History Have you ever owned a car you just didn't like? our possibly it didn't like you!

Or maybe it hated you!

I bought a Chevy that at the time I thought was a good deal, the car was nice and resale red with a black vinyl top, nice black interior with a bench seat and a inline 6 with a power glide.

The car was a good driver for about a month until I blew a head gasket and the oil looked like a chocolate milkshake, no big deal I bought a car from one of my daughters friends that had a 327 and a 350 turbo transmission, everything went smooth until I tried to find pulleys for the air, everyone said no problem, they are a dime a dozen.

After I bought 6 different pulleys and none of them would work I found one at a local salvage yard that only deals with Chevelles and he only had one and it cost most than all the others that I had previously bought.

I really liked the car but I kept have things go wrong and it seemed the car was nickle & dime me to death, Brenda started calling the car the Chevelle from Hell, on a whim I put a for sale sign on it and sold it immediately but I was convinced that car hated me.

I have never seen the car again but I bet the new owner has probably never had a problem with the car.

 

That's easy. You're a Ford guy, can't expect a Chevy to like you.

 

About 1975 I bought a real nice 72 Monte Carlo with a 350 that was a real gas hog for some reason, I just could not warm up to it so I traded it for a drag car minus engine, put a 355 SBC in it and I think it got better mileage than the Monte Carlo.

 

I looked for years to find a 1957 Hudson Hornet Hollywood 2dr hardtop and finally found one. Had to go out of state to get it which is no big deal. Got there and car was not 100% like what the owner said but we all have our opinions on how something looks, drives or works. It did drive, run and stop like he said so I went ahead and bought it. Got it home, spent the summer working on it and hated it to the core. Was not like my 50 Hudson in any way, shape or form. Felt like it was going to flip over when going around corners, brakes were so sensitive I just about threw myself threw the windshield every time I went to stop in it, sucked down gas like no tomorrow and was just 10 shades of ugly. I tried for a year to find something I liked about it but finally gave up and sold it. So much for buying one of my top 10 cars on my list...

 

Nope!






Bones

 

64 El Camino. Terminal miss. Tried everything, plugs, wires, cams (6 of them), vacuum everything, carbs (lost count), had everybody that knew anything look it over. motor swap was out of the question as it had become a war of wills. Even got it it's own charge card as my wallet couldn't keep up. Finally got it running half way decent, then the tranny starts acting up. Called my buddy and told him to clear his slab. Drove it over, yanked the gas tank and poured the gas all over the car and lit it off. As it was burning to the ground, I realized for the first time since i'd owned it the damn thing was doing what I wanted.

 

Now that my friend is a serious dislike/hate on your part, but for some reason I can emphasize with you! HRP

 

I had an Edsel a few years ago. What a pile.

 

I like a car with a problem that is hard to find! I like better if it’s someone else’s! Lol But to me it’s kinda like a scavenger hunt! A mechanic, that I started with many moons ago gave me a piece of advise I’ve used many many times in my life. He said simply “ Something will get it”. Pertty simple , all you have to do is find it.
My helper used tell me that I “ wasn’t right”, because I would smile when one of my fire engines would come into the shop with an electrical problem. To me it was fun to find the problem. It was” me against the problem “ kinda of thing. In 33 years I always won.......may have taken a while..... but I always remembered what my friend told me 45 or so years ago!




Bones

 

I took over payments on a black '63 Impala, 2 dr hardtop. 409, M20 4 speed, Super Sport interior. Mid 13 second car at Fremont (later 'Baylands') I replaced the third member with 4.56 gear, then a General Kinetics cam, Jardine headers, and upped to E series AFBs, matched ports, dual point conversion. (Mallory)
Over the summer, finally cracked the 12 second barrier! (really a Ford guy, since 1954)
I hated driving that car, anxiety was way upscale at the drags. Never blew anything, just knew something was bound to happen...
Well, some guy walked up and offered me MORE than a new one cost!
I got out ahead, and never broke it!
Just hated that thing...

My next was a loosened-up '63 Dodge 330, 426 short ram (425 H.P.) 727 Torqflite, spun bearing. Took over payments on that one, too!
But I LOVED the fast ol' 330. Used to rib Tommy Groves ('Melrose Missile')
He and Linda Vaughn thought I was a 'mental case'. Lots of laughs...

