I had an 86 Audi 5000 Turbo that I bought as a demonstrator. Since the dealer's wife had driven it. I figured if anything was wrong with it they would have already found it and fixed it.

WRONG

In the 22 months I owned it it was in the shop 17 times for problems ranging from the AC quitting during a north Texas summer to a massive coolant leak when the water pump gave up the ghost.

I ended up filing a lemon law complaint and Audi bought it back from me. Several years later I was researching a car on CarFax and decided to look for it. There it was, sold somewhere in the northeast as a used car. Nowhere did it note that Audi had bought it back under the lemon law.

I bought a used car...

That about sums it up.

I live in New Hampshire and just bought an '86 Audi 5000. What a nightmare it's been!

Jonny, I feel your auto-related pain when it comes to the WRX. My WRX (MY2001) spent months in the shop. The following parts were replaced (on different occasions):

-radiator
-turbo
-flywheel
-throwout bearing (got really really noisy)

The transmission was a whole separate ordeal. They replaced most of the internal parts, since it ate itself somehow. I wasn't abusive to it, I drove it like a normal person.

I won't call it a lemon, though. The dealership was always helpful with getting the work done, and they always gave me a free shop loaner or a rental car. I traded it in a long time ago, but I'd still buy another Subaru.

This didnt actually happen to me, but it did take place at the Ford dealer that I used to work for.

Some guy bought a new super duty pick-up, and from day one it had a mysterious rattle that no one could find.

Well, it had been in and out of our shop many times, and we couldnt figure it out. Finally they put it up on the lift, and started it up, put it in drive to see if they could pin-point the rattle.

Turns out some monkey at the factory put an soda can INSIDE the driveshaft before it was welded on the other end, and it was clanking around inside...quality is job one!

I had a 1979 BMW 320i. I really just thought it was the coolest car ever when I got it. She was bright yellow, which probably should've tipped me off, but it didn't.

I just bought the car from an old man who had receipts for tons of work he'd just had done on the car - engine was overhauled, new brakes, new suspension (almost everything), new interior bits including fixing the sunroof. I got it for less than $1000 and the paint was perfect, as was the interior. It was a dream car, really.

Within the first week the sunroof broke again. I rigged it up to work, but it looked bad. I didn't bother fixing it because I saw what the guy before got charged for it.

Within 3 months the radiator had given out and the engine had overheated. It now putted white smoke when I first started her up.

Both rear brake cylinders went out in the first 6 months and after I replaced them they had to be replaced every 3 months thereafter.

Adding insult to (financial) injury a cat climbed into my open window one 120 degree summer day in Arizona and peed in my dash vents. The car now always had a nice strong whiff of urine whenever it was in motion or the AC was one (which only gradually failed.)

Soon after the brakes issue the alternator went out. Most expensive alternator I had and have purchased, can't remember exactly what it cost but it was upward of $200. I had to borrow the money to buy it from my girlfriend's dad because I'd just quit my ice cream delivery job (which involved a lot of driving and is probably what killed the BMW.) I actually put off fixing this for a couple months, I just picked high ground to park on and push-started the thing. I had a job that I drove all day, so sometimes finding a good parking spot meant parking 1/2 away from where I needed to be.

By the end of 12 months of ownership I'd realized that I'd developed a head gasket issue, so I poured waterglass in the radiator. That actually did fix it, but I'm guessing it gummed up the radiator a bit because the car now ran 20-30 degrees hotter.

All went well for a while, I just had to keep adding water (because it spilled over any time I turned off the car,) change the brake cylinders & check the oil frequently.

Then one day I was sitting in traffic, they were doing construction and I got bored. I stopped paying attention to my temp gauge and before I knew it steam was pouring from under hood. I gently rolled it into a gas station and killed the engine. I'm out of water and my oil looks like milk. Fuck. End of beemer.

I actually still have the car and I consider fixing it every once in a while, since my dad wants to fix it, too. He'd frequently come over to my house, borrow the car (sneak into my house at 3 AM and steal my keys) for a drive to the casino. He broke my e-brake and smashed one of my sideview mirrors, so I won't blame the car for that.

