We’re on the home stretch of our time travel through Turkey-dom. Cars were starting to get better, for the most part, but there were still plenty of turkeys to be found. And I know you’ll remember them. Hope I haven’t opened any old wounds.
The Nineties Have Arrived, Including The Turkeys: Your Nominations
– Posted on November 24, 2011
Ford crapi Ford Australias little mobile swimming pool basicly a minor restyle of the Mazda 323 cabriolet but horribly done I lived thru the hype surrounding its launch in Melbourne you woulda thought Ford had just invented the car instead of the mediocre little shitbox they built.
I’ll second the Ford Capri.
An honorable mention should go to the AU Falcon, a new model that resulted in lower sales. I quite liked the AU Falcon though no one else I knew did. Mechanically, the Falcon was great, it was just those looks that turned people away.
Wow actually looks like the last of the Lincoln Continentals.
AU stood for awesomely Ugly yeah these did not sell huge lights and a bread slicer grille my brother had one with a ute grill it wasnt so bad basicly Ford restyled the front and back and its still made today.
Have to agree, even though they were a decent car and the AU is a high point of reliability, taxi drivers grabbed the last ones to go 5-600k miles on the original engine and trans.
I still can’t get past the shape of the upper body though, the proximity of the a pillar and roof rail. I have done prob. 100k miles in AU-BA-BF Falcons but I would not buy one for myself.
Well…if you’re just looking for pure unreliability, you can’t beat Land Rover. Jaguar comes in a close second.
Not a car so much as an invention that has crappified many an otherwise bulletproof cars- the plastic intake manifold.
This tubular piece of cost cutting cynicism has probably been as useful for destroying engines as a block made of Reynolds wrap coated with Nikasil.
It is another example, particularly with GM, of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when they have developed that horrid lumpy 3.8 litre Buick V6 into the powerful, economical and smooth 3800- creating an engine capable of living almost forever, they stick one of these things on there. Goodbye JD Power top rating. Hello engine failure.
The other late 90s trend was the extending of oil changes to 10-20K miles, combined with narrowing of oil passages, and designs that increased moisture in cylinder heads. Result? Oil sludge- as many Toyota and Chrysler owners became aware of.
I would think that the oil sludge thing was an accident, but you hear of it on so many different cars nowadays. I personally think it is mainly to do with synthetic ‘long life’ oils that don’t need changing but every 20K miles. I was born and raised a southern boy, and we know how to deep fry. Frying chicken or chicken fried steak would eventually make the lard or shortening (oil to yankees) go rancid. However, even frying up fries would eventually let the oil get a film of water in it, even if it was otherwise clear. I didn’t think anything of throwing away oil that looked ok but went all bubbly when heated.
Its not like manufacturers who write those 20K service intervals have a vested interest in selling you a new car when yours goes sludgy.
So Turkies? 1998-on LH cars with the 2.7 engine and the 1995 on Buick Lesabre (and siblings)- the only car that took 20 years to get right, only to be destroyed by a $5 piece of plastic.
The Panther cars with the 4.6 also had similar issues with their own plastic intakes.
I don’t have an issue with plastic intakes themselves, but rather ones that are poorly designed and/or underbuilt. A ton of cars have had plastic intakes since the mid-90s but only certain ones are junk. American carmakers can’t be trusted to make one with coolant passages that won’t fail, but even they can’t f*ck one up that routes coolant elsewhere.
My brother bought and replaced the plastic intake on his 1999 Mustang GT himself a few years ago only to find out that Ford dealership would have done it out of warranty for free. Hundreds of dollars and hours of time wasted.
at least for GM, dont forget the gaskets and dex-cool that go hand-in-hand with the intake problems…
1990 Plymouth Acclaim equipped with A604 transmission.
Sent many trusting owners to the poorhouse (hooked to a towtruck, by the way) with its myriad quality issues.
A poster child for the cynical disdain ChryCo had/has for its buyers.
