2nd worst car i've ever driven

hi,
my Seat has some cooling problems at the moment so rather than drive around with gallons of water in the back and risk doing big ticket damage to the engine i bit the bullet and rented a car to see me about until the parts to fix my car arrive.
now i drive a diesel people carrier so my expectations are quite low however i must say the car i've been given is terrible. the engine is gutless, the steering is heavy yet twitchy at the same time (like it's constantly tramlining). the interior looks likethe designer rammed all the controls up his nose and then sneezed and the exterior like he had some sort of obsession with bulges. it even smells odd. my daughter calls it 'the clown car'. it does however have 5* ncap (iirc) which for a supermini is good.
now the worst car i've ever driven was a 1.0 punto, this one doesn;t quite plumb those depths thanks to those 5*'s.
what is it? ladies (there might me) and gentlemen i present the renault clio. why anyone would spend their own money on a p.o.s. like this amazes me even my old mg metro was better ffs.
roll on next week when i can give the awful thing back.
sorry had to get that off my chest.

 

yeah, my last fiat uno was a crock of **** - but then I only paid 300 for it...

 

Even better, take a peek in the Ownership problems forum on www.parkers.co.uk and you'll discover that they're not exactly reliable...

 

Puntos are actually very reliable if choosen properly, there is nothing wrong woth the FIRE engines and the bodies are gavinised so they will not rust. If they were so unreliable why do you still so many MK1 Puntos on the road?

The dealers are crap but you don't need to deal with them anyway.

I have driven the out going Clio and it was actually rather nice, the 1.2 litre engine had enough power for it to nippy, the steering was responsive and brakes were very very good.

Much better than the Corsa B with its awful gearbox, gutless engine and handeling which can only rival a Lada Niva.

 

not sure of the engine size in this one but you have to rev it over 5k for it to move at all. the clutch has massive amounts of travel before it bites and the gearbox has no feel to it at all. it's easy to mis shift into 5th from 2nd at which point the engine kangaroos like a mad thanks to f.a. torque.
the indicator controls are especially fun - if you're not careful you can turn off the headlights when you indicate. then there are the dials whcih are nearly horizontal making them difficult to read if you have the seat at a comfortable distance from the pedals - oh the pedals - where does my left foot go? perhaps that's why the clutch has so much spare travel - you have to use it as a foot rest.
the seats - oh they are bad no lateral support - in fact they cushion is convex so you roll sideways even more.
horrible horrible car.
the punto was worse though like driving an underpowered spacehopper. i think the clio is more irritating though if slightly better (only just though).

 

blimey, that sounds a lot...on my primera I haven't managed to get over about 4.8k and that was when I was doing about 100mph!

 

18 months ago both myself and a friend owned Fiats.

I had a Brava, he had a Punto.

Both cars had done under 70,000 miles.

Both cars are now in the scrap heap due to terminal problems.


Nuff said I think.

 

mr cat,
ok maybe i exagerate when i say 'move at all' but if i want to keep up with traffic and be able to accelerate i need to keep it in the 4-6k range and stir the gearbox frequently.
if it was a person it would be waving it's arms around running in circles going nowhere whilst being slightly damp.

 

Ah yes, I remember that! I learned in a Clio, and managed to do just that on a rather dodgy dog-leg crossroads in the dark. One of the more scary moments of my driving experience to date!

 

My 1.8 Fiat Bravo is coming upto 100,000 miles and still going fine (touchwood). Had it for 6 years and only had one small electrical problem with it in all that time. I had a VW Golf Driver before that and it was nothing but trouble.

Mind you worst car I have ever driven is a Fiat Cinquecennto - utterly abysmal.

 

The sluggiest car I ever drove was a Corsa 1.0 litre. It was also awful: the breaks functioned in an all or none bases, and it was difficult not to block the front wheels.

A very odd experience was driving a pseudo-buggy by Citroën (Mehari). There was no driving position to speak of and the suspension seemed to have endless flexibility. I could hardly get my hands on the steering without my legs feeling crammed. Because there was no grip on the seat, one actually had to grab to the steering while cornering.

But perhaps my oddest experience was driving a Cadillac Fleetwood. There are no words for it. It purred and one never felt the road, either through steering or suspension. It was like driving on clouds. I hated it.