It was a fun car, the most fun I've had in a vehicle, actually, but she sure was a lemon. An old lemon at that. But she only had 30k (real mileage) on the odo when I got 'er.

I bought a used '96 Cadillac Fleetwood in 2004. In the ~6 months I drove it...

-starter died (the day after I bought it)
-split the belt in the right front tire
-snapped 4 of 5 lug studs on the left rear wheel
-two distributor housings cracked, letting water in, causing it to...
-...randomly fail to start, or massively misfire
-reverse only worked first thing in the morning, eventually it would hunt frantically between the top two gears on backroads
-rear air suspension height sensor failed, so car would constantly try and pump up rear shocks.
-gears stripped in trunklid pulldown, so motor would whine endlessly
-ABS sensor failed
-warped front rotors.

That's off the top of my head, and I know there was more. I spent more trying to keep it running then I'd spent buying it. I eventually sold it for $1000 & a 350 Chevy V8, and bought a $500 '78 Nova that was acres more reliable.

This is the most painful car story I have.

Bought 2002 M3 at a dealer auction through a "friend" of my brother's. He sneaked me on the lot to take a look at the car.

After my cursory inspection and my dependance on this "friend" for his input from countless auctions and owning a BMW 330ci, I figured, well if he can get it around the wholesale price, great. He did get it at wholesale, but now the fun starts.

A week later, I notice oil dripping. Take it to the family mechanic who goes to put some dye in the oil to look for leaks, only to find that there was already dye in the oil and when he flashed the UV on the engine it just looked like the sun.

Mistake 1 - letting the family mechanic take a stab at it as he said it wouldn't be a problem and 10 years of going to him for my dad's 928, the ill fated jaguar and never having a problem, I let him have at it.

6 weeks and 7000 dollars later (these idiots didn't know what they were doing and by the time I figured it out (2 weeks in) they had the cylinder head off and made it a pain in the ass to get somewhere else. They wound up sending it to a BMW person on a flat bed to have them finish.

After that fun times, I got about 8 months before I'd be driving along, the power would stutter and the EML light would come on. Took it to a BMW (non dealer) place here in burbank who ran a diagnosis and after much befuddlement determined that it was the throttle potentiometers and the fuel filter.

Changed those out, the problem is still going. I take it back and they are as confused as ever. Fuck it, I went to the dealer and had them connect it to the GT-1.

Turns out the first guys only replaced one potentiometer so that one had 4 faults and the other had 286. I believe that repair was 1500 dollars, but there was also a short in the wiring that made my radio turn off when I slid open the vanity mirror. That cost another whatever amount.

Long story short, this deal from the "friend" wound up costing me more than what I would have paid just going factory certified, which I will do if I EVER buy a used car again.

a 1977 Mercury Grand Marquis. I pay $1000 for it and owned it for three years. In those three years, I drove it approximatly 10,000 miles.

However, during those 3 years and 10,000 miles, I had to replace:

-Engine
-Transmission (TWICE)
-Motor Mounts (countless times!!)
-Radiator (twice)
-4 bbl Carb (two or three times)
-Both cylinder heads
-All four coil springs
-REAR AXLE !!
-Countless electrical shorts and problems
-Tires (repair or replace about every 3 months)
-A/C Twice
-Battery (twice or three times)
-Gas Tank (Local kids damaged, but hey...)
-Muffler (about one every two to three months) I would explode them due to a backfire.

Joke was: "Flip a coin, heads I won't make it there, tails I won't make it back"

I finally sold it for $600 three years and about $6,000 poorer. Every time I got fed up enough to sell it, I thought that I must have gotten the last bug out of the car.

And before you think I was rough on the car, I actually purchased a used 1984 Olds Delta 88 since the Mercury was laid up with a blown motor for 6 months. I put on over 200,000 miles in about 5 years on that car with no major issues. It died around 280,000 to 320,000 miles. I never knew for sure since the odometer gave out a year before the car did !

The car after that, a 1987 Fifth Avenue went over 200,000 without an issue either....

