forget that.
Death can take away your friends and pets, but it can’t take away the weird shit they did.
I’m so sorry about your friend Matt, that’s a terrible loss and terribly unfair.
for me while no one has been killed (I’m young, and I worry about my friends who really arn’t up to driving in this chaotic, terrible world really) it would have to be the first generation ford expedition. My friend, a brother really, has had two and his parents have each had one. everyone of them has had terrible luck with those trucks, from my friend calling me at 2 in the morning, 600 miles away asking if i can pick him up because his 2001 expedition dropped a valve, to his mom, getting t boned in an snow storm while on the interstate on January night, their family, has had terrible luck with those cars, and that feeling towards them has rubbed off on me.
the other car is the jeep jk. My dad had a friend with a really nice jeep jk, some 80 grand put into this thing. early one morning, on his way to work up in the mountains at a mine, he started falling asleep at the wheel. around the upcoming corner came a snow plow, and my dad’s friend, with his delayed reactions, ran right into it, sending him in that jeep jk off the cliff beside him and putting him into coma for 5 months, he has recovered, but that worry in our house for him has put me off jeep jks. there was also a girl who stalked me and was generally really creepy when she was around me, who I had met at one point up on a 4×4 trip she coincidentally drove a jeep jk, so that doesn’t help matters.
Damn Matt, I’m so sorry about your friend. That kind of senseless loss permanently changes the family and friends of the person who was lost. It’s just brutally unfair.
Based on my own experiences, I should be ruined for several cars, but that hasn’t happened. There are plenty of cars I don’t like because I don’t think they’re very good, but not by any partilcular association. My ex told me when we met that she would never ride in a Toyota, because her mother died in a collision with one. That’s obviously a very challenging rule to live by, so I learned to artfully dodge conversations about cars when spending time with friends, lest she realize that Highlander we’re about to get into is in fact a Toyota.
For me, it’s the Subaru WRX. I fell in love with the early examples, and at first I loved mine, despite the hatchback no longer being available, but eventually things went sour. I had to replace the engine twice, and then deal with a bad drivetrain, too. The whole ‘scene’ around them was also always obnoxious, and I honestly got really tired of the culture, so, yeah, it mostly ruined itself for me, but wasn’t helped by the fanboys.
Ooh yeah. I’ve wanted a Bugeye since they hit the US market, but the Subabro crowd has basically consumed all of them like a slow moving swarm of locusts.
NC Miata. I test-drove one before I bought my NA, my parents sprung the opportunity to test drive it on me and at the time I felt they were pressuring me into buying a modern car like it, but also that it might be my only opportunity to get something “fun” as my next car. I was also still dealing with lingering sadness after my first car, a ’66 Thunderbird, was totaled – the reason I was shopping for a new car in the first place.
During the test drive, I got super stressed out about the six-speed manual since it was unfamiliar to me (I’ve driven manuals before, but only 4 and 5 speeds). It took forever to figure out that you have to push the shifter down to shift into reverse, and I had difficulty acclimating to the close ratios and lugged the engine a lot, I wasn’t driving remotely smoothly.
My dad was trying to be helpful and give me tips, but through my stress I interpreted it as criticism and frustration, which added to my own self-criticism and frustration. Then there were visibility concerns, slightly mismatched paint, and the overflow tank of doom that hadn’t been replaced, and the fact that the car would’ve cost nearly ten grand and I didn’t want to spend that much, and the suspension was stiff enough that I worried I might hate commuting in it.
But, I still felt pressured that if I want a fun car, this was my only option, so I said “Yes I want and would buy this,” and very nearly did – it was simply a question of logistics on how we were going to drive home from the dealership that delayed us long enough for me to change my mind and say I wasn’t actually comfortable making a decision yet. I explained the situation with my parents and it was resolved.
A couple days later, we went to look at the car I’d mentioned was what I really wanted – a beautiful red 1990 NA. I had SIGNIFICANTLY more fun test-driving that car, it wasn’t even close. I adjusted to the five-speed manual almost instantly, and the interior somehow felt more spacious and oddly comforting in a way, putting me at ease. The tires had enough sidewall that I’m convinced it’s more comfortable than that NC was. I bought the car that day and regret nothing, it would’ve been the “What if?” car if I’d bought the NC.
