VW Passat B3. Ate 3 coils. Or VW Touran 1.9TDi 140 000km = turbo, actuator, flywheel and clutch, 1500 euro in repairs on a 5000 euro car....
I don't have much experience with unreliable cars. My family have had their cars for several years with little to no problems. But there was one car that my grandma had trouble with. I couldn't exactly remember what the problem was, but eventually it got so bad she traded it in. The car was a Toyota Rav4, don't recall the year though, but probably an early to mid 2010's model. I'm just gonna use this one as an example. She traded her Rav4 for the newer Toyota Highlander she has now.
Passat B3 coils and 2000s 1.9 TDI engine - proof that not even German engineers come to work sober every day.
My Bronco seems to have some electrical issues but someone hacked in a stereo so I am not faulting it. The issues are, sometimes it won't idle(throttle body needs cleaning), coolant temp gauge does not work(bad sender in the back of the motor where I can't reach it), the fuel gauge does not seem to be accurate(we'll see what happens when I start driving it) and the E- brake is not right
Add to that BMW Vanos, VAG 2.5 TDI+2.7biTurbo, Multitronic gearbox, VAG DSG and some other fail and it doesn't look like they go sober to work that often. The 1.9 TDI in my dad's Touran also turned out to be BXE and they are known for catastrophic engine failure - breaks a conrod and pushes it through the engine block. BLS also has some problems. The 2.0 TDi 140 is known for warping and cracking its head.
Every country has had bad and good cars come out of it. Plus, Germans compensate with initial quality - their cars may or may not be reliable, but they are nice off the dealer's lot.
Not all of them bmws sometimes have bad materials used even sometimes inferior to fords and so on and vws like to rattle from the factory
my family had a ford windstar back in like 2004 and omg that thing was awful... it broke down every day and we wound up selling it for like 400$$
1st car - 2005 Dodge Stratus SXT 2nd, current car - 2014 Honda Civic EX Between the two, definitely Stratus for the least reliable. That's not to say that it was unreliable though. It made it to 170k miles without any engine or transmission repairs. It was well maintained though. Also, the front sway bar somehow snapped in half... the mechanic who noticed that was baffled by it.
My 528i has been decently reliable, despite sitting for 5ish years before I bought it. My dad had a MKIII GTI that had such terrible electronics that they seemed like they were made by Lucas. Was a fun car to ride around in, though. He traded it for a late 90s Legacy Outback. That Subie was reliable.
My dad has a 2005 Ford Galaxy 1.9 TDI for 2 years now.... It would be a nice family car, but... it needed a lot of repairs. So many suspension parts had to replaced, the heater was completely broken. Sometimes the driver door doesnt lock. On long trips sometimes it couldnt go faster than 100km\h (no idea why,). The clutch works perfectly, but it often makes a sound, which could be a problem in the future. Currently the front windshield wipers dont work. It had 202000km when my dad bought it, now the odometer shows 214000km
Not really an 'unreliable car' but my mum owns a 2011 1.6 HDI Peugeot 3008. And it's transmission is balls, 6 speed 'automated manual' transmission that is an automatic but behaves like a manual, it takes 7 years to shift into gear and when accelerating, sometimes the front wheels start to spin despite it having Traction Control System. The gearbox tends to shift really early, and because the gearbox, as I mentioned, takes '7 years to shift'; this has caused quite a few 'issues'
Must be a bad transmission then. I've had the experience of driving a 6-speed semi-auto transmission in a Hyuandai Elantra GT. It had no issues with shifting quickly or anything and that was a rental car I had while my Civic was being repaired after a major accident. However, that Elantra's engine did not seem to like the cold at all, and had issues cranking when the temps got below freezing. Pretty sure something was just wrong with the battery though.
