Hot Rods OK, what car do you wish you would have never bought?

We have all read the threads on what cars you missed, what cars you are so happy you bought, and what cars were the deal of a life time.
How about those car/trucks you should have never bought, you know, the ones you wish you really would have never seen. And do you still have them?

Its only fair I should start out. I found a 39 Plymouth coupe, it was probably the nicest old car body I ever had a chance to own. It was a project and needed some stuff done, but man, that coupe body was nice! I told myself I just had to have it. The problem was, I didn't have the money, I would have to sell my 54 Dodge pickup cruiser to buy it. The guy was willing to wait until I sold my truck.

I'd built the truck about 6 years before. It had a pretty decent body, with a tired but reliable V8 and an auto trans. The truck had flawlessly hauled my wife and I across several states, and we were nearing 70,000 miles we had put on it since I built it. The used motor I installed in the original build was well past 160,000 miles and needed a refresh. That was the excuse I used to validate the sale of the truck and the purchase of the coupe. The truck was listed on Ebay, and sold in 6 days. I got more then I needed, but slightly less then I was hoping to get for it.

With the truck gone, I was able to purchase the coupe, and had a cash fund large enough to get the coupe to the street, or so I thought......
The coupe had a V6 with an auto trans, it did run, and sort of moved under its own power. The motor sat so high, the carb was against the hood (without an sort of air filtering device), placing the trans at a horrible angle, it was trying to bend the driveshaft as it turned. Everything on the original brakes leaked, it would empty the master in about 5 minutes. While there was still brake fluid, the car did kind of stop. There was also an issue with the steering box, you could turn the steering wheel nearly 1/2 turn before you got input to the tires.
I really wasn't opposed to the V6 too much, gas prices were high, the teal truck got 14 mpg, always, and my 4x4 (daily driver) got 8 mpg. I built new motor & trans mounts, and I installed a modern rear axle as well. Then I could correct the driveshaft angles. That actually made the V6 run pretty well.
It was cheaper to upgrade the brakes with a disc conversion and add a modern master cylinder with power booster. My mistake was I bought the master & booster online from the Hoffman group. I never did get the brakes to function the way I thought they should have. The brake issue was a continuous battle. I correct the steering box woes by replacing it with a Cavalier power rack & pinion. That worked out pretty well, though it ended up having a larger turning radius, something you can adjust to. The car was on the road in about 6 months after the purchase. It was continually pledged with minor irritations, particularly dealing with the brakes.
We managed to deal with the car for a couple of years, and it did take us to the HAMB drags and back and we probably put 15,000 miles on the coupe. It just wasn't near the driver the old pickup I sold off so I could buy this car was.

We arrived at a point where the motor in my 4x4 was going bad, and I had to replace it, or try to drive the coupe through the winter. I just couldn't picture the coupe with a snow plow on the front, so it went up for sale. A local guy bought it. He has replaced the V6, redone the brakes and has had the car painted. It now looks better then it ever could have while in my possession. Every time I see it, I'm very happy it no longer belongs to me!

So, I know "It never happened" without pictures. I present pictures of the teal 54 Dodge I sold off to buy the coupe. A picture of the coupe, and pictures of the 4x4 after the new motor and a redo of the truck, which was all funded by the departure of the coupe. Gene

 

Actually a film buddie needed an 60's wagon for a photo shoot and we both are kinda mopar guys....sooo after it - I ended up with a 65 Dodge wagon that's not really that bad....just small stuff at the moment....damn old poly 318 runs like the dickens....

 

I wish I had never bought the 34 pickup in my avatar. I ended up putting far too much work and money and time into it. I could have bought a much better truck to start with and probably have half as much in it. The only parts I haven't replaced or patched on it are the top, hood top, cowl top, top half of the back , one fender and two bed sides. Every other part of the original truck is no longer on it.
But I learned a valuable lesson...buy the very best vehicle you possibly can to start with. You will come out far better in the end.

