Discussion » Questions » Transportation » What’s the most regrettable decision you’ve ever made about buying or not buying a particular vehicle?

What’s the most regrettable decision you’ve ever made about buying or not buying a particular vehicle?


  When I returned to the US after one of my overseas deployments, I hastily bought an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, passing up the chance to even test drive a Saab because its owner wasn’t available for another couple of days. The Olds was one of the worst cars I’ve ever owned: it had me in the Part-of-the-Month-Club in no time.
~

Posted - December 23, 2019

Responses


  • 13395
    1975 TR7, a snazzy looking little sport car. Then I learned that 1975 was their worst year of production.  Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Had to buy a second car to drive while this thing was in the shop. Finally unloaded it and bought a 1978 Ford Courier pick-up which turned out to be one of the best vehicles I ever bought. 
      December 23, 2019 6:32 AM MST
    2

  • 8214
    I purchased a wonderful collectors car from two people I did not know. I paid cash and received a receipt that said, "Received $250.00 for one vehicle."  The next morning the vehicle was gone, poof.  All the paperwork for the car including the license plate number was in the car. I kept the keychain for a long time.   It was the world putting out the welcome mat for me.  
      December 23, 2019 6:45 AM MST
    3

  • 53526
      December 23, 2019 11:34 AM MST
    0

  • 448
    Buying a rebuilt car that was wrecked in the front. Problems arose later because of that wreck.
      December 23, 2019 7:31 AM MST
    1

  • 6988
    We bought a low mileage Cutlass Supreme back in the day. Real nice vehicle. POWERFUL OHC V-6. Too bad my wife wrecked it. 
      December 23, 2019 7:46 AM MST
    2

  • 13395
    Did she wreck it twice? 
      December 23, 2019 8:08 AM MST
    0

  • 6988
    Yes. She finally put it outta it's misery by wrapping it around a pole in a snow storm. Then she borrowed her sister's car and put it on it's roof. (snow covered roads)  Finally, she was so afraid to drive in icy road conditions, she let her friend drive our new GMC Envoy who promptly lost it on a patch of ice and totaled that vehicle. 
      December 23, 2019 8:22 AM MST
    1

  • 53526

      (it’s its)  [Twice.]
      December 23, 2019 11:35 AM MST
    0

  • 6988
    Oooops!  I was thinking about that children's poem; 'The Itsy Bitsy Spider'.
      December 23, 2019 6:38 PM MST
    0

  • 19937
    My first car was a used Pontiac 6000.  The car needed so much work after a couple of months that I could have put a nice down payment on a new car had I been smarter.  Thereafter, I never bought another used car.
      December 23, 2019 8:20 AM MST
    1

  • 2836
    When I was 18 years old, It was my wish to purchase a 1975 MG Midget. This is not my car, but it is the exact same make, model, year, and color.

    This was my dream car. The first day I hopped in with money in my pocket, the roof down, I experienced a moment of freedom and joy like never before. As a young guy with a trim body, long thick hair such as a lion's mane, hormones raging, and very cute...

    I thought I was everything! I felt like a rockstar! lol

    Then...the nightmare began within a month. Before I continue, it should be noted that...  

    AN 18-YEAR-OLD BOY SHOULD NEVER HAVE AN MG MIDGET!!!

    Tune-ups required, about $200. Sometimes the parts were not available and had to be ordered. The Engine caught fire once because the exhaust manifold cracked shooting super-hot air onto the dual carbs. Then, the king-pins wore out, Then the clutch wore out. Anyone familiar with an MG Midget knows that this is not a simple task. Because of the low ground clearance, the underneath of the car is sealed. This required the Engine to be pulled. The drive-shaft is then disconnected from the rear end, and the entire trans is pulled forward into the engine compartment. Uggggggggggggh. 

    Yeah. I had lots of fun with that little guy (most which I cannot repeat in open forum LOL), but that was overshadowed by the maintenance and repair costs.

