I once had a loaner from a dealer that was a Dodge Caliber. Ugly as sin and the transmission was definitely on its way out. That car was just a struggle. It was a reminder why I will never buy a Chrysler product.
I am not defending that car.
Not good practice to use a loaner or rental as a reference. People drive those like they are trying to break them. And dealers will use a shitbox as a loaner because it is a shitbox
This was an unofficial loaner that was for sale as a used car by the dealer…so they were actively trying to sell it.
Like i said im not defending that car, was meant to be general advice.
I work for an autoparts company processing returned parts. Im the guy that inspects and rejects (if thats even worth noting).
If they were willing to use it at all as a loaner, it was probably a problematic vehicle. Even the highest quality vehicle will have some units that someone didnt put together well. Dodge is not a top quality builder to start.
But that all aside im very happy to hear you wont be buying one anytime soon
Jeep. All of them. Rickety. Not built well. Terrible gas mileage. Bad on highways. Bad on city streets. I literally got bruises on my butt on an off road trail in one of them. Just absolute shit cars.
1994 Ford Taurus.
I went over a speed hump at 5mph and the whole engine fell out of the front.
Apparently it’s not supposed to do that.
I had a 92 Taurus that made a loud crack when I turned left. Mechanic said engine was about to fall out. Left it parked in front of my house and a cement mixer backed into it and crumpled the front end. Got about 2000 bucks out of a car we were going to scrap.
A 1971 Chrysler Newport.
The thing was a boat. You’d hit a bump in the road, and the car would act like you crested a wave and bob front to back a few times. It was wider than most pickup trucks and probably heavier. Not only could it not fit in most parking spots, it could hardly fit in some lanes. Required leaded gas, which was getting hard to find at that point. If you needed to go uphill you had to build up speed because you would slow down, even with the gas pedal floored.
The best part is that when I finally brought it in for service, the mechanic came out and said “You’ve been driving that thing??” Three out of four motor mounts had broken and the last one was about rusted through.
It did have an 8-track though, and came with a bunch of Elvis tapes.
I hated Elvis, but did manage to find an 8-track of Peter Paul and Mary.
Ooh man, I’ve driven a lot of rentals for work…
I hated hated hated the Nissan Cube. Thankfully the check engine light came on within two hours of me picking it up so I got to swap it.
But I think the one that takes the cake is actually a vacation rental car. My husband and I rented a car when we went to Belgium. It was an Opel Corsa. It struggled to even reach the speed limit on highways and definitely couldn’t go above it. The funniest thing was that all the Audis and BMWs in Belgium didn’t even bother to tailgate us; they saw us ahead of them and moved over to pass well before they got to us. They knew. That thing was hilariously bad at being a car. I was also a new stick shift driver and it was very difficult. We then went to Switzerland where we got a VW Polo and suddenly I got a whole lot better at driving stick, lol.
Hahaha. A rented Opel was what came to mind for me as well. Followed by Plymouth Crossfire and Chevy HHR.
Thankfully the check engine light came on within two hours of me picking it up so I got to swap it.
And wouldn’t you know it, the check engine light was because of a loose gas cap. How could that have happened?
Why would they tailgate you at all if they could pass you? Is this common somewhere?
I guess what I meant was, they were so aware that we were lamely going as fast as we could (not very) in the slow lane that they managed to move over in plenty of time even when they were going way (way) faster than us and had to merge into other traffic. No one ever seemed to get stuck behind us unable to pass. I chalked it up to their very high awareness of our very shitty car, lol.
Ah haha I see
Chrysler 200 as a rental after someone smoked my Civic, and I waited to get a new one.
The car was… Jiggly? Like the suspension was unsettling, the brakes needed getting acquainted with lest you rear-end someone, and the steering had too much play. It wasn’t enough play to convince me something was wrong, it was just shit quality.
No power. At all. Getting on the freeway was an adventure in noise and hope. Everything lagged. Fuel economy was garbage too.
Looked stupid. And my Civic si that replaced it, the econobox with a hot engine, had a luxury interior in comparison, which is saying something.