 

One 1957 Chevy short bed. My grandpa had bought it from one of his old miner buddies, and had it in his front yard for sale, 100 bucks. I looked at it, and he told me I could have it for what he paid, which was 50 bucks. Ok, I thought, I can put some used tires on it, and a battery, and have some fun with it. He went and put it in the barn yard, and it was so rusty, the cows tore the fenders about halfway off it from rubbing up agaimst it. A set of tires and a battery and down the road I went. About a mile. The oil line to the filter cracked. Fixed. A good panic stop later and there were leaks everywhere in the brake system. Then the generator. Then the water pump. I finally traded it for a '67 Le Mans, that my buddy wanted 50 bucks for. I had misplaced the title, but no problem, he wanted the motor for another truck. A guy came along and offered him a hundred for it. Down the road it went. Six months later, I pull into my grandpa's driveway, and here he comes madder than hell. He had given me an open title, and no one had bothered to put it in their names. four owners after me, one of them found an old registration in it, in my grandpa's buddy's name. He was mad as hell, and gave my grandpa hell over it. That truck caused me grief for far too long.

 

This is a little off topic but I bought a Shasta Stratoflyte travel trailer. The wood frame around the unprotected bottom of the walls rotted. I would have had to remove all the walls to fix it.

It costed as much in extra gas and campground fees as a motel room.

I ended up fishtailing and wrecking it. The top came loose from the floor due to the rotten boards.

I still have the frame, floor and axles that I use as a flatbed trailer, so I guess it's not a total loss.

Here's someone else's picture I got off Google just to show what one looks like. I always liked the little wings on the back.

 

Most of 'em

 

Nothing so far, but i did almost buy a 1960 dodge dart Seneca, actually a pretty neat car but it was a flathead 6 and i wanted something with a v8, i think more than half the body was bondo, it just looked.... wrong. If i would have bought that car i could have never made my $3,000 back i'd have spent on it.

 

Maybe the '76 Honda Civic station wagon. Had lots of electrical shorts and repairs.

 

I'm like Rocky, sooner or later I'm sorry about every car I ever bought.

 

Just got a 50 shoebox and I bought it using my heart and not my brains. looks good but what a pile of JUNK, got a vibration starting a 45, have almost replaced all the drive line and still have the vibration, because of this car I can't sleep, hair falling out and bank savings account almost gone, guess what it's yellow like a lemon.

 

I wish I had never bought all the cars I bought in my 20's so I could have bought a house in my 30's

 

Traded my 1966 Ford Bronco for a 1972 Ford F100 that my “best friend” at the time had. 302, automatic, it was a total POS and barely made it home. The transmission never worked right. I was 17 at the time and my Dad was strictly against the deal but let me do it anyway. I sold that F100 for $150 and had $1200 in my Bronco. And it was reliable but slow. Boy was Dad right. Some “friend”, huh?


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Been pretty lucky with hobby car purchase's, keeping in mind I figured on some work/update/corrections for stupidity/changes to make it mine, some better than others. In my racing hobby, same deal and eventually worked my way up to all new equipment, the best chassis, engines available at that time frame IMO. Now If we want to talk about OT new cars/trucks/suvs, I have many horror stories on new vehicles with problems under warranty and poor service/repairs made and at the risk of pissing off MR GoodWrench, There are not many around from my life's experiences. IN my family/friends poor service under warranty is a common story with american made vehicles, my kids have had great vehicles from Toyota/Nissan/Honda, never had any problems to require warranty work. Yet here I am, still buy american junk, no new anymore, slow learner I am, my signature covers it.

 

A ready for the scrapper Duster I purchased for basic transportation after I totaled my '77 Vette. The steering was so bad that the wheel had to jiggled back-n-forth constantly to keep moving in a straight line. As a consequence of too many beers one night, I quit correcting and ended up with a DUI (Yeah, I deserved it).

