These Are The Cars You Say Had The Worst Engines

The 2 point slow VW kept putting in the Jetta until the last generation. It sucked in the 90's, by the 2010's it was a pathetic joke. It was coarse, weak, and not even efficient for it’s displacement. I looked at a manual Jetta with one, I don’t think I’ve ever driven another car with an engine that was less willing to rev or gave less while doing so. Someone else mentioned the 2.5L I5, that felt like a gem in the Jetta next to the 2 point slow.

Suggested by: CitronC

The 350 Oldsmobile Diesel. It was unreliable, unrefined, dirty, and it was terrible to drive. The 0-60 was around the same as the quarter mile time. Words cannot describe what it’s like driving an underpowered slow turning diesel in a land yacht with a 3 speed. This is the original reason diesel became a bad word until VW attempted to overtake the title.

Suggested by: D Flower

Any 1981 Cadillac with the V-8-6-4 engine.

Most of the 1981 Cadillac line-up were turds to begin with (although the Eldo with the standard V-8 was a nice driving car) the cylinder deactivation of V-8-6-4 made the cars thrashy and sluggish.

Suggested by: Earthbound Misfit I

Chevy Vega 2300. Early experiment in using aluminum blocks for mass produced cars. Had issues with overheating, oil pressure, and the block or heads cracking. My dad had one that he blew up the engine in. Chevy replaced the engine for free and he gave it to my aunt, she proceeded to blow up the replacement. The car was appropriately nicknamed the lemon for both its yellow paint and mechanical woes.

Suggested by: klone121

The Triumph Stag. A beautiful (to me) Michelotti-designed body with a targa-ish roof, damned by an engine that melted itself on a regular basis. Lots of issues, but worst of all the water pump is at the highest part of the circuit, so when a little of the coolant ends up in the expansion bottle instead of in the lines, the pump ends up trying to push air instead of water. Not ideal. For good measure, throw in an interference engine with stretchy timing chains, and then differently angled headstuds that expand and contract at different rates. Again, non-elegant design. Even Bond (Diamonds Are Forever) couldn’t make this car a success.

P.S. There are mixed stories, but the Buick 215/Rover V8, a bullet-proof classic, might have been made to fit. Can you say “High-margin cars?”

Suggested by: DGUTS

Historically? The 1923 Chevrolet Series M.

In an attempt to reducing manufacturing costs in order to compete against the Model T, Chevrolet attempted an aircooled engine featuring copper finned cylinders and a fan and duct work that wouldn’t be completely foreign to any vintage Volkswagen buff. In typical GM fashion, it was poorly engineered and tested before being rushed into production, and it failed miserably. Ultimately, more were taken out of circulation before being shipped to dealers and destroyed (259) than were sold to the public (100). Supposedly only two examples survive today.

Suggested by: Along with Martin, Dutch Gunderson, Lana and Sally Decker

Not a car, but I have to throw the Ford 6.0 Powerstroke in here. It’s annoying when an engine craps out under the warranty period in a car, but in most cases that happens before the warranty period ends, and it’s pretty simple to get a loaner car.

Guys that buy Diesel trucks (and NEED diesel trucks) are really up a creek when they buy a problematic HD pickup. Many of the biggest issues with these trucks would pop up just outside the warranty period, leaving the owners with GIGANTIC repair bills, and a truck out of service for weeks. When you have your entire livelihood loaded on a truck, tools, equipment, cranes, booms, buckets, lifts, plows, salt spreaders, even having a truck down for a couple days is a headache unless you just have a spare truck laying around.

I know guys that were seriously financially crippled because of the decision to buy a 6.0, and I know guys that put thier kids through college bulletproofing these trucks for people as a side job.

To say nothing of the absolute shitshow that could ensue when these were in use in the Fire/EMS service. Nothing much worse than running an emergency transport to the hospital in rural Appalachia and losing all engine power on a long hill in the middle of nowhere.

Suggested by: Caddywompis

1979-1982 Monte Carlo, Malibu, Checker, Impala, Caprice.

Let’s introduce you to the 4.4L (267 ci) Small Block Chevy

The best first gen SBC is the 350/5.7. The 4.0 Bore works well for the engine producing good power, low emissions and decent (for the time) fuel economy when properly setup. SBC with the 350 were good engines, even in the darkest days of GM. The 305 (3.736" bore) sucked. It used more gas, needed more emissions controls and made a lot less power because the small bore messed up the burn of the engine. But we aren’t talking about the underwhelming 5.0L SBC. We are talking about GM going one step more.

If a 3.736 bore SBC makes a worse engine in every way than a 4.0 bore... why not make a 3.5 bore? To put in such a tiny bore, they had to replace the valves with undersized valves and make special heads. The resulting engine had horrible emissions due to bad flame fronts and thus needed a ton of emissions controls strapped on them. The resulting 4.4L engine made 120-85 hp (each year getting worse) and got significantly worse fuel economy than the 5.7 (Seriously, a 5.7 Malibu station wagon got 10% mpg better than the 4.4L sedan and had twice the power).