@DokterDitka: Careful on the certified used.

I have a friend who recently (2 months ago) got rear-ended. He was in his factory certified used Honda Civic, like a 2004 model or something. Took it to the repair shop to get it assessed, and surprise! It's been totaled before. The repair was some hack job, too, which explained why some of the panels never lined up like we thought they should. That Honda dealer was in a whole heap of trouble.

Just what did their certified techs look at, if they didn't find the repaired frame damage, I wonder?

Dear Volvo,

The first 40-series, both the S and V, are why I will never buy from you again. And yes, I am an idiot for giving the V40 a try after the crap with the S40, but I got two dogs.

In any case. One month after getting the S40, glass chips begin to rain off the sunroof onto my head. Into the shop for a week and all I get is, "We're not repairing it under warranty, you must have stepped on the roof." And, of course, they removed the sunroof while we were arguing over this, so the car sat at the dealer for two more weeks until a factory rep could inspect it and say, "Oh yeah, the factory installed the glass wrong, we'll fix it."

Then, the rotors warped after 5000 miles. The brake pads had to be replaced at 8000 miles. And 15000. And 22000. There was a very loud rattle in the rear from a "broken headliner clip." It was fixed. It broke again. It was fixed. It broke again. The headlight bulbs had to be replaced four times in 25000. The gaskets on the turbo leaked. They were replaced. Fell apart again. Replaced. Fell apart again.

Then we got the V40 for the two dogs. The entire fuel system had to be replaced after two months of ownership. The brake pads had to be replaced at 9000, 17000 and 26000 miles. The immobilizer malfunctioned and shut the car down. Fixed four times, malfunctioned four times. The rotors had to be replaced twice in 35000 miles. The spark plugs built up so much carbon over the course of 5000 miles the engine would shut down if I didn't pull them and clean them.

I wanted to love you Volvo. But I hate you so bad. Even that little C30 can't tempt me back.

in 2000 my brother and i bought a 68 VW bus from an old crazy guy down the street. i handed him the check and he ran inside to get the title. i decided it would be a good time to open the sliding door. as i yanked on the handle the entire door fell off, on to m foot.

three years later i gave it away

~BC

i owned a '99 corvette. that's about the story.

The wife and I bought a used 2001 Audi allroad because it was really pretty. We bought it with 59K miles, just out of factory maintenance and repair coverage, we bought the extended warranty because Audis are expensive to fix. The first 2 months I owned it, it spent 45 days at the Audi dealer. Over the 10 months before I cut my losses and bought a Subaru, the following items were repaired.
-Pads and Rotors at all 4 corners
-Inner and Outer tie rod ends ($1200 !!!)
-Air suspension pump
-2 Air suspension air bags
-The cooling system got gummed up and had to be flushed 3 times to get the heat working. The coolant looked like peanut butter.
-One turbo divertor valve (Audi's term for a blowoff valve?)
-$2000 worth of gaskets (valve cover, turbo oil line, oil pan, etc)
-One set of tires due to some suspension problem wearing them unevenly and the shop didn't know what was wrong.
-2 alignments, 1 for the tie rods and 1 because of the aforementioned unknown suspension problem.
-"Force Balancing" all 4 wheels due to the suspension problem.
-It still had the suspension problem when I traded it in, probably a seized CV joint now that I think about it.

The selling dealer and the warranty company paid for most of it, but it was just too many problems to deal with. When I sold it, it still had the unknown suspension problem and one of the turbo oil lines smoked when you accelerated hard.

Well, it's not my car, but it's a funny story. When my old roommmate rebuilt the engine in his RX-7, he decided to go with a pre-mix setup and let the oil meetering pump hang. After a while the oil meetering pump started to fail (no lubrication) and throw codes back to the ECU. The ECU would then limit the RPMs to something ridiculous like 2000 RPMs.

His fix whenever this happened while driving? Throw the car into neutral, and reset the ignition in order to reset the status of the ECU. It was hilarious to watch him basically turn his car on and off while driving.