     And there was that time I fell asleep at the wheel and drove the car into a snowbank during a raging blizzard. After burying it up to the taillights in snow, I needed to crawl through my window and dig my way through about 5-6 feet of snow with bare hands at 3am in the morning. 

    Did I already say that an 18-year-old kid should never have an MG Midget? *sigh*

    Good Times!




      December 23, 2019 10:56 AM MST
    1

  • 1152
    A friend of mine once drove an MGB. It was the one time I advocated that he was better off making new car payments, as the monthly repair bills on the MGB were about the same as car payments.

    Most cars eventually run out of things to break. The MGB seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of $250-$300 repairs.
      December 23, 2019 6:13 PM MST
    2

  • 2836
    LOL

    You are right about that!
    I saved and bought my car outright. The repair bills were astronomical. That new clutch cost me $1900 bucks!

    Luckily, I found a sucker to buy it. My uncle. LOL
    He was a sports car enthusiast who also had a Triumph Spitfire, a Fiat, a corvette, and a Sunbeam Tiger. He wanted an MG and boy...he got one.
      December 23, 2019 6:42 PM MST
    1

  • 3523
    I paid $6300 for a used Plymouth voyager about 20 years ago.  I spent another 6,000 keeping it running during the next five years.  I will never own another Chrysler product as long as I live.
      December 23, 2019 5:25 PM MST
    1

  • 1152
    I have been relatively lucky with vehicle purchases. It helps that I'm handy and have a fondness for cars, so many repairs others would find daunting (or would have to pay large sums to a mechanic to do), I've been able to do myself.

    From a strictly financial standpoint, I leased a Mazda MX-6 less than a year before I got married and my wife went on a holy quest to purchase a house. We found making the lease payments after we added a mortgage to our financial life was a bit painful, so we forked over a tidy sum to get out from the lease contract.

    From a "Well, that was just a misguided purchase" standpoint, I bought a Mazda Protege5 wagon to haul our dogs around when I already had a perfectly serviceable 1988 Acura Integra 5-door hatchback. I ended up mostly continuing to use the older car, while the new Mazda sat idle. I think we ended up trading it in when we bought my wife a new car (possibly her 2000 Miata).




      December 23, 2019 6:10 PM MST
    1

  • 3719
    It was a long wheelbase, safari-bodied LandRover, I think a Series 3.  

    The car was generally in fair condition but I had failed to spot that the chassis was severely corroded thanks to the previous owner having repeatedly driven it into the sea to launch and recover his boat, on its trailer. I suppose he imagined that salt water is harmless to metal! 

    I replaced it with another Series 3 LandRover, this time a van-bodied diesel, and drove that happily enough for some while until one night a big-end seized for reasons I never determined (choked oil-way?) and comprehensively wrecked the engine.

    Driving home from work one day the throttle-cable snapped. Luckily I had only about a mile to go, gently downhill, so I selected low-range and first gear, and ambled home on tick-over helped by gravity. By chance I had a clutch-cable left from some previous car, and I succeeded in using it to replace the broken L/R  cable.

    That vehicle had a control unfamiliar to me but which I thought was for ventilation vents, until I  noticed it appeared to affect the idling speed to the point of making driving tricky. It was a hand-throttle lever - left over from the previous owner, a fencing and hedging contractor, using the PTO feature to drive his portable saw-bench!  
      January 9, 2020 11:29 AM MST
    0

  • 1893
    A used '68 Ford F350 as a second vehicle. Truck ran beautifully through 3 engines before cancer got her, aka rusted out frame. Four Wheel Drive worked beautifully.  It was your basic truck that worked, period.

    Regrettable was everyone knew I had a truck in an era of my friends having econo-boxes.  Guess who always got asked to help with a move, Pick Up XXX (fill in the blank).  My brother-inlaw was a constant abuser followed by other family members and my dad
      January 9, 2020 1:25 PM MST
    0