These Cars Have The Worst Build Quality You’ve Ever Seen

“It has to be the Saturn Ion. This thing was trash, even by mid-00's standards.

“My neighbor bought one circa 2005-ish, and he showed me around and let me go for a test run. Everything was trash, panel gaps, rattles, the 1980s antenna, the seats were (and still are) the most awful seats in the history of seats. The ergonomics, the cheap grey plastics, the flimsy doors that would do ‘klink’ when you close them, just nasty all around. Then the driving. The powertrain could be described as ‘agricultural’ at best, of course it was an economy compact car but it was still competing against the eighth-gen Civic that was in another galaxy compared to that. Every aspect of the driving experience was equally bad. The handling, the steering feel and precision, the dreadful transmission and the downright scary braking performance.

“That car was bad.”

Trash even by mid-2000s standards?! That must be bad.

Suggested by: marginoferror

“Thanks to the Yugo, Tesla owners can take solace in the fact that their vehicles are not the worst.”

We can chalk that difference in quality down to the fact that the Yugo was built in Serbia in the ’80s and the Model Y is built in California today.

Suggested by: Monty

“For you whippersnappers, I’ll propose our 1968 Plymouth four-door, a Fury as I vaguely remember it. In the old days you picked up your new car (late 50s through the 70s) and made a list of everything wrong/not working and brought the car back to the dealer to fix (forget the dealer prep crap). The Plymouth had two pages, legal size, of horror details. Window winders falling off, windows off the tracks. None of the acres of sheet metal mated in straight lines. The trunk inside wasn’t finished, also had jagged metal poking through what little paint/covering there was. Half the lights in the rear were not hooked up. Starter failed within two weeks. Interior fits were imaginary. Lasted about 4 months until my dad got rid of it. Our first and last Chrysler product.”

Am I the whippersnapper?

Suggested by: steveone

“When I worked at a large automotive supplier in the field of Perceived Quality, two of our lowest scorers were a ~2011 Camry and a ~2010 Corolla.

“The (brand new) Camry interior actually fell apart on us while we were evaluating it. Like...parts that shouldn’t fall off came off in our hands while just doing tactile evaluation on the awful hard plastic the dash was made up of.”

An engine that can run for a million miles is no good if the interior keeps falling off.

Suggested by: mp81440

“1981 Volks Jetta diesel. Mine was an Oktoberfest special in all the wrong drunken ways semi humanely possible. Loose bolts everywhere. It spent more time at the dealership than in my garage for engine issues, transmission issues, panel gap issues, window cranks falling off. Massive high horsepower starter with a single tiny 12v battery. No fuel line heater. Might as well park it all winter. 52 glorious horsepower I believe. Only redeeming feature was tailgaters received a James Bond worthy smokescreen from me at no charge.”

A Jetta should be for life, not just for Summer.

Suggested by: purgatorypender

“In 1997 my dad (a pool cleaner) traded in his trusty 1983 Nissan Pickup for a brand new Dodge Dakota. That thing was an absolute wreck, the horrible build quality surpassed only by the trash service from the dealership. I swear, I remember the inside of that dealer’s waiting room better than I remember my own bedroom from the time.

“For some reason, the alignment only lasted about 10-15k miles at a time on that thing before needing to be redone. Of course this roasted tires but it also seemed to play some role in the constant warping of rotors which themselves lasted no more than about the same 10-15k miles. The plastic-fantastic interior was poorly assembled and would scratch if you looked at it wrong. The seatbelts needed replacing multiple times as the retractor kept breaking, and the internals in the door (window mechanism and door lock mechanism) broke twice on the passenger door, which was rarely used. The second time, the dealer cheaped out on us and would not get us a matching key. So, on our less-than-two-year-old truck we had to have two different keys to open the doors.

“Turned me off to Chrysler products for life. The only good thing I can say about it is that I learned to drive a manual in that truck as a 12 year old cruising around in a local community college parking lot.”

Hey, you learned to drive stick, you gotta take the little wins.

Suggested by: santacruzin6

“I believe that the 1976 Plymouth Volare I bought new was worst single automobile ever produced, anywhere, by anybody. I stopped counting at 100 defects. The gearshift linkage was assembled to give the ever-popular 1-2-4-3 shift pattern. By the time that I sold it at 4X,XXX miles the second transmission was failing. It had a tan interior with four tan seat belts and two black ones, etc.

“I vowed to never again buy any MOPAR product, 44 years later, I have not done so. Under the ‘Karma is a bitch’ category, I later inherited a Plymouth Horizon that was better, being only a horrible automobile. Then my son inherited a 1977 Dodge pickup with the same slant six/ four-speed manual that was an almost-decent vehicle except for the transmission linkage.”

Ah! Another Plymouth, I know just what to do with you.

Suggested by: huttersfield

“The first-generation Chevy Aveo has to be the most poorly assembled modern car I have ever seen. A Rent-a-Wreck I worked at in college bought a fleet of them at auction. They were former major-brand rental cars, had less than 10K miles and were only like $5,000 a pop. We soon figured out why they were so cheap.