 

It's off-topic, but I got a new Chevy LUV pickup in 1978. It was the worst vehicle ever. It looked nice (Yellow with a brown tweed interior), but had just about every problem, a car could have. It would randomly backfire loudly and then quit. I always go it restarted, but you would have thought it was going to blow up. It sat at the Chevy dealers for weeks at a time because they refused to fix it and I wouldn't pay for repairs. They finally called me and said they had fixed the problem, but they hadn't done a thing. The lease was up after two years and about 40,000 miles, and I just let it go back, even though book value was quite a bit higher than the lease buyout. The brakes were going out at that time as well as the clutch (no, this wasn't the first stick transmission I had). It was truly "LUV without sex".

 

My wife had a 1965 Ford Rustang; everyone she told that she had a 65 Mustang told her the same thing, that they were "worth a LOT of money". A completely restored one yes, but this one, no way. Trashed in every way possible, from the faded maroon paint, rusted body panels, shredded interior, and me always having to work on it just to keep it running, to her thinking it was worth "a lot". It was truly my cross to bear on this earth!!!!! I could't get out from under it, no matter what I did or said. Finally, I had enough, after it crapped out on us in Bridle Vale Falls, British Columbia, Canada, on our way to a Nostalgia Race at Eagle Motor Plex. I had to hitch a ride home, get parts from a 63 Ranchero I had, to go back and fix her car in order to get it home. The following Saturday, after she finally got out of bed, I took her to the local Ford dealer. The night before I had seen a brand new, 5.0/automatic 90 Mustang LX on display out front. Took her there, looked at the car, she went for a ride with the salesman, and she wanted the car. The hook was set, she was flopping like a fish on the deck of a boat, and I was finally out from under that POS, 65 Rustang. It's what happens when a Chevrolet guy, marries a Ford gal. She's had 4 new cars since that Mustang, I'm still driving my old trucks.
I am Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

A Pontiac Phoenix...
What a piece of junk that was... My first and only front wheel drive car.... Never again!...

 

67 Ford LTD HT. My dad bought it for me at a auction. I said don’t go over $300....he paid $600 “because it looked so good “. Thanks Dad.
Triple black and very shiny. Owned it a week and in that time it quit running. Dead cylinders. Pulled valve covers and that thing had enough motor honey in it to stock a store.
Transmission was slipping as well and I hadn’t driven it hard so I knew the trans had been fixed to get it through the auction.
Hauled it to the crush yard and smacked that bitch down to a 8” slab.
Last Ford I have owned and this happened in 1978.

 

I feel guilty even saying it, but this little car and I just never bonded. It was a GREAT little car that I built as a street rod rescue project, but it just was never able to endear itself to me. I think the fact it had a Chevvie motor was most of it.



It now has a great home with a cool HAMBer in Oklahoma and I am very happy for it, and him.

-Abone

 

had an OT car where the floors were all rusted to shit from the inside. as it turns out these cars leak water into the interior through the corners of the windshield. I looked underneath and saw nothing before I bought it. it needed a clutch when I bought it, as I was putting a clutch in I saw red on the floor seams, pulled up the carpet and the floors were paper thin. lost like 400 bucks when I sold it, so it wasn't too bad. the floors didn't seem to bother the new buyer.

sold for $1600.00 because of the rust, now they are worth $8,000 in the condition mine was in.

(shhhh! 72 240 Z)

 

Had an 89 turbo Subaru, what a pos. After I bought it I read a consumer report that said basically everything except, DO NOT BUY this car. Horrible mileage, If you looked at the AC button it would overheat. True POS.
I've never had anything classic I didn't like. Yet...

 

Please see avatar.

 

This is an OT car, but in 78 or 79 I bought a 67 GTO convert, and I just loved it. Unfortunately, I sold it after a year or two. Fifteen years later, I was yearning for it, but the price on them had skyrocketed. I found a good deal on a 66 GTO convert project car, which was very similar, so I bought it. But I hated it. The differences were subtle, but I couldn't get past them in my mind. I hated working on it, I felt like it was a waste of time, I should be working on a 67. So I sold it. The end.

 

'63 Pontiac Tempest. What a POS... The car refused to stay fixed, finally left me on the side of the road one too many times. Went home, took the title to my local wrecking yard and told them where it was. Never saw it again.

Would have done what RJP did if I hadn't been living inside the Seattle city limits at the time.