@PolishDon:
You spent a G on an old beater and you sound supprised that it died? When you buy a beater you drive it until the wheels fall off and when they do, you don't fix, you buy another beater.

Case in point:
2005- traded in my FoMoCo lease because tuition is outrageous and bought a 1992 FoMoCo Tauras for $500. Drove it for 6 months and the tranny blew. With family connections (parts manager at a Ford dealer) it would have cost me $1000 to fix so I junked it (got a hundy for it) and bought a 1994 Escort wagon for $700. That one lasted almost a whole year until the engine blew up on I-94 during afternoon rush, again about $1000 to fix so I junked that one too (same yard gave me 200 for it). Now I'm into the sweetness that is my 1995 Aspire that cost me 800, it gets 34MPG and runs like a champ ( I just need it to last about a year.)
My point is if you're going to buy a POS be ready to buy another one cause you never know how long they're going to run. Especially if it's a Ford.

I had a room mate who bought a MiniCooper S, new.

In 1 year of ownership, he probably threw 40 trouble lights. The tire pressure sensor light kept coming on, so the dealer would replace the sensor, but the indicator would come back again (there were like 8 rounds of this). Eventually, they had to replace the whole traction control system computer (like a $5500 part), which worked for a little while, until they had to replaced the whole ECU, along with the traction control computer again. Also in this time span something in the interior quit...I believe it was the door locks or door handles.

The thing that really sucked was that the dealer insisted on doing the same unsuccessful repair like 5 times before trying something else. This of course meant 5 separate trips to the dealer. Also, as all of his jobs were "1 day" jobs, the dealer wouldn't give out a loaner. When the job inevitably ran over to day 2, then he had the option of (somehow) coming down to get a loaner before they closed at like 5.

Funny part was, once they finally fixed everything, he sold it. Never will understand that.

How in the world did you get Subaru to cover your clutch under warranty?

I don't know if this qualifies as a "Lemon" because it wasn't new, and this story didn't happen to me but a coworker.

Len wanted a new car, he had a 91 Acura (don't remember the name, same as the Accord of that year) that was plagued with transmission problems. Apparently they put the computer under the seat, which was always wet because the sunroof leaked.

He got a line on a 96 BMW 328ci. It was being sold by "Some Russian Dude in Delaware." It had some rear quarter damage that had been fixed up but the paint on the bumper had spiderwebbed a little bit here and there. The car had a Maryland Salvage Title (which apparently are given out like candy there) so he had to go through a big process to get it reconstructed and re-tagged in PA. He finally gets the thing home, and the fun starts. It overheats and cuts off all the time but nobody can figure out why. The sensors and thermostats are all working right and there are no leaks anywhere. Then the radio cuts on and off, so he replaces it with the one from his Acura. In the trunk he put in a big bass bin with one of those 1/2 Farad Capacitors. It blows up. the ABS light keeps coming on because stuff keeps getting caught in the brakes because there's too much travel in the caliper. Why? Who knows. It still overheats and the lights still come on but he just ignores them now.

@danio3834: It's called automotive journalist, and I will reluctantly admit my envy.

@Ray Wert Jr: ummm, ok.

2nd story (this one's me):
Somehow I got it into my 20year old head that my 91 Wrangler with 70k miles and like 12kmi on a new engine (that's a different story) wasn't going to be reliable enough, and wasn't build "hardcore" enough for all the offroading that I was doing.

...so for $8k I bought an 85 4Runner with 186k miles, but $50k on a "rebuilt" engine. It had been sitting a bunch (the driver's seat was broken and there was a black widow in the front suspension), but those 22REs are supposed to run forever.

Also, it had an exhaust leak. Said exhaust leak would never quite seal up. Also, the oil seal on the front of the crank blew, and I had to put in a quart of oil every 50 miles driving from San Diego to San Jose.

Then, the head gasket blew. I didn't have the skills/tools/space to do it myself, so I took it to a really good shop to basically rebuild the whole top end. Every time they took off more parts, they found more and more evidence that the previous "rebuild" was done by a bunch of squirrels carrying tools. A borrowed $2600 later, and it was ready to run, with a 12 month warranty on all the work.