My dad sometimes talks about how some car channel tested all the Miatas and found the NC to be their favorite, closely followed by the NA, and how he really liked test-driving that NC and would want that one if he were buying his own Miata… but my test-drive of it only really convinced me that’s not the Miata for me, I kinda have negative and stressful associations with it if anything. If he wants one, I support him getting one someday, but I couldn’t be happier with my NA, thank you very much!
on the topic of good friends who were killed in cars:
beginning of senior year 1981. Donny ran his Capri off the side of a small bridge. Totalled the car but he was fine. Two days later he showed up to school in the rattiest VW beetle ever, I think it was a ’68. It had no floor. I told him flat out that I would never ever ride in his ‘deathtrap’. We all worked at the same McD’s, which was 15 minutes away.
The next night brought the thickest fog any of us can ever recall. We had a all hands staff meeting. My mom simply wouldn’t let me go, and forced me to phone in my resignation. But Donny, Dave and Rex set out and failed to stop at the one intersection between us and the next town. It would have been ok if there wasn’t a tanker trailer in the intersection at the exact same time. Rex, who was in the back seat, was literally folded in half and has never really recovered. Donny lasted a day. Dave didn’t.
So fuck beetles.
Mazda 6 of the mid-2000s vintage…
…Great car right up until it wasn’t. Started to have weird things happen like the windows rolling down on their own, or flashers going off, and the icing on the cake random horn honks. It took a down pour for me to figure out the cause. Nothing like driving 65 mph in a heavy rain and hear a horn blowing only to realize it is your horn, pulling over and having to pull a fuse that not only the horn runs through but your taillights as well…oh did I mention it was night time?
Turns out it is a common leak in the windshield that drips down perfectly on to a lip the then runs the water directly over the body control module which causes all kinds of car chaos. The dealer wanted to charge over $1000 for a known design flaw. I sold the car and took the L on that one because nope.
1G Saturn Vue, 2003, red with cladding and a stick. Identical spec to the one on David’s story on the old site. A friend had it, she was pretty cool. Twice as bright half as long as the story goes, the end put me back in the emotional hole I was in before I met her. Purely friendship, nothing more but we were both just off of bad relationships and probably neither one of us were in any shape to be friends. But still, seeing a red Vue gives me that fight or flight anxiety, even knowing she doesn’t drive it anymore.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180131051156/https://jalopnik.com/a-boring-car-that-i-actually-enjoyed-driving-the-satur-1822569401
E39 BMW 540i….
(Sits staring off into space at a table in a smoky bar, holding a shot glass with half-finished bottle of cheap bourbon close by, pondering his life choices)
…E39 BMW 540i….
And do I need to explain why? Stuff that Nissan can get right in a $17k Sentra built in Aquascalienté, Mexico fails faster than you can get the parts in, is hard to fix, and is never right the entire time you own it. I should have known better, but I didn’t, and it haunts me to this day. Damn thing.
Thank you for sharing, even though it is a difficult story. I think drivers, in general, should consider the potential consequences of accidents. We should all consider the risks to others when we get behind the wheel, especially when it comes to drinking, distraction, road rage, racing, etc.
87 Chrysler LeBaron turbo. To of the line. Digital day. The new body style looked great. Fast and handled pretty well. Was my first experience with a Chrysler product after mostly Toyotas with the odd Ford or olds wagon. What a piece of crap. Turbo broke frequently which made it not fast. Parts of the interior just feel apart. The manual moonroof latch mounting screws dropped out while she are the interstate so I got to hold onto the patch to keep the glass in. The digital dash routinely froze. Had to completely shut the car down to reboot. Never again Chrysler.
I feel your pain. Bought a little older convertible LeBaron from a friend in the mid-80s who had babied it with low miles because I wanted a convertible and it looked good. Within a year it was falling apart, literally, from just simple daily use. It got so bad I gave it to a charity for the tax credit because it was worth nothing. I’ve really liked some Chrysler designs since then, but that experience creeps into my mind every time I think about another one. Never again.
Man, I clicked to rag on Nissan Altimas again, but that’s a really tragic loss. I’m so sorry, Matt.