One time during one of those long walks I took back when I was in my twenties and thirties, I saw a Jeep Gladiator pickup for sale at a garage. The owner claimed it was a 1970, even thought it had the grille of the 1963-69 Gladiator, but I didn't let that bother me. The way I saw it, it was a pickup with automatic transmission, four-wheel-drive, and it was a potential collector's item, so it would've been a good deal.

Then I actually took it for a test drive. Among the other problems with the truck, it had no seat-belts and the shift-lever on the steering column seemed like it was ready to come off in my hand. As soon as I got it back to the garage, I told the owner "No thanks," and walked on. I was really disappointed, because it would've been a nice truck.

I made the bad decision ov owning a '96 Ford Probe GT with the 2.5 V6 "interference" engine. The car LOOKED good, black, leather, loaded, 5 speed, aftermarket exhaust. However, I had to do major engine repairs twice in the two years I had it. The last disaster was the engine jumped time and the pistons beat all 24 valves to death before I could shut it off. I sold it for less than it cost me to fix to sell!
I hope the kid that bought it has better luck with it.

I think that I have you all beat.... a 1988 Yugo GVL. Puny, horrible build quality (door handles broke off, slam the door and the mirror or ash tray would fall off, rusted out real quick) It had no radio which was bad because there was lots of NVH. Even though it was $4000USD brand new it was real expensive for replacement parts.

I have been driving for nearly 43 years and have covered at least one million miles as I worked in sales for many years, and if not actually on the road have always had to commute a fair distance, (by English standards) to my various offices.

I would suggest that you would have to go a long way to find a worse car than an early Morris Marina, the 1.3 had no guts and awful handling, and the 1.8 had too much power for the chassis.

You have to judge cars in the context of the time, and if you think that the Golf Mark 1 was around at the same time, I rest my case.

For unreliability, I had two Lancia Fulvia 2C Berlinas in the 1970s, and spent much time underneath the bonnets of both, but they were so much fun to drive compared with other cars I had owned. The fact that I nearly died in a highspeed off in the first one, and have a metal reinforced leg as a souvenir, didn't stop me buying the second.

This is a difficult one ... like everyone else, it seems, I've driven a fair few horrors. Was it the rented Morris 1100 on Malta, which made me observe the island's speed limit by running out of oil pressure at 50 mph in top? Was it the horrible old FE Victor I bought from a friend, with six weeks' MOT left on it (and no chance of passing ever again), which owed me absolutely nothing because it came with a full tank, six months' tax (most of which I could claim back when I scrapped it) and a virtually unused pair of £50+ shoes which I found in the boot? Was it the Commer Walk-Through van with a Diesel engine, whose maximum speeds in the gears were 5, 15, 25 and 45 mph, and which I was expected to drive on motorways? It wasn't, certainly, the Polski-Fiat I rented in Poland, which was awful by Western standards but no worse than any other 125p (crossply tyres were a bad idea in the wet, though), and it wasn't the E93A Ford Popular I once drove for three miles with a flat front tyre without knowing ... I'll probably remember a few more later, as well.

I have several contenders for such a title,most were problems unique to the one car driven/owned.Just a few of them that stand out: Once had to rent a car,about 1989.Got a Plymouth Reliant,maybe an'88? Horn would blow -by itself- when wheel turned sharp to left.Also the radio only picked up two stations,and neither one I liked!!! Was glad when those 3 days were up!! Drove a 1995 (one year old at time) Kia Sephia once at work,I put it gear...and the shifter came off in my hand!!! Scariest one: 1977 Firebird.Trade-In car from a "push,pull & drag sale" at a local dealer. I worked for a wholesaler at the time,they had me drive it back to our shop to auction it.Wondered why I was getting a headache?? Pulled over,started looking at this car..."Northern" car,all rusted out underneath...with cut down pipes...with the windows up,it was like a gas chamber!! Drove it in the rest of way with windows down,on a cold,wet evening! Once owned a beat up '63 Chevy that sometimes liked to open it's right front door making a hard left....guaranteed to REALLY get the attention of your R.F. seat passenger!! (You had to slam it HARD or it would do this) Had a '69(German)Ford 17m that sometimes didn't like getting out of reverse,you had to crawl under it when it did this and 'jiggle' the linkages with a long screwdriver...once almost ran myself over??(Brake wasn't set 'all the way',car rolled a bit) Had a '71 Pontiac that you'd swear was possessed by all the electrical problems it had?? You'd fix one,another one shows up?? Eventually it burned itself up inside,(dash,front half of the interior)I never really did figure out just what touched it off,though I did 'almost' get it out...but too late.(Might add a few more later on...like that damned '90 Beretta...the service department's nightmare!!)