It got stolen 6 weeks later, never to be heard from again.

TO: The MadAdder.

Thing is, the '77 wasn't a beater. It was probably one of the cleanest '77 Mercs that I could find in Michigan! (This happened back around 1985). It only had 76K on the odometer and looked great. It even fooled a mechanic friend who test drove the car. He actually put the engine and trans AT COST because the car was falling apart so bad.

I don't drive "beaters". All of the cars I own or have owned are nice cars, but I put a crap load of mileage on it (my current '96 Town Car is currently getting about 1,000 miles A WEEK on it.) It's at 155K miles and climbing fast.

It's been so long that I can't remember the exact details of my two lemon experiences. But I do remember two life lessons worth sharing.

1.If you're buying a car from somebody who put white out on the title. Walk away.

2.If you want a VW / Audi, don't ever go to a Jim Ellis dealership. Unless of course you enjoy 6 months of pain, and then another few weeks dealing with VWOA.

I had a 84 Rabbit that was a nightmare. It finally became a planter when the clutch cable snapped on the way home from work, and I couldn't shift it out of second.

With all the severe problems, the most "lemony" issue was fairly minor. I parked the car, and pulled up on the parking break, and tore it completely out of its fixture. Made me feel like the Hulk.

I was working at an independant repair garage at the time. I got to see a lot of 'lemons' during my time there. There really isnt such a thing as a car that can't be fixed, rather most of the time is a tech being over reliant on past experiences or not following the correct process of diagnosis.

Some cars are just plain difficult. the Car in question was a 2002 Volvo S60. It was a nice car, 50,000miles on it. The darn thing would intermittantly go into 'limp' mode but not throw any codes. The car came to our shop because the Volvo dealer had it for 3 weeks and couldnt fix it.

It was my job to drive the car with scanner in hand and try and reproduce the concern. When it finally came back, 2 weeks at the shop, we found the voltage on the remote throttle actuator was out of whack. Even after replacing that, the issue still came back. The guy ended up so frustrated with the car, he went and traded it in.

@no_slushbox:

Yeah, no kidding.

VW tried to charge my buddy for a new clutch after 10,000kms cause they replaced the transmission under warranty. They said they wouldnt warranty the transmission unless he paid for a new clutch. It clearly wasn't worn, so after some argument they put a new one in as "goodwill".

However, Ford didn't say a thing to my Focus driving friend when they did his trans, and he beat his up badly.

I had an '86 Excel. It was citrus from front to back and side to side. The most reliable part: the power sunroof, no joke. And I never even liked the damned sunroof.

One big upside: the privacy panel that drops down over the luggage space when you shut the hatch, is easy to separate from its lifting points. Lowered, with the hatch up, it's a very convenient height and size to change diapers on, with all your baby gear in the trunk right there at your knees, and the raised hatch keeping you out of the rain.

I got totally tanked on a used lemon. Bought a 3000GT VR4 on ebay. The person who owned and sold it was an older couple, and their son was a detailer. I saw the car in pictures and it looked pretty clean, little did I know those pictures were from when THEY GOT the car. After a boost controller and an underbody light kit that had been smashed on something I cam to find out through a terrible series of events that it was this moron kids' first car... and oh did he have terrible intentions for it.
Of course I called to confirm the car was clean, no rust, running well, recently to a [crooked] mechanic and checked out. So I bought the car and I met his father halfway between our houses in the middle of the night (I was working, but this was mistake #1). After a best-I-could-do inspection with my LED flashlight I paid cash, got the keys, and started on my 270 mile trip home. Halfway there I stop to get gas and notice an interesting amount of tick. I've heard bad things about the lifters on the car so I fill up, keep on trudging. The next day I start the car up "I know that sound, that a$$hat!" I could tell the incredibly expensive/hard-to-find/labor to work on 6g72 was suffering from rod knock, and I just got duped. The parts on the car were all cheap crap, and the person who did the work was not very skilled. The boost controller was set near 18psi which is undoubtedly what detonated the motor into the ground. The bottom of the car was covered in oil from "a transmission problem that was just fixed" and there was rust in just about all the right places. Every body panel had been beat to hell by "someone jumped on my bumper" and "I hit a curb there" and on and on, and the broken super-rice underbody lights were zip tied to the AWS actuators... which inevitably broke them.