Can I nominate the entirety of Pontiac’s lineup throughout the 90s (minus the resurrected GTO)? All that plastic, all that over-styling, all that ridiculous body cladding. Sure, some of the cars were perfectly capable machines, but they were basically just badge-engineered versions of other cars that already existed elsewhere. What did Pontiac have that stood out from Chevrolet? Oh right, the Aztek. There’s a reason that brand’s not with us anymore, despite its deep, rich history.
Wrong decade. The Aztek came out in MY2001. The GTO didn’t come out til the mid 2000’s either.
Pontiac still had some uniquely styled cars in the 1990s, though I agree that the body cladding didn’t help their looks. They were still making efforts at performance as well. A friend of mine has a supercharged Bonneville SSE which impressed me (which is difficult for any FWD car to do). The Fiero was gone, but they were still making the Firebird in the 90s.
I would say that Pontiac was still at least trying to be distinctive from their corporate brethren in the 1990s, and peg the 2000’s as Pontiac’s turkey era.
Wow, I was a bit off in that, wasn’t I? How did I mix up the 90s and the 00s so badly? I’ll blame the high school-to-college transition. I suppose I’ll have to concede most of my argument in favor of the 00s, too. And yeah, the usage of body cladding was not good…
Two words: Oval Taurus.
Absolutely ’96 Taurus: Here Ford had the #1 selling car for years in the ’90s, a timeless aero design (THEY still blend in with traffic), top notch brand awareness… and…
THEY TURNED IT INTO SOMETHING HIDEOUS.
We can serve trout instead of turkey, right?
The Almighty himself could not design a car that looked more like a fish.
Why this bizarre obsession with ovals?
It would have been so easy just to update the “Taurus” look.
Why did they think they needed to reinvent the wheel?
What were they thinking?
Why does Ford always seem to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?
The ugliness of the ’96 Taurus paved the way for Camcord domination. The only remaining American contender basically committed hari-kari.
The desperate 2000 redesign helped a lot, but couldn’t fix what had since ’86 the most stylish midsized car on the market.
Then: Taurus = trendsetter.
’96: Taurus = WTF? Why would you buy THAT?
Fortunately most of the Trout Tauri came with the durable Vulcan 3L V6, and the Duratec was better than the head-gasket destroying 3.8L.
Consequently, the relatively robust mechanicals, massive depreciation, and cheap ass parts have left us, 15 years later, with an ubiquitous “Roach.”
Who knew that a trout could evolve like that?
Bean-counter Baron Trotman took over as Ford CEO from Donald Peterson in ’93. He embarked on a major cost-cutting globalization of Ford’s car lines. It nearly killed the company with all the funny-looking cars Americans didn’t buy, such as the ’96 Taurus and Sable, and gave the market to Camry and Accord.
Damned bean-counters always take over what the car guys have built.
They sent a batch or two of these down under presumably in a bid to soften up the market for them to take over from the Falcon. Fortunately they came up against the EF model Falcon which was a good mid-cycle update and a much better package even before you got to the looks. I think they might have sold <5000 in 3 years before giving up.
Ford OZ had bee threatened with closure over the EA model warranty claims those Tauri were to show us down under peasants what would replace the Falcon there are still some on the road in NZ but if you buy one you need to like it they are hard to sell and command about half of a Falcon $ currently 1k can get a mint Taurus often less.
The orig Taurus borrowed its styling from the Audi 5000. The revamp was their stuff. And they laid an egg.
It didn’t help that Ford tried to move the 1996 Taurus twins upmarket w/ a huge price increase. Tried to get close to $25k for upper trims. The 1995’s sold for $16K.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2009/10/capsule-review-1995-ford-taurus/
The Ford twins flopped from day one and were massively decontented to get the price down. Over half the Taurus sales were fleet in its inaugural year!
Certainly The Turkey of the Nineties. Ford just shot themselves in the head on that one.
Even worse was the fishface Sable. As the proud owner of an ’87 Sable spaceship, when I saw the spy photos on this one I literally couldn’t believe it. Put curb feelers on it and call it a catfish (cfclark said that). Destroyed any further hope for Mercury.