This will perhaps come as a surprise, but the greater disapointment was a big Xantia (twin turbo, I think; at least it was supposed to be powerful). I drove it up to 220 Km/h (a bit faster than 160MpH) and it twisted, waved, and seemed to be a truck - but fast. I was left with the distinct feeling it was an unsafe car.

I once drove a Fiat Uno and absolutely loved it: one could feel everything (no assisted steering, bad brakes) and it had the oddest tendency to oversteer. Once I drove it through a really dusty road: it was marvelous, because even at low speed one felt like driving a boat, because it really was all over the place and with almost no grip (but controlable)! Sportscar driving at its best!

 

ahh grip vs handling. you can have fun with no grip and decent handling but loads of grip and no handling is not enjoyable unless you have wide runoff areas.
never driven an uno myself so can;t comment - just the punto which had neither grip nor handling. the clio seems to be the same - little of either.

 

The worst I have ever driven is a nearly new Corsa with the small (3 cylinder ?) engine. I thought the engine was broken it was so lound and rough and rang the hire company. I was told they all sound like tractors. It had no redeeming features and I am amazed that anyone would actually buy one unless they did not test drive it first.

Rod

 

My worst ever? A mark 4 Escort (I think it was 4 anyway, it dated from 1991) It had the heaviest steering I've ever known, and was completely hopeless in the corners. Shocking.

 

Lord that is the MK5, came out in 1990, the MK4 from 1986 was actually a good car, you still see lots on the road now.

The original MK4 was only made from 1990-1992 as it was so bad and Ford replaced the engines (with Zetecs) and completely redesigned the suspension and steering. The post 92 Escorts especialy the last generation were a lot better.

I think rust is the only problem these cars suffer from.

My dads has done 93k city miles with little problems.

Most people I know who have FIATs have had no trouble with themn apart from a Stilo but they were known for their trouble.

 

Do you know how much insurance costs for young drivers? Now thats why the 12 Corsas are so popular

I agree they are pretty useless engines though. Its the worst car I have ever driven anyway.

The worst car I have been a passanger in was a Rover 100 1.4 K series. In many ways this was worse than Lada, it felt stupidly tinny and boxy.

 

...thanks to the present, ridiculous fashion for huuuge wheels and tyres that Marketing insists on over the protests of the engineers. Just about every new car is running-about on oversized gumboots these days, and it does no one any favours.

Your later comments about grip vs. fun are spot-on too IMO, Julian.

 

195/60 r16's my god they are bigger than those on my alhambra ffs no wonder it feels so 'orrible.
i honestly belive that my kiddie bus is faster in the twisties (or at least inspires more confidence) my benchmark set of corners are 10+ mph slower - ok it's a new (to me) car but i can sling the bamma through them at 60+ yet i feel really unsafe at 50 in the clio. god it's a toss car.
cheers

julian

 

I suppose reall it all boils down to what one expects of a certain car and what one wants from a car.

Fiats have always been cheap, quirky, ****ty little cars, which is why i like them so much. I'm on my 4th now 2 x Punto's and 2 x Brava's. They seem to have sorted the 'dissolving in the rain' problem out that they suffered from of old, however the electrics still give problems, I was going to say that they usually have decent, lively engines, however i had to replace the Cylinder Head gasket on mine last year, which was a bit of a bind, again not a major problem for me. If we all liked the same cars then we would all drive the same car , luckily we don't.

The worst car i ever drove was a Renault Megane Hire car. It was a 1.4 litre iirc and was completely gutless and basically horrible, and it was white - yuk !

The car i liked driving most was the 5.7 litre V8 Chevvy 'Blazer' pick-up i drove whilst living in the middle east. I was a beast, sounded like a beast, was totally brutal . It did about 10 miles to the gallon or more like 2 mpg when i was flooring it everywhere. With massive bull bars on front and encased in American steel i feared no one on the road, which was just as well as the drivers out there where suicidal maniacs. Luckily full fat leaded petrol really was (slightly) cheaper than the cheapest supermarket bottled water.
Nowadays pootling along in a little Punto, in this land of speed camera's we live in at 48mpg suits me just fine.

Each to their own....

 

I have a soft spot for FIAT too, most Punto MK1s are getting too long in the tooth for me now though, I do not believe an M reg 55S is worth the £600 they seem to fetch, so I will probably have to buy a MK2 when I finaly get a car.

FIAT is a brand you buy with your heart not your head, and that is why I love Italian cars so much. A Nissan Micra just dosn't excite me.