So I tried to file a claim with eBay, which is a total racket. I provided proof that the car was inspected before I bought it, paid extra money to tow the car to a dealer (specifically a dealer, even though I could have done a compression test at any one of 30-miles-closer shops or my own garage) to have them say it was rod knock, it was there for a while (dealer admitted before I got the car) it was because of the high boost, and it had been filled with very high weight oil to cover up the sound on my receipt of the vehicle.
Despite me then having to take it to a second shop for inspection, getting jerked around by ebay insurance for 5 months they called me the day after my grandmother died to deny me! They claimed that none of the problems themselves qualified me for the $1000 amount needed to make a claim, even though they understood that all of the problems together did. This is ignoring the fact that the dealer quoted $5,000 for a new engine, $2,000 for new turbos which were destroyed and leaking oil everywhere, $3,000 in damaged body work and a slew of other terrible broken items on a car that was described as "flawless".

Long story short, I hate the seller, but I hate ebay's lame insurance even more. After they pay out to you it is there job to get the money from the seller. AKA: not gonna happen, they are just there to stamp deny after they give you the runaround. I will never buy a car on ebay again!

Shoot - why did you have to run this question a day before an auction ends that I really, really want to jump on.

Anyone have a good eBay experience that can assuage my fears?

@SwatLax:

Yeah, my cousin bought a '96 Impreza off ebay. He paid a decent price and got an okay car for the price he paid. Only issue was the cam seals blowing oil, but we changed em when we did the 20 foot long timing belt.

He got what he paid for. I personally wouldnt commit to an ebay purchase without a good look tho.

While there are some truly horrific stories here ('02 BMW M3, and '01 Audi Allroad come to mind), cheap-o cars like the '84 Rabbit, '68 VW Bus, '77 Grand Marquis, and '86 Audi 5000 deserve no sympathy.

Ford Super-Duper with the soda can in the drive shaft wins it for me.

@DeeJayQueue: In my experience cars with salvage titles sold by "some Russian guy" were once stolen, stripped, carcass left for police to find and for insurance company to sell at auction, rebought by the thief and hastily rebuilt. Hence the massive little problems. I've seen a lot of them myself.

1991 Subaru Legacy L+
Thankfully I purchased an extended 100,000 Subaru warranty from the dealer with no deductible,so all was fixed,but here's my story:
5,000 miles - trim at top of windshielf blew off
12,000 miles - replaced wheel bearings on both rear wheels
15,000 miles - stranded the wife, wouldn't start, no problem found, started next day
22,000 miles - replaced wheel bearings on both rear wheels
25,000 miles - stranded the wife again, no problem found, started next day
27,000 miles - replaced radio
32,000 miles - replaced wheel bearings on both rear wheels
38,000 miles - quit running - dealer couldn't find problem, found that if you disconnect/reconnect battery, would restart
39,000 miles - recall for transmission cooler
40,000 miles - replace front axle knuckles
41,000 miles - ABS light on, replaced module
45,000 miles - replaced wheel bearings on both rear wheels
47,000 miles - ABS light on, electrical short
50,000 miles - transmission leaking fluid (2 week repair, dealer tried to charge me for rental because Subaru only allowed 4 days, ha)
51,000 miles - blew transmission seal (2 week repair, dealer tried to charge me for rental because Subaru only allowed 4 days, ha)
54,000 miles - leaking transmission fluid from speedometer guage in dash (1 week repair, dealer tried to charge me for rental because Subaru only allowed 2 days, ha)
59,000 miles - replaced wheel bearings on both rear wheels
61,000 miles - motorized seatbelt stopped working
78,000 miles - replaced wheel bearings on both rear wheels
94,000 miles - replaced wheel bearings on both rear wheels
105,000 miles - TRADED
Never went back to that dealer either!