 

Relationships can sometimes be a real pain in the butt. I had an o/t car that was well built, but had computer issues that never ended. I had the opportunity to sell the car, at a price where I figured I would come out even, and my wife torpedoed the sale. The car has turned into a modern version of Christine, and is driving me to distraction.
I just parked the monster again and started using my old beater 3/4 ton, and the car is sitting there, flashing the lights at me every time I walk in front.
Bob

 

Just out of college I sold a '64 barracuda and bought my dream car, a '64 Jag XK-E. Spun a main bearing a month later, rebuilt the engine over the winter of '72-3. Also the brakes, transmission, suspension and (of course) everything electrical. Once together it showed full oil pressure but kept starving the upper end, ruining the two cams and tappets. I replaced cams and tappets twice, and never figured it out. Finally sold it to a guy for what I had into it, making him sign a paper acknowledging the chronic problems and that he was buying it "as is." He assured me he would have no problem solving the mystery. Two weeks later he called me wanting his money back. I reminded him that I had the original paper with his signature taking full responsibility. I'd put 150 miles on that car in the six months that I'd had it, most of the mileage behind a tow truck. Wish I'd kept the barracuda.

 

^^^ That right there is why so many Jags got V8 transplants....

I had a Jag monkey on my back for a while, even a engine swap didn't eliminate all the issues...

 

It was that Brown POS Chevy wagon I bought under duress. I was in a bad way for a car, working lots of OT and a lot of pressure from everywhere and everyone. So $2200 later I have this OT Chevy wagon, what I sort of skimmed over was the fact that all the pollution devices were missing and the computer was not hooked up, found that out later. I managed to get it legally inspected a couple of times in the 4 years I owned it. I photo-shopped a pile of inspection stickers (10 day temporary) and used those for around 18 months. I drove it to Florida once in 1991, it ran hot every step of the way and I probably wiped out the cam on the way back up. I had to change a few plugs in Delaware so it would run at all. Try that on a hot July afternoon with the Mrs waiting not so patiently. The windshield leaked, the headliner was falling down. The alternator light had a subtle glow to it, although it did charge. I had one tire that would lose all the air for no good reason at the worst possible times... once even while the inlaws borrowed it. I sold it for $500 to a guy who ran a taxi service. I saw the car around for a few months then never again.

 

My cars the kids drove, one daughter could tear things up and not have a clue, yes she's blonde.

 

Another gem was my one of my '64 Ford wagons. This was the white one that used to be silver-blue, got a new paint job due to some Ford warranty thing with the fading paint. Now it had white PEELING paint. I was in college commuting and almost always stone broke. Literally every cent went into that car. My brother takes it to school to do brakes, that ran me a bundle on parts. Then the master went when they bled it. More money.. shortly followed by a bad generator and alternator. It took me about 3 sets of each before I got a working combo out of it. AND I dropped one generator into the radiator and had to have that fixed. By now I have it sorted out. I'm outside of a deli parked on an incline, go to leave and it snaps hard out of park... from there it was a miracle to get it into drive and a real crap shoot to get it into reverse. I drove it that way all summer, working 2 jobs. I quit my day job and take it over to a guy who specialized in automatics. I told him I'd give it $100, no more and would junk it. He says it was a nice looking car and he drops the pan. Rummages around inside the case with a big screwdriver... SNAP.... whatever popped out he popped back in and I was golden for $35. It got me through the winter of '74 into '75. I picked up a '66 Impala and sold the Ford to a guy who wanted it for the demo derby, I held fast to my $100 asking price. So I happen to be at the track when the race went down... he was out almost immediately... something popped in the transmission he said...

 

Up until the time I was 17 I worked for my father. When I turned 17 he bought me a 1957 Ford Fairlane convertible. He then commenced to paint it with refrigerator white spray cans. You could hear the valves 2 blocks away.That car was an embarrassment to the family name I got so pissedl off I joined the Army. I Fixed him

 

1958-I had a nice 37 Ford pickup with a stout flathead. It was a nice driving little pickup but my folks thought I needed a car and sold it. I was 15 with my license. We went to Fresno and I got a 54 Merc hardtop. Paid for it with my own money too!
Looked cool but drank oil by the gallon! Ol man rebuilt the motor and it was ok but gutless. Some of the ranch pickups would out run it. Sold it in summer of 59 and bought a 57 Pontiac-it ran strong!!

 

I have had two of them. The first was a stock 48 Ford F-1, the guy I bought it from had it for years, maintained well and only sold it to me after he had bought another truck. In the two months I had it I replaced u-joints, king pins, wheel bearings and the generator. I gave up and sold and took a bath on it. The second was an ot Mercury that my wife inherited when her dad died. It was a nice low mile car that the old man never had a problem with at all. We drove on a 300 mile trip and came home on the back of a wrecker, blew a trans seal. Fixed that(I hate working on newer cars) she drove it to town and called me to come and get her, no start. Traded it in on a Chevy truck!!