These are the 15 worst cars Jalopnik readers have ever driven

I drove a Ford Tempo owned by a friend’s family. The steering COLUMN moved to the left and right while you drove. The entire interior felt like it was decaying as I drove and there was a weird smell accompanying the visual feast of decomposing plastic and mystery materials. I literally felt like I needed a shower when we got to our destination. It would have been safer to take a skateboard on the freeway.

Suggested by: mythrenegade

Second generation Dodge Grand Caravan. Handled like a boat, fuel gauge always left the chat halfway through a tank, and it caught on fire after some light off-roading. 0/10 will not drive again.

Bonus: It also had zero real recovery points so a local country boy had to rescue the van using either the control arms or third row seatbelts.

Suggested by: Mercedes Streeter

I was just writing about this in another post, so I’ll just keep it going here.

The 2024 Chevy Malibu I just rented from Hertz. We all mock Toyotas as the appliance vehicle, but they don’t even come close to the Malibu. It is the official car of the anti-enthusiast. I have never driven a vehicle that was just so bland that did such a good job of removing the driver from having any idea of what the car was doing. The steering was the most vague and imprecise I have ever experienced. Zero communication to the driver. The CVT never knew what I wanted it to do. It was brand new with under 5,000 miles but it already had squeaks and rattles. The suspension was simultaneously too stiff but not communicative or overly stable. Just mashed potatoes. But certain bumps would just shake the car in a totally violent way.

But, it had a lot of space. And on a decently paved highway, it was quiet and comfortable. I was also shocked at how that tiny 1.5t managed to give it enough power to feel decently quick. And I did average 31mpg, which is impressive. It is, as Clarkson would say, “an car.” And that’s it. But that

Oh, but it did have cooled/vented seats. A feature I never used before and one that I apparently will not be able to live without in the future. My next car must have that.

Suggested by: Kerberos824

I borrowed a friend’s PT Cruiser to move a flat screen TV from one end of town to the other:

Slow, noisy, crappy steering, horrible clutch feel, wonky shifter, uncomfortable seats.

Worst of all, my buddy had a huge Harley-Davidson decal on the rear window, more H-D decals on the on the side windows and fake bullet holes plastered over the body.

Suggested by: Earthbound Misfit I

I agree with engineerthefuture; I’ve only had a ‘79 Malibu in Robin’s Egg Blue and a small V8. It was a gem compared to the rental Kia Forte that I drove.

Forte.

Strong Point.

Not sure what it’s strong point was....

Steering like a freshly hit squirrel doing that dying-squirrel-scrabble move? Check

Doors that somehow clanged? Check

Losing traction at normal speeds on a Texas cloverleaf? Check

Making it realize I am of an age where a will is probably a good idea? Check

Somehow having a window that was exactly wrong for a drive-thru? Check

NVH? Yes

This was a machine where focus group analysts did all of their analysis, but accidentally turned in the wrong sheets, or sorted bottom to top.... something.

I WAS in Texas, so it kind of made me happy to have something to hate, and it was the Kia Forte rental.

Suggested by: Krymdog

This’ll be a weird one, but I’m going with the idiotically-named Kia Stonic I drove while in Ireland. Those of us stateside likely won’t know about it (mercifully so), but it’s a Euro-market smallish crossover. It was so forgettable that I had to use Google to recall it’s name. It had the wimpiest 1.0L three-cylinder that could barely move the thing under it’s own power. The clutch and shifter were noodly and vague. The ride was squishy, but uncomfortable. But all of that pales in comparison to it’s worst feature...

I had long thought that push-button starters had solved a problem that didn’t exist. But OH MY GOD did I hate having to dig the key out of my pocket every time I needed to drive the thing. And then that key I didn’t know I hated had the audacity to dangle around my knee, constantly reminding me of how wrong I was about the merits of the push-button starter.

On the sorta-plus-side, the exhaust was almost good. It was weirdly rumbly, like it was channeling the spirit of a big, American V8. It was pronounced enough that my wife, who thinks every blue car is a Prius because her Prius is blue, asked me why it was making those noises. But it wasn’t a brawny V8, it was just loud, all the time. But at least it was a decent-ish type of loud, because if you’re going to get on the highway, or go up a hill (something Ireland definitely doesn’t have any of), you’re gonna be hearing it incessantly.

Suggested by: Give Me Tacos or Give Me Death

Suggested by: FijiST

A friend of mine owned one of these. It was awful. The Chevy Citation that another friend owned at the time felt like a Rolls Royce compared to this.. still.. fun times

Suggested by: sounbwoy

My choice could also be considered one of the best, since its ancestor helped win World War 2—the M151A2 Jeep from when I was stationed in Germany as NATO headcount:

No heat, no protection from the elements except the top (we weren’t allowed to have the side curtains clipped into place—couldn’t have Warsaw Pact soldiers supposedly sneaking up on us). And a complete deathtrap if struck by another vehicle. And yes, utterly terrifying to be riding in on the Autobahn with Gemanmobiles whizzing past us.

That torquey 4-banger combined with ultra-low gearing made it seem like the Jeep could climb straight up a wall, but not near enough to make up for its deficits. Don’t miss this vehicle one bit.

Suggested by: the1969DodgeChargerFan

Dodge Magnum. Hilariously underpowered and so poorly built. I don’t know why anyone ever bought one. Because of the cool name?