Personally I like the bubble Sable better than its Taurus cousin, but it still is an ugly car. The hurried up redesign of the 2000 models saved the Taurus and made it a reasonable looking car but the Sable was made uglier. The wife and i were just discussing that that other day as we walked by one, her beater is a 2000 Taurus and has had a couple of Mercs over the years and she agreed that the lines just don’t flow particular the areas around the head and taillights.
Ours had the Sable front clip
With blowing head gaskets and transaxles, Disable is more like it.
These cars were the sawed-off shotgun blast to the knees for Mercury. This car did so much damage to the Mercury brand, as to be fatal. Not immediately fatal, but it wasn’t going to take long.
Ford had a good thing going with the Taurus/Sable but somehow took a left turn and off of a cliff. In the Grand Canyon. With rocket boosters attached to the trunklid.
What a shame.
Since I first saw one of these, I thought it looked like something drawn by a pre-schooler with a dull crayon.
Rover 827? Despite using the very well engineered and highly acclaimed Acura Legend as a base, BL still managed to muck it up. The model that see the brand going into oblivion, at least in the U.S. The parent company survives a while longer in its home country, but eventually went the way of the Dodo too.
I think the only thing preventing the 800 series from total lemondom is that they tended to be purchased by… how shall I say… ‘careful’ older drivers who did less than 20K miles in 10 years. If they had been used the way that they were intended, they would have been extinct by 2005. And with all things BL, by the last year of production, you had a decent chance of getting one without any major problems. These can be a nice find today if you get a cossetted example.
However, the Sterling, and mk1 800’s were total junk. Just when BL finally got the SD1 to be reasonably reliable, they went and stopped production to make a car that was inferior in every way possible. But that’s BL (or I think British Aerospace?)* for ya!
On the same line, Citroen XM’s were useless driveway ornaments until they redesigned the electrical system in 1993. The Peugeot 605 was similarly horrid, but without the character that makes many Citroen owners forgive its faults.
This was also the era of the Mondeo/Craptour/Mystake. These weren’t terrible cars per se, but they were the beginning of the end for the home mechanic. Clutch replacement required the entire subframe to be removed, which can only be done on a 4 post lift.
Toyota Carina and Avensis mk1- incredibly reliable cars which are soul destroyingly ugly and boring. If you think driving a ’90s Geo Prizm is bad, imagine having one of these. The problem is that they never break, so you never have an excuse to get something better. If ever there was a car born to be a minicab, this was it.
* oops scratch that- it was Honda by then.
The Montour is far from the first instance of cars needing the subframe removed to remove the trans and no you do not need a 4-post lift to do it. The key thing you need is the engine support bar you have something to support the engine to do so. In some cases it can be easier and quicker to just pull the engine and trans as a unit make the necessary repairs and pop it back in. Of course some cars you just can’t do that as the strut towers are narrower at the top than the engine and trans.
There are still Rondas out there often with their bullet proof Puegeot diesel engines still going strong.
I nominate the Chrysler minivans with their terrible automatic transmissions that self-destructed-total junk!
I think you’re right- perhaps we should have a Turkey Technology award:
Ultradrive
2.7 Chrysler engine
Plastic intake manifolds- particularly GM 3800
Assemblies- where instead of purchasing a spring or bushing, you must purchase a £3000 part that is essentially half of the car.
1990s Ford egg shaped combined radio and HVAC controls. Besides being ugly, when they break, you must replace the whole thing. And break they will. I worked for a ford garage in Colorado as a parts driver, and between ferrying Mercury Villager engines back and forth, I was going to the radio shop to collect Ford egg radios.
I would also nominate the Black Box ‘computer for everything’ that means that every system from power seats to the trunk lid to the fuel injection computer are connected, making fault tracing nigh on impossible. It is this that means while there will be classics on the road in 50 years from the 00’s-80s, anything made after 1995 will end up as tin cans due to some untraceable electrical fault or programming issue.