I`ve driven so many cars[I`ve owned around 180] yet only a few stand out...

The scariest car I`ve driven is a girlfriends Suzuki Vitara, rolly polly suspension, crap brakes, vague steering. In the rain it felt like you were about to slide ALL the time!

Also 1 of my customers had an RX7 which was so light I had to put 4 packs of sound deadening in the doors so they would close properly! This lightness combined with poorly designed & overly hard suspension, meant it was an absolute nightmare in the wet, ANY bump in the road, even in a straight line, would cause it to jump about all over the place! I always hated driving that thing....

One of my ex`s had an 88` Opel Kadett which looked mint [Kadetts & Astras are usually fine, this wasnt directly the cars fault], she started complaining the steering felt funny, I drove it & realised if you were driving & turned the steering wheel 1/2 a turn to the right to turn, you`d have to turn it a full turn to the left to straighten it again. When I lifted the bonnet I was horrified to find the spot welds that helt the rack mountings to the bulkhead had ALL rusted & sheered! as a result the steering rack was COMPLETELY disconnected from the body & effectively being held in place by the steering column! I immediately banned her from using it[I gave her my Senator A] & parted the Kadett out.

One of my friends has an LDV box van which he made into a horse box for his wifes minature ponies. I recently had the`pleasure`of driving this thing... Because of the ammount of stuff he`s added to it, the front suspension cant cope, as a result when you turn[especially left] the front suspension bottoms out, causing the tyre to rub, filling the cabin with acrid tyre smoke & letting out a loud, scarey clonk! thats aside from the fact the normally aspirated 2.0 diesel engine struggles to make the thing move!

His son has a 1998 Renault Master which is THE slowest thing I`ve ever driven by a long way...

It was one of my K 70 (I had 21 during the last 17 years).
One, a 1973 L with 75 PS, had unbelievable many defects, mostly caused by an extreme idiot of previous owners. When you got the breakdown, you could see, what stupid "repairs" he had made. Once I've lost even a wheel! And this with 140 km/h speed on the Autobahn. For havens sake noone was injured.
I stopped using that car at the day I was driving around -for heaven sake only in my village- pushed on the brake and nothing, absolutely nothing had happend. I drove home with using handbrake and low gears. Then I've wrecked it and brought it to the shredder.

I've had the pleasure of driving many varied cars/motorcycles since 1976 (the majority of them without any major faults), unless they were real 'Bangers' ...and in that case I got what I paid for.!
Three cars come to mind, that stand out to me as being a 'Poor' driving experience.
1/ Skoda (Estelle) 120 (owned by my dad) This thing was a nightmare.! My car was off the road for some reason or another & I was offered this for transport (Never again.!).
The car was New (and my dad also owned an old vauxhall viva at the same time, which was an excellent car) I should have taken this instead.!
The skoda's steering was very vague (all over the place.!), the gear-change very 'hit & miss' and the ride like no other car i'd been in (In the worst sense of the word)
2/ Reliant Rialto (another car my dad had bought, near new with very low milage) I've nothing against reliant 3-wheelers in general (I did own a Robin 850, which was excellent & fun to drive) It's just this rialto was, I guess at least 10 years newer than the reliant I had owned, but for some reason was terrible to drive (slower, poor handling, poor gearchange) compared to my older car.!
3/ Ford sierra (I've said this before, i'm not really a ford man, nothing especially against them, apart from being too common/numerous, I prefer to have something a bit different) anyway, i'm getting off the subject.!
The reason I don't like the sierra is quite simple really (similar to my reliant experience) the newer more modern car was just not as good as the older car (in this case, i'd previously owned a Cortina Mk.IV and again found it to be a great, reliable car, easy drive, good all-rounder) The sierra just wasn't up to Cortina standards for me.

Obviously not as much as most of you, but you'd be surprised. I can drive on public roads, even if not without an adult. I do have a permit, in less then a year I'll have my license. I've been driving for about a year and a half. I've driven many cars (friend's and relative's cars).