“It started with the seams in the seats tearing almost immediately in several cars. Then bits of the cars, interior and exterior started falling off. Keys would frequently get stuck in the door lock (they were pov-spec and didn’t have fobs) leaving renters stranded. Keys would also get stuck in the ignition switches, which customers also enjoyed. The check engine lights were perpetually illuminated due to faulty MAFs, TPSs, and faulty related wiring. Airbag lights were also constantly on because of a bad harness under the seat, which the dealers seemed to replace with an equally faulty harness that would fail weeks later. All of the squeaks and rattles would be pretty annoying if it weren’t for the appallingly loud road and wind noise drowning them out.

“Absolutely the shittiest modern car I’ve ever had the displeasure of driving.”

What has everyone always told you? If it’s a deal that’s too good to be true, then it probably is.

Suggested by: FriscoFairlane

“The HMMWV, or Humvee.

“You couldn’t tell if it was brand new or 25 years old, whether it was maintained by motivated professionals or the lowest bidder, it was thoroughly trash.

“Soldiers are often given excuses for why it’s so badly put together:

“It’s so that a grain of sand won’t stop you from shutting the door”

“It had to be easy to remove panels if they had been damaged”

“The real reason was, like all things Military Grade, it was built by the lowest bidder. It was maintained by highly unmotivated soldiers, if it ever got maintenance at all.

“The first time I rode to a range in the back of one I could close my eyes and imagine what it felt like to re-enter the atmosphere in a cold war era rocket, upside down and on fire, this is fine.”

Quality when it counts.

Suggested by: zippiot

“The BMW I3. It was a ground-breaking design and is still exotic, even by today’s standards. Disclaimer: I own one and drive it daily. 51k miles on it and climbing.

“The carbon fiber body flexes while driving which sets off the rear door sensors...all the F’ing time. Go around a corner ‘the left/right rear door is open’ Of course the car totally ignores the fact that the rears are suicide doors and locked in by the fronts...which are closed. This also constantly cycles the door locks while driving.

“The ver one power cables are all along the bottom of the car and have resistance sensors in them...which fail when they get a little moisture inside. ‘Drivetrain Error.’ A chronic problem that BMW doesn’t want to acknowledge or fix.

“The motor mounts are plastic and prone to break because the electric motor is allowed to shift back and forth during acceleration and braking.

“The rEX (range extender gasoline generator) is a great idea that was severely hindered by gov regulations and turned into an emergency system that only works at 5%. It is also not strong enough to compensate for speeds above 60 (and that’s with the climate control off).

“Had I paid $50k+ for this car, I’d hate it with every fiber of my being. I paid much less then half for a used one so it has personality...but some things are still really dumb and poorly designed.”

It can’t have been that bad if you’re still driving it, can it?

Suggested by: atchawaii

“After owning two of them: Delorean DMC-12

“Built by people that have never assembled cars, slapped together fixes on the production line, consistent changes to the car through its very short run, lucas electronics.....”

Again, it can’t have been that bad if you owned two of them, can it?

Suggested by: TheDon

“I’m going for my folks 1969 Ford LTD. Two interior door rests fell off. The ignition switch melted four(!) times before Ford came up with one that worked. The driver’s door had imperfections baked into the paint. The defroster vents broke loose from the dashboard and fell back into the firewall. ALL of the window cranks came off. The transmission self-destructed just before the warranty ran on at 24K miles and was rebuilt. The dealer screwed in a metal plate to the trunk lid with their name on it, which started rust in said trunk lid.

“Etc...etc...etc...

“Easily the worst assembled car my family ever owned, until the 1989 Chevy Beretta. I won’t talk about it because no one ever believes the stories.”

Quite the list of repairs you got there, son. Now tell us what went wrong with the Beretta?

Suggested by: miken48

“Lada 1500. These things were imported into Canada back in the early to mid 80's. Total junk. The trunk was a fiberglass insert (talk about rear crush zone) and the gas tank sender was 1:1 with no buffer or filter. Basically like reading a John Deer lawn mower for fuel level. Drive down the highway and the fuel gauge bobbed between 3/4 to 1/4 full, like a windshield wiper. Thank goodness they only came with a stick. Couldn’t imagine the Ruskies building a reliable automatic transmission.

“I’m sure Agnelli is still rolling over in his grave over this fiasco of a joint venture.”

Nothing like a fuel gauge that you have to eyeball.

Suggested by: braking-dad

“The Chevy HHR was far and away the worst quality interior I have personally seen. Worse than malaise era Fords. On that note, until I sat in an HHR, the absolute worst car was a first generation Ford Expedition. Panel gaps that would make Elon Musk go “oof”. Pretty sure the interior was literally just the same as on a base F-150.”

Panel gaps that would shock Elon? That must be bad.

Suggested by: whalezbro