Personally I think the OBD-II mandate was a big blessing. Not only did it allow for the horsepower wars to kick into high gear it did make it much easier to fix cars. No longer was it neccesary to remove the carpet, seat or do some acrobatics to retrieve one of only a dozen or so code from the imports. It also eliminated the need for so many different connections and protocalls to handle all makes. It brought the rest of the cars up to the Ford level of completeness of codes and the GM level of data that could be viewed, then took it to the next level. Personally I dread needing to diagnose a check engine light or no-code driveablity diagnosis on 95 and earlier vehicles, other than said GM and Ford and even Chrysler where all you need to retrieve the codes is the ign key.
Of course you need the knowledge but thanks to the internets it’s at everyone’s finger tips. My normal MO when I get codes other than the basics, and even the basics is to whip out those magical tubes plugin XXXX, model, Pxxxx and wait for the answer to come to my screen. The crowd sourced info is often better than that you get from the older professional scan tools tip section.
Programming is also not really an issue as cars can be re-flashed with the latest calibration in a matter of minutes, aftermarket tools do exist and you can even get the latest calibration, for some brands, off the internets, for free in the case of Hyundai, or for a reasonable price.
+1 on the computer-chip as a godsend and not a curse.
Amazing fuel economy. Smooth starts in any weather. Engine LASTS longer…my Jeep wrench told me this, long ago, and I wondered why.
“Cold starts,” he said. “With a carb and a choke, and a couple of kicks on the gas pedal, you’re washing down the cylinder walls with raw gasoline. And then running over-rich for ten minutes…more.”
“With fuel injection, it meters out the exact amount – no flooding; no washdowns, no rich running, less chance for carbon buildup.”
He figured it doubled the expected mileage-life of the old Jeep-AMC motors. And, if he’s right – and I believe he was – everything else, too.
Absolutely proper FI is the biggest single factor in the longevity of modern engines just for the reasons stated. Also that rich running also meant that more fuel ended up in the crankcase contaminating the oil.
Totally with you on OBD II. I too dread pre OBD II diagnosis, unless it’s a no computer car.
I would also nominate the Feds for mandating 100,000 mile warranties on emissions controls. OBD-1 & 2 were outgrowths of those requirements.
At one time, a 100K mile car was headed for the boneyard. Now, it’s considered a half life. EPA requirements are what got us there.
We owned two different ’98 Dodge minivans, both with the 3.3L. First one (Caravan) was totaled at around 90K when someone pulled out in front of my wife on a state highway, replaced it with a GC with about 95K on the odo.
Never had a single transmission problem with either, although the GC did have evidence that the transmission had been worked on prior to our ownership (“sealer ooze” around the pan).
The GC is still soldiering on in our oldest son’s possession, with over 245K on the odo at this point. I’ve warned him that it will probably be the transmission that finally kills the vehicle…
The ’06 GC we bought as a replacement (3.8L) was a disappointment – “cost reduction” was obviously the theme for this generation of minivan. Nice van, just felt cheap compared to the ’98. This van also was totaled, by a direct lightning strike while traveling through a heavy thunderstorm!
It got replaced with an ’05 T&C (3.8L), and once our last child moves out (probably not too long now), we’re done with minivans…
I must third the Ultradrive Chrysler tranny in whatever they put it in. Our 1990 Plymouth Acclaim had the 2.5 with the good old reliable Torqueflite, which was un-killable. So did our 1992 LeBaron convertible. Our 1993 Spirit? Uh, no. 3.0/Ultradrive. We bought this thing used, which we never should have in early 1994. The tranny began to give us fits in early 1997, so we got rid of it and bought our 1996 Intrepid 3.5 with Ultradrive. We got rid of it in August, 1999, before it gave us any real trouble and bought a 1999 Stratus, 2.4/Torqueflite, which gave us streling service until we sold it when wifey wanted her 2002 CR-V.
I must also second the nomination of the Chrysler 2.7L. I understand other automakers’ engines had issues, too, but for some reason, the foreign OEMs got a pass and Chrysler, being domestic, didn’t. Sure, I’m simplifying it a bit, but that’s the broad opinion and perception.
Others? Nope, I still avoided GM and Ford at the time except in 1998 when I bought my 1996 Ford Ranger – fantastic little vehicle.