 

I sold my perfectly reliable '64 Barracuda and bought a '64 Jag XKE drophead. Rebuilt everything on it, balanced the engine, all new trans bearings, all new brake calipers, etc. Put 150 miles on it in 6 months, most of that behind a tow truck. For some reason that I could never find, it wasn't getting oil to the cylinder head and kept breaking camshafts and shattering tappets. Sold it for less than I had in it to a guy who bought it after signing a notarized document spelling out the chronic oiling problems. He called two weeks later to demand his money back. I explained to him that he had insisted he knew how to fix it since he was a master mechanic, and that he signed the document acknowledging the problems. I still hate that car. The next car I bought, a brand new '73 Duster with a 318 and a 3-speed, turned out to be a wreck magnet. Second worst car, and not its fault.

 

I've had five Novas but there was one particular '66 SS that I should have stayed away from. I knew
what I was getting and bought it anyway. I began to regret the purchase when I was no more than
five miles from the seller's home at 9:00 pm when it broke down on us. I had just sold a fantastic
'69 Corvette roadster with a 350 horse 350. I wanted to get into another car right away and, like
others, I bought with my heart and not my head. I sold it quickly to a fellow who had it break down
on him on his midnight test drive, but he bought it anyway. I think about it every now and then
and feel I owe my wife something I can't repay because of it. Hell, I hated that car so much I didn't
take a photo of it. Actually, it haunts me 36 years later.

 

I was 16 and bought a 1968 Ford pick up. One electrical nightmare after another. PIA. Swore off Fords for a bit.

 

I was in the army in Germany and was ready to come back the states. I had a dilemma it was 1973 and I wanted a new car. The first year of the ugly bumpers. The Dodge Charger was the least ugly of the new cars so I ordered through the PX a brand new 440 Magnum RT black on black with a black vinyl top 4 speed ,bucket seat road wheels with raised white letters.
I get home to Detroit and go to pick up my shiny new car in a snow storm. My brother takes me to the dealer and when I get there it is a bench seat automatic on the column dog dich hub caps ,black wall tires. The dealer who is only getting PDI for delivering the car is no help. Instead of refusing the car, I am on leave and have no car so I accept the car and Chrysler refunds me $800 in the difference between what I ordered and paid for and what I got.
The car turned out to be the biggest lemon ever made. On the way home from the dealer the driver window falls out of the track so after my brother gets done laughing at me for buying a Dodge we put it in his garage. Get that fixed and a week later I hear a noise and pull over and the starter is dragging by the battery cables. I am a block from a dealer so I just drive it up in front of the service bay and shut it off. They have to push it in the shop and replace the starter and the missing bolts.
The next week I leave for Florida and on the way back I smell gas bad. I pull into a rest area and the fuel pump is pouring gas out. So after sleeping the car overnight in Florida a dealer sends a wrecker to tow me to the dealership. They replace the fuel pump so I can get home.
My new duty station is Ft. Carson, Colorado . After about a month out there I start to hear growling in the rear end. Go to the dealer and they have to put both axle bearings in the rear end.
This car is less than 3 months old and has less than 7,000 miles on it and I am afraid of what is going to break next, so I go to the Ford dealer because the Dodge dealer would not take the car in on trade and get my buddy to follow me over. I need a van to haul my flat track race bike so I pick out a Ford van he drives up and yells at the salesman and tells him that if I was trading in that Charger he wanted it. The salesman thinking he has 2 sales gives me top dollar for that P.O.S.
The worst car I have ever bought and was so glad to get rid of it.

 

That is pretty easy for me. I heard about this 55 Sedan Delivery, a real Sedan Delivery, over I in Georgia. It was sell for what seemed to be a give away price especially for a 55 and even more so for a Sedan Delivery. I load up the trailer and haul for Georgia. Get there and it is raining cats and dogs, hell I probably wouldn't have looked to hard anyway. it was a horrible ( to me) color I mean I just hate Yellow cars. I have sold two cars simple because they were yellow, and way too much trouble to paint.

