The worst car ever sold in the UK?

Levi there is no smoke without fire, quite literely(sp) in BLs case! I will admit the Montego was a good car in some respects, but my grandad had two and they were badly made. They rusted very badly and the door handles would snap if you looked at the car in the wrong way.

Levi the M cars may have kept Austin Rover trading but consumers were dim and loyal back then. MG Rover thought they could do AL's strick and look where it got them.

In my opinion MGR's most fatal flaw was the lack of new models, their cash flow problems which made the company go bust were caused by the lack of sales.

The K series was a very good engine, its fast and nippy, it just has a few fatal design flaws which affects reliability, who remembers the infamous Freelander cases with the 1.8K?

I am highly fond of BL because I think its amazing how a company could produce such bad cars. AMC also made crap cars and they went bust as well.

 

Hardly! If the manufacturers could have realised that people would stop buying sub-standard UK-manufactured junk in favour of the more reliable, less rusting foreign competition, then the demise would have been averted. Don't forget the rip-off pricing as well.

Note: I am only talking about the UK industry in general, not all, and only about the quality foreign competition, not Fiat, et al, who, if anything, were much worse... All IMHO of course!

 

Smaller 90'S FIATS were much better than anything Rover could offer. Compare a Punto to a Rover 100 for example.

 

Hi AT, I was thinking more of the 70's & 80's when it all started to go pear-shaped and the rot set in.

 

Yeah fair enough, those FIATs were great designs though, the build quality was very shoddy though.

Even now I think FIATs reliability just depends on which plant the car was built in. Its funny virtualy all the cars in my list were designed by either BL or FIAT.

 

My God, just imagine if you were in a position in which you had to choose between those two, I'd rather walk barefoot!

Build quality makes or breaks a car - the technological advances of some aspects of the Maestro's/Montego's etc was more than offset by their utterly crap build quality. It was the same with the Rover SDi (3500 V8, aah) of the 80's - quite a cool looking car really with lots of flashy gizmos for the time, but costs were cut all the way through production so the final product was a lame duck. Shame. I'd still be tempted to have one if someone offered me one for nowt.....!!

 

The Punto MK1 was actually a very good car as prooved when my dad had an accident it on, it destroyed the Peogeut 106, the Punto was a right off but did protect the occupants.

Plus it never rusted, the Punto is another league compared to the Rover 100.

 

Actually funnily enough (how we laughed) a friend of mine drove his Mums Punto into the front of an oncoming lorry (slight lapse of concentration there), and he walked away unharmed despite the bonnet of the Punto being squashed to about a quarter of its original length - which shows that it was well designed as far as safety goes. Still, wouldn't buy one cos it's pug ugly, and is a Fiat.

I have to confess though that although I have strong opinions about which cars I like or would like to drive, I really have had some terrible ones myself so I am one big fat hypocrite!!

 

My dads had both a Punto and a hired Rover 100 when the Punto was in for minor accident repair (some 4*4 went into the back of my dad).

The Puntos doors had a chunky sound when they closed, the Rover 100 sounded tinny. The Puntos door did however require WD40 every so often to stop the squeeks though. My dad did 40,000 city miles in that car and it gave us very very little trouble.

My dad has a crap car now, its an Escort MK7 but for a 95 its not actually that bad, it was better than all the cars in its class at the time apart from perhaps the 306 and Astra.

It does everything my dad needs, its reliable, durable and spacious and its very cheap to run. The central locking circuit on the drivers door has rusted out but thats the only real fault with it.

 

Worst car ever sold in the UK?
Last one I bought - every time!

 

See, I have abit of a problem with old Skoda bashing.

We forget that these things were made behind the iron curtain on a budget on 5p yet many are still running strong and I even know a dealer in Manchester who gets £400-500 for a decent Estelle. The likes of Skoda brought reliable motoring to vast numbers of people who otherwise coulnt afford transport, I salute them. No excuse for Yugo though, they were crap of the highest order. Oh and who can forget the sight of an Estelle scurring round the Welsh forest in group b and still, even to this day, The Estelles and Rapids (see they even had a sense of humour) are still seen in hill-climbs and rally's the nation wide. Yes, compared to western cars they were crude, horrible in fact, but put in into context. Lada Samara, now that was crap. Still, you'd have to go many miles to find a worse car (taken in context) than the MKIV Escort, even Ford themselves admit it was a truely truely awful car.

T-Boneski

 

Rubbish AT you are wrong on this one Fiat are built to a very low quality, only the Italian goverment keep it floating.

 

But it did smoke a lot from new, which in them days was ok.

 

It also won tow car if the year. The 80's were really bad.

 

My dad had two Puntos and buld quality was fine on both of them, they were built in a new factory than most FIATs though.

Compared to the Rover 100 the Punto was a Rolls Royce. How many rusty Puntos do you see? They simply don't rust.

 

My friends dad had a MK5 Orion for 13 years, he had it from new, he didn't get the hint when it needed a new engine at 50,000. Steering was really heavy, it had less charector than Datsun Sunny.

The Fiesta MK3 is also extremely dull, but they are extremely reliabile and fairly well built, rust is a problem with them though. MK3s can easily do 100k+ which is not bad for such a small car.

 

How many old Puntos are about? not many they have all found there way to the scrap yard

 

In Manchester there are loads of Punto MK1s still on the roads.

 

Nah, just stating how ugly this one was, and how cheap they were.

50p, surely?

 

I have to disagree about the MK4 escort. I was working at a Ford dealership when they came out. The launch party was great with lots of free booze at Fords expense but the car was rubbish. The mk3 was a far better car to drive, it handled better, was quicker and did not have those stupid moulded seats. The trade thought they were crap and the residuals nose dived. The mark 5 redressed the balance. The 1.6 when liberally stirred was a stonking engine.

I have to agree that the worst car/manufacturer by a country mile is or was BL/Rover. I bought a Montego Countryman diesel estate which drove well but rusted to hell. Rover did not give a toss. The customer support was the worst I have ever experienced apart from NTL. As a result I got shot and made it my mission in life to bad mouth Rover cars. I know of at least six friends and family who were going to buy one but changed their minds after my experience. Truly truly apalling products.

Rod