Horrible car to add to a horrible week.
I rented a 2020 Mitsubishi Outlander in 2022 and it was amazing how unresponsive it was. It’s a small SUV with the engine of a hamster. It has a “sport mode” that really struggled to get me up some hills in Colorado.
Also, the rubber seal for the door, on 3 of the doors, was constantly feel off and could be worn as a second seatbelt.
Hyundai Sonata 2019 seats are hard as hell. Rear view mirror is way to low.
Chrysler Sebring. Fucking battery.
Nissan Versa, so many weird blind spots.
Chevy Suburban. I volunteered to drive for a university course field trip and it’s what I got stuck with.
- Unresponsive fatass brick of a vehicle. I mean, come on, a minivan has more cargo space and the same passenger capacity without three light aircraft worth of inertia.
- Dashboard sucked. It took me a solid three minutes to find the button shifts. (I know these can be done well - Honda does them right - but the PRNDL was fucking laid out in a thin row at the side of the dashboard. Huh?)
- Overtaking damn near anything would redline the (very new, less than 10k miles) engine.
My uncle owned an 80’s suburban. That thing was an absolute tank… and not in a good way. The steering had so much play in it, you had to turn the wheel about 45 degrees for there to be any input.
A fedex truck actually ended up t-boning him, and the truck flipped. He was fine. Suburban wasn’t. Probably for the best.
Overtaking damn near anything would redline the (very new, less than 10k miles) engine.
While this suggests it might have been underpowered, how high the engine revs during acceleration in a modern automatic transmission vehicle is determined by software that operates the transmission and the driver’s control inputs, not how old the engine is. The designers of the car probably decided that was the best way to deliver the performance you asked for. They may even have been correct in that assessment.
Chrysler grand voyager. It was relatively new, but omg it felt borderline dangerous. It was actually funny for the first 10 mins but I had to deliver this POS few hours away. On a straight smooth road it was like driving a sofa, comfy and soft. Once it entered a corner it turned into a boat, and stopping hard twice in a row had limited success. I asked the dealer where I delivered it too about how it handled. Apparently this is standard behaviour for Cryslers, and in the US it is fine (straight roads, limited hard breaking) and they love soft cars. In the UK we expect cars to stop and go round corners so we notice just how bad the Grand voyager is.
I won’t drive a Crysler again.
The US has limited hard braking? What city do they live in?
Going to be a toss-up between two of my own cars.
1992 Cavalier convertible Z24 I bought for pennies as my first own car. Had 420,000km on it and grabbed it and it’s papers from some sketch dealer.
Looked good enough on the outside for it’s purpose of having fun. Roof worked. And it had a v6. But it fell apart fast (and a lot due to my own shenanigans). Stearing became so off that I had to turn left to stay straight. The heater died, I live in Canada. The seat’s support broke, so I used an old set of goalie pads propped against the back seat to keep my seat upright. The dashboard lights were blown, so I had a ducked tape flashlight on my headrest to light my dash up. More than ounce, I’d have to pull a fuse and put it back in while cruising on the highway.
Second worse was the off the lot brand new 02 Sunfire my parents forced me to buy to replace the above shitbox due to it’s safety. For fuck sakes I despised this car. Despite how bad the cavalier was, it was FUN and quirky. The Sunfire was just a poorly made shitbox with zero power, and non-stop electrical failures the day I took it off the lot.
I rented a Pontiac Matiz in Mexico in the late 90s or early 2000s. Small, underpowered, uncomfortable and just didn’t feel very safe. I normally like little cars, but not that one. The air conditioner struggled to keep up with the August heat too.
This isn’t really that terrible of a car, but it felt pretty terrible in that moment.
My brother and I had to drive to some location in two cars, for some reason. He was driving in his own car and I had to follow with our mum’s family car. You know, the kind of car that fits a husband, three children and the groceries for the next month.
When we arrived, my brother gave me shit for driving so slow, that he had to constantly brake and wait for me. I told him, I was flooring it, but the car just wouldn’t accelerate faster.
He didn’t believe me. So, we switched cars on the way back. Then he did believe me.