But wait.. there’s more. Not only do you get worse economy and power, you also get..

* Cracked blocks due to the water passages being too far from the pistons.

* Cracked heads due to lack of cooling and running lean

* 5000 mile spark plugs due to hot burning.

* uber high vacuum leading to brake booster failures

* GM’s legendary QC from this era were 75% of the engines required replacement as soon as they got to the dealer.

* Unhardened cams that rounded before 50k miles

My dad had one in an 80 Malibu. Actually he had 5. It took that many to get one that ran, and the 5th one was actually a rebuilt engine with the parts of the other 4. His cousin got lucky with his. He got a working engine on only the 3rd try. Both engines had failures before 50k miles even with 2500 mile oil changes and 5000 mile tune ups.

The 200 ci V6 of the same error (spelling intentional) was also a crap engine, but it was only 66% of the crap of the 267 V8. Why? Because the 200 ci V6 was a 267 with 2 cylinders lopped off. Which made it more reliable and didn’t hurt the power.

Suggested by: hoser68

1979-1981 Ford Mustang with TWO horrible choices!

First up, we have the 3.3L inline six. This long heavy bastard made all of the horsepower of the naturally aspirated 2.3L 4-cylinder while having none of its fuel economy or aftermarket support. It wasn’t good at anything, and was a huge step backwards.

But wait! There’s more! Do you love to blast the Mustang II for it’s awful 139 horsepower V8? Well then I have something just for you! The 4.2L V8! That’s right, in 1980 and 1981, Ford decided the fox-body should be even slower than the Mustang II and downsized the already underpowered 302 by a staggering 47 cubic inches! The end result was a V8 Mustang that made the Mustang II look fast in comparison for two years. On top of that, unlike the 302, nothing could really be done to upgrade this oddball little engine that didn’t really need to exist in the first place since Ford had previously built 260 and 289 cubic inch versions of the Windsor. None of the performance parts out there for the rest of the Windsor family fit these things.

I could write a book on the worst engines after 20 years as a mechanic, from the BMW N20, to the 4-cylinder Ecoboosts, to the Hyundai/Kia Theta II, Fiat Multiair, virtually all 6-cylinder Chrysler engines (Slants, 3.8s, and Pentastars are okay), and more. I could also refute a few of the comments here (Hyundai/Kia V6s are generally good so long as you keep up with maintenance, smog era big blocks still made monster torque and ran forever, and the 2.0 VW may be slow but once they worked out the kinks they ran forever).

Suggested by: Mustang2Matt

NSU Ro80 with the too-soon-for-prime-time Wankel rotary.

Suggested by: Harris_the_Unknowing

The infamous PRV (Peugeot-Renault-Volvo) V6. It was originally meant to be a V8, so it had an angle of 90° instead of the usual 60° for a V6, leading to it having an uneven firing order until the Renault 25 V6 Turbo used a version with split crankshaft. It was always thirstier and underpowered compared to its direct German competitors, and that was one of the reasons (build quality and prestige being the other ones) those French marques failed to compete with the Germans despite trying very hard to do so in the 80s and 90s (Peugeot 604 and 605, Renault 30, 25, Safrane, and Vel Satis...).

It’s also the lump found mounted behind the rear axle of the DeLorean DMC12...

Suggested by: GTO62

The Suzuki Verona really needs to be on this list. The XK6 motor developed by Daewoo was a 2.5L inline-6 that developed 155-bhp. In 2004.

Nissan’s 2004 6-cylinder was making 255-hp. Camry was a year away from debuting their 268-hp V6, and the Accord had a SOHC V6 already producing 240-hp. not to mention the Honda and Toyota 4-cylinders at the time were making 153-160 hp, so there was literally no advantage to the ‘Porsche designed’ Inline-6.

Effectively, Suzuki introduced a 6-cylinder powered sedan that did 0-60 in 9.5 seconds at a time when 4-door sedans in its class were breaking 7 seconds to 60.

Within 3 years of this new motor being on the market it was scrapped along with the car it was in to bring the Suzuki Kizashi to the world complete with a 185-hp 2.4L I4.

Suggested by: PotbellyJoe and 42 others

I think you got it right with the Hyundai/Kia engines. Other engines have problems, but a lot of times they were due to lack of owner knowledge on maintenance (Yugo), were more hit or miss (Porsche IMS or BMW M3 V8), or had issues that could be fixed with plenty of warning (Audi S4 V8 or BMW 4.4 V8 valve guides).

When you hear technician stories of being fully booked for weeks because of engine replacements alone and shop floors littered with long blocks either torn out or waiting for installation, it’s really bad.

Suggested by: savethemanualsbmw335ix

Are we forgetting about the infamous Morris Marina? A car that could lose in a footrace. The Leyland O series engine was very bad. They touted it as having a unique 1.7litre engine, and maybe there was a reason pretty much nobody else did that?

Suggested by: plant_daily

Ford/PSA’s Lion V6 diesel. I think this video should suffice as evidence...

Suggested by: Amoore100