Suggested by: Nick S

I’ll join the chorus of “early gen Dodge Caravan”. this one wasn’t just because of what it was - it was mostly the maintenance. Owned by a guy most of us are probably familiar with - the older, absent minded, failed academic that never quite made it out of the grad school mindset. Dude was probably in his mid 50s, but hung around largely with university students doing a variety of volunteer work and ‘community action’ type stuff. Nice enough, but with that perpetual sense of smug self satisfaction that comes from rejecting social constructs like “washing ones hair”, “maintaining a house”, “cleaning dishes” and “wearing deodorant”. His rejection of social norms included routine maintenance of his only vehicle...

The brakes barely functioned - mushy as all hell, and slowed the car as if it were a mild suggestion at best. You had to turn the wheel a full quarter before the thing got the hint. And the less said about the suspension (or lack thereof), the better. The whole thing smelled like a strange mix of patchouli oil, curry, and desperation. When you weren’t getting wafts of exhaust, at least.

Truly, it was a deeply unsafe vehicle that had no business being on the roads. And I properly ought to have refused to drive it. But I was trying to impress a girl, and we needed to get it from point A to point B - so obviously I had no choice in the matter.

Suggested by: The Walrus

Got a RENTAL Prius and it was absolutely terrible- it was noisy, uncomfortable, smelled bad, the seats were designed for... I don’t even know who those seats were supposed to work for but I pity them and the challenges they must face. The car was hard to drive, the handling was somehow both floaty and rough. It was the worst. So bad it put me off the idea of ever owning one- Part of the reason I took it as a rental was I wanted to check them out. NOPE. Awful.

FLASH FORWARD like 15 years and my girlfriend gets a prius- same gen as the rental. And it is... great. The seats are comfy for long drives. It’s quiet. the ride is nice. It handles as well as any basic commuter sedan. We have no problem driving it, with 2 giant kids in the backseat and all our luggage over the Appalachians- 8 hours in the car and no one complains other than “he’s looking at me.” No problems getting it up to speed on the freeway or in the city. The only real problem is that they are hater magnets and you will invariably attract the attention of some doofus in a brotruck who thinks it’s his godgiven duty to tailgate you.

If your only experience with a Prius is a rental spec model, do yourself a favor and try one built for actual humans-they’ll surprise you.

Suggested by: Buckfiddiousagain

I don’t think we can compare the complete crap that was made back in the day. All of the cars were garbage. However, they did have “personality’ and this made them a lot more acceptable, even if that personality was bi-polar and pyschopathic in most case.

My worse car was a 2014 Mitsubishi Galant. I got it as a Rental from Ontario, California and it had 500 miles on it. It was July and about 110 deg when I got in it. As I pulled up to check it out, the engine died when I stopped the car. The attendant said “yeah, these will do that, you can have the car in gear and run the AC at the same time. Before you get to a stop light, make sure you either pop it out of gear or turn off the AC.”

The car generally was a crap, but the fact it didn’t have the power to run the AC at idle in the desert in mid-summer was an absolute deal breaker.

If it had been 1974, I would have been thrilled it was easy to start and even 1984, it would have be marginally acceptable. But for 2014?

Yuck.

Suggested by: hoser68

I’m sensing a pattern here and I’m going to add to it: two Chrysler products from the mid-late 90s and both experienced in around 2008/2009.

First generation Dodge Durango. Borrowed it from an acquaintance to move a large, cheap, non-flat screen tv into my college apartment. The interior materials were cheap when new and had certainly not aged well and it was absolutely bizarre to drive. You hit the accelerator, the engine made a ridiculous amount of noise, and the car barely moved. It handled worse than a uhaul box truck. I distinctly remember having to change my driving style to make up for the atrocious acceleration.

The second: Plymouth Breeze a college friend had. Same issues as the Durango but the Breeze was at least relatively quiet when it didn’t go anywhere. I only drove it because my friend said “there is something weird going on with the brakes” that I rightfully diagnosed as an issue with the ABS system.

I was driving a b7 A4 at the time so that could have clouded my judgement but I had also driven/driven in plenty of similar era Toyotas that were light years ahead of their Chrysler counterparts.

Runner up was the bright blue Toyota Prius C with out of state plates I rented in Mississippi to inspect properties my company at the time was interested in purchasing in an upcoming foreclosure auction. 0-60 took 16 days and that stupid little car stuck out like a sore thumb in rural Mississippi. Its non existent acceleration saved me from rear ending a coworker who decided to slam on the brakes of his much less conspicuous Camry after he started entering a highway because he didn’t think a half a mile was enough distance between himself and the car that was approaching on said highway. The Prius was at least quiet and decently put together and was small enough to do a quick three point turn on a rural, dirt road that dead ended at someone’s property that the out of date navigation software thought was a through street all while I was being chased by a pack of dogs that I assumed lived at that house.

Suggested by: blumalago

It’s not the worst, but the most infuriating was the 2019 Nissan Rogue Sport I got as a rental when my car got totalled. It was slow to the point of being dangerous, it drove terribly, smelled like cat piss, and every part of it felt cheap and unintuitive. I hated it with a passion. One of the reviews of the car when it came out said it best:

“Pressing the pedal to the floor produces a distressing whine, but no appreciable increase in speed.”

God, burn them all to the ground.

Suggested by: Segador