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Classic Cars 50 Worst Cars of All Time
298 messages, Last post on May 11, 2009 at 1:53 PM
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I think one of the worst cars is the 1986-89 Hyundai Excel. My aunt had a 1988 Excel and she babied that car and it still was always breaking down on her. Hyundai had to keep alternators in stock because they went out around every 10,000 miles. Not only that the cv boots wore out very quickly. Thankfully Hyundai has turned things around and builds some pretty good cars now. So I think the biggest question is this. If we can forgive Hyundai for building some horrible cars in the 80's and 90's can't we forgive GM and Ford?
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Replying to: joshuag (Nov 19, 2008 1:56 am) I don't know that the car buying public has really forgiven Hyundai just yet, there is a reason why they continue to have to discount them (and warranty them) heavily, and why their resale values are crappola. Same thing has been happening with the US manufacturers - big discounts and big warranties. The car buyer usually has a long memory and little tolerance for unanticipated problems/expenses on something they generally pay so much for. It is the 40+ folks that remember what Hyundais were or FTM what the Vega/Pinto/Chevette were, for example. The next generation would not have those memories (or experiences) , and are not nearly as likely to swear off Korean or 'American' cars - which undeniably have both improved to some point of acceptability even if it is still short of those 'Japanese' standards.
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I had a friend at work who had one. Her engine blew at about 20 -30 (?) thousand miles. They tried to brush her off by telling her that she had to have receipts for all her oil changes. She had them. Then they had to admit it was going to take more than a month because they couldn't get any replacement blocks. The demand for them was huge. Didn't the Fiero have similar engine failure problems? I seem to remember an exsalesman telling me about having 15 of them behind his Pontiac dealership waiting for engines at one point. This little fact was the determiner in his leaving the car sales business - forever.
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Replying to: captain2 (Nov 19, 2008 6:39 am) The Pony was actually imported to Canada and sold here in the mid 80s. I guess we were used as a gunea pig for the North American market. The cars here were junk too, and some people I know will still not touch a Hyundai because of the memories they had with the Pony. This is from Wiki about the Pony in the Canadian market: The Canadian version of the Pony had to be changed slightly to meet standards of that country. the Pony was released for sale in Canada for the 1984 model year and ended in 1987. Differences between the Canadian Pony versus its European counterparts were left hand drive, 8 km/h bumpers, sealed-beam headlights, different locations of marker lamps, and slight alterations in interior instrumentation and trim application. Initial projections for 1984 called for 5,000 sales, but the final total was an astounding 50,000, and it incredibly became Canada's best selling car that year.  Now that I look at it, it had very similar looks to the European market Volvo 300 series: 
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Replying to: boomchek (Nov 19, 2008 10:23 am) Up until a few years ago I would still see a Pony on the roads (or parked) now and then in the lower mainland...they could be all gone now. Same for the Stellar.
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to nominate the 1979 New Yorker to the 50 worst cars list, because my blue one died on me Monday night. It would turn over but wouldn't fire up, which is a stunt it's done in the past. Did the same thing yesterday. And today. Until I threw another battery in it and it fired right up. I guess the battery was getting to the point that it had just enough juice to turn the engine over, but not enough to fire it up...does that make sense? And annoyingly, it wouldn't take to jump starting, either. But, I guess I can't throw a car on this list just because of a battery that (I think) dates back to the Clinton administration!  I did read somewhere though, that when these cars were new, the line workers joked about taking the next-to-the-last R-body off the assembly line, and taking sledge hammers to it as a celebration. Dunno if they ever did that though, or what fate, if anything special, awaited the last one off the line? It was sort of an end of an era...the last full-sized car Chrysler would ever build. But at the time, I don't think anybody cared. I was a little extra-irritated on Monday night too because I had to work late, so the parking lot was almost deserted when I walked out into the cold, almost-freezing rain. To make matters worse, I couldn't get cell phone reception in that particular part of the parking lot. And just to make a trifecta out of it, my keycard wouldn't let me back into the building to use my office phone! How could something so pretty be so evil? My creme NYer would never do this to me. In fact, the creme NYer gave up its battery to start the blue one.
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Replying to: fintail (Nov 19, 2008 10:46 am) I figure most entry level Hyundais were throwaway cars. Once they broke nobody bothered to fix them, it wasn't worth it. |
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Replying to: lokki (Nov 19, 2008 9:43 am)
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Replying to: andre1969 (Nov 19, 2008 11:08 am)
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Replying to: joshuag (Nov 19, 2008 11:34 am) Wow, that's actually inspirational! Which engine does it have? The 3.3 V-6? That was supposed to be an excellent, sturdy engine, and they still use them in minivans. It's low-tech by today's standards, but has stood the test of time. Has your friend ever needed to rebuild the transmission?
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