@SwatLax: Ebay is only as good as the particular seller that you're dealing with. I've had good experiences buying parts on ebay, but for something as expensive as a car I wouldn't deal with anyone that was too far away for a personal inspection.

I don't know much about the ebay warranty/insurance policy, but I would imagine that like most 3rd party warranties it isn't worth the paper it's written on.

How about the opposite?? Have any of you owned beaters that lasted way longer than expected?

In my case, I bought an '86 Cutlass Calais 5-spd for $500.00 to get me through a winter in high school, so I didn't have to drive my '66 GTO (this was in the late '90s). It lasted through the winter, and then I delivered pizzas in it for a year with no problems. I then sold it to my friend for the same amount I bought it for. He drove it for a year, then sold it to another mutual friend, who somehow ended up ramming the rear shocks into the trunk.

My '84 Buick Skyhawk.

Electrical - It would burn up either the alternator or starter at least once per year, without warning. Usually managed to happen at least 100 miles from home, after sunset.

Exhaust - crumbled to dust, and eventually consisted of little more than exhaust wrap and clothes hangers.

Body - I think it was actually pre-oxidized before it was painted.

Cooling system - good god.

Transmission - perpetually leaked, was never tracked down.

Interior - the seatback recliner which crapped out, which made for fun when the seat would suddenly collapse rearward from time to time.

Oh, and I will never forget the sunroof. Leaked like crazy from new. My sister will never forget when she did me a favor and drove it through an automatic car wash. She said the sheet of water pouring in from the front edge was rather beautiful, except it was pouring all over her.

I sold it for $75. The last GM my family bought for 20 years.

Inspired my M98COX, I went and looked up my online review of my old (sold on ebay!) Jetta TDI.

~25,000 miles - One of the glove box door hinges broke. Never bothered to fix, still works fine on just one side.

~42,000 miles - Entire engine (short block) replaced under warranty by VW North America. (Water pump also replaced when engine was replaced.) Engine killed when a valve stem holder broke, allowing engine to ingest valve, which destroyed head, piston & possibly block. Timing belt had been changed just a few thousand miles before this, but the mechanics at the VW Dealer (not the dealer at which the timing belt had been done) found that the timing was still correct, even after the catastrophic engine failure. Repair took approximately 1 week. Rental car paid for by extended warranty.

~44,000 miles - Broke down and left me stranded when a fuel filter connection slipped loose & engine tried to run on a 100% air-air mixture.

~Somewhere in the mid 40's. Massive oil leak from turbo oil supply line leads to another trip on the friendly back of Farmington Motor Sports flat bed to VW dealer.

~50,000 miles - Glow plug harness failed, replaced under extended warranty.

~63,000 MAF Sensor (Mass Air Flow Sensor, if you know TDI's, you've heard of this) replaced - paid for by extended warranty.

~68,000 miles Radiator return hose replaced after sudden failure dumped all the engine coolant. Left me stranded.

~72,000 miles Front brake rotors & pads replaced. The fact that I got 72,000 miles out of the original pads/rotors suggests how good this car could have been.

~74,000 miles - Brake booster & brake master cylinder replaced - paid for by extended warranty.

~79,000 miles alternator replaced - paid for by extended warranty.

Thank god I had purchased a $0 deductible 6/100 extended warranty on that car. I sold it with six months and 15K miles to go left on the warranty. Between the cost of the repairs and the added value of being able to sell a 5.5 year old car with a full warranty in effect I think I may be the one person ever for whom an extended warranty was a good use of money.

BTW- I sold the Jetta with all of this disclosed in the text of the auction, and even emailed people a 30+ page .pdf on request if they wanted to see the scans of all the repair records. This was a car that only ever saw the dealer, and it still had massive problems.

@DokterDitka ["...going factory certified, which I will do if I EVER buy a used car again."]: Read this Jalopnik item and the comments on it.

'87 Toyota Cressida that my wife bought new.

In the 10 years we had it (~110,000 miles)

Rebuilt engine twice

It would eat keys - they would get so worn that you would have to have another one made. Eventually keys would fall out while you were driving.

Starter went bad<