Get this car home and into the shop. Interior is almost new but its just as yellow as the car so that has to go. I do decide that I will paint this car. So I go to work with the DA and on the passenger side door there is some bondo, decide I will redo this and start getting it out of there. Man there is not some Bondo it is a bondo door and with very little steel there at all. Turns out this car was like that everywhere, it simple was a rust bucket and so bad it just was not worth saving. I mean it needed both doors, new quarters and both new front fenders, and complete floors front to back, just to start. The frame was in bad shape as well.

Interesting enough I had about 10 guys want to buy that POS from me. I wasn't going to do that as it was one of those cars that was just done. Salvaged the motor and tranny, and a few things and sold it for scrap.

 

About 25 years ago for some reason I thought I needed to build a fiberglass 32 Ford Vicky. A Downs body on a TCI chassis. It was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made. I absolutely hated that car. It rode like shit. With no trunk its a PITA stuffing everything in the back seat. The brakes were a problem, the chassis needed a "C" notch to prevent bottoming out (I believe TCI knew of the problem but did nothing to fix it), had real difficulty getting the drivers door to fit properly. It looked fairly decent and eventually became a featured car in the StreetRodder magazine. The happiest day of my life was the day I sold that POS.

 

Mine was an O/T 6.0 Ford diesel p/u. First 6 years and 46,000 miles no issues. Year 7 and 1,000 miles were a complete nightmare. My first car was a '31 Model A coupe that I bought when I was 15 for $95.00 but after the way Ford treated me with the 6.0, never a new or late model Ford again. Sorry, end of rant.

 

The HURST OLDS I took in trade for $500. worth of kitchen remodeling work and the NOS parts that went with it. It was driven to my house, and I couldn't find anyone to buy it. Finally one Sunday I unbolted the hood, trunk lid, and both doors, removed the T tops, and installed a fresh blade in my Saw-Z -All and cut in quarters. This was an easy way to get at the transmission and engine since I didn't have an engine hoist. I cleared over $2,000 in parts, but still, late model stuff is a pain I avoid to this day.
Bob

 

Surprised nobody is sorry they bought a Shit Beast.

 

Every time I buy something that is not a Mopar, it let's me down. The experience Southcross2631 had with his Charger is what happens to me when I buy a Chevrolet or Ford! LOL. I think as long as I keep with Dodge, I will no longer have anything to cry about...

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The ‘67 Caddy I bought for my wife. She loves the car and expects it to be a daily driver. I spend more time and money on that damn thing than I do with my own car. People offer to buy it quite frequently, and man, I’m tempted...

 

It's my non HAMB 1 ton dually. I swear the thing can hear me and has feelings. I remember commenting to a friend that I need a new truck while within earshot of the truck. It responded by blowing up the 3 month old alternator while I was in the middle of the Nevada desert. Right after that, the fuel pump went out. Just last week I got to thinking that the heater core hadn't leaked in about a year and as soon as I got out, I smelled antifreeze and a stream coming out from under the truck.

 

Sad part is I like Chrysler products. Every other one I have owned has been good to me. Just a Monday car I guess.
Nobody wants to admit they bought a Street Beast. Had to straighten one of those out for a guy . What a nightmare.

 

nobody would admit it!

 

Felt that way about this one, so I set about changing it. Altered wheelbase, big block Buick, turbo 400. Will be 21 yrs I've had it coming up in the spring.

 

[QUOTE="gene-koning, post: 12395701, member: 289026"']
How about those car/trucks you should have never bought, you know, the ones you wish you really would have never seen. And do you still have them?
[/QUOTE]

The off topic car my wife refers to as the "Chevelle from Hell"

It was a beautiful red/with black vinyl top 67 SS Chevelle and that damn car was possessed!

I sold it to another guy who fell in love with the cars good looks and he too sold it shortly after buying it from me,he said it was a red lemon! HRP