I have not mentioned any foreign nameplates on any of these threads, just restricted myself to domestics. Mainly because I didn’t care about them and they weren’t on my radar. Pretty much still aren’t.
Your Stratus had an updated Ultradrive, I do believe. Mom had a ’99 Breeze 2.4 and it was a newer Ultradrive, though it wasn’t called that by then.
She bought it used with about 75k on it, I immediately changed the tranny fluid and replaced a leaking water pump and timing belt, and it died at about 180k when it got t-boned. Never a peep from the tranny.
Ford “Symphony of ovals” Taurus. Perhaps on design only, other than that, they ran very well – they did the job, uh – wait a minute – those forever blew it for Ford and destroyed the last best-selling domestic family sedan to hated Toyota. We have a winner!
Thanks a lot, Ford, I hate you.
How about the shameless 90’s Oldsmobile rebadge jobs? I’m thinking of the Silhouette minivan and the Bravada SUV. Externally, these differed from the Chevy Lumina minivan and S-10 Blazer only in the grillework. There was also the Custom Cruiser wagon, a Caprice wagon that at least got a glass roof panel in a nod to the Vista Cruiser. In the later 90s there was also a Cutlass that was a thinly disguided Malibu.
Then there was the Olds Aurora. A neat car that didn’t age well due to high maintenance costs, partly due to their 1st gen Northstar engine. That reminds me of the Olds Achieva, powered by the Olds Quad-4 engine that wouldn’t stay together. I rarely see these on the road any more.
If the 1980s was Cadillac’s “turkey decade” then the 1990s belongs to Oldsmobile.
ding, ding, ding, ding – we have a winner! I don’t know why Oldsmobile went down the crapper sales wise, and by the time GM cared to give them unique products, nobody else cared except die-hard brand loyalists like me.
I nominate any Cadillac Northstar engine from the 90’s. Each and every one a ticking time bomb. I love these cars but when the engine goes bad, it’s replacement far exceeds the cars value. Real shame.
My current daily is an ’00 TDI New Beetle. I’ll include these in the list, since the NB was introduced in ’98. VW’s reliability was pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel during this period… Google for problems with this generation car, and not only will you find a lengthy list, but I can almost guarantee you I’d had every problem on it. Best thing about the car is the TDI…
I should also add that what made all of the above so frustrating was VW’s Dealer “Service” was absolutely horrid. When my glow plug wiring harness failed (due to dissimilar metals corrosion in the plug heads), it took FOUR trips to the dealer (1.5 hours one way) before they finally fixed it – and I told them the first time I took it in exactly what the problem was…
Sheesh.
You’re on the right track: but I’d put the “VW Quality Turkey” into the 2000s, since it wasn’t until ’98 (Passat) and ’99 (Jetta/Golf IV) that anybody cared, and that VW started gaining sales (with the fashionista sorority girl set).
Did anyone other than Fan-bois and “Mr. Euro” even remember VW still existed in the ’90s?
Remember the faceless Passat? [Cue crickets…]? Less than 50,000 TOTAL Volkswagens sold in 1993.
The ‘faceless’ Passat: For looks, one of my all time favorite cars. They finally put a grille over the bumper in the final year or two, and sales started to take off.
A classmate in law school bought a beautiful, top-of-the-line forest green sedan that had been a dealer demonstrator.
Within one year, it had been replaced by a brand-new 1996 Honda Accord. And he usually kept his cars for years, so that should tell you something.
“They finally put a grille over the bumper in the final year or two, and sales started to take off.”
I vaguely recall an article quoting some auto executive years ago about putting grilles on cars when it was clear cars received their air UNDER the bumper, not above, but people (like me) demand that shiny ornamental feature, ’cause it’s “tradition”! (clue “Fiddler on the Roof”)
Grilles are essential my cars radiator breathes under the bumper but the cold air intake and intercooler breathe thru the grille and its a handy place to hang a badge
I feel so embarrassed. I don’t have a candidate for the 90’s. I have come all the way from the decade of the 50’s with a car it was easy to hate in each decade. In 97 I became the only person on this site that fell in love with the Saturn SL. Bought one for the wife in 97 and loved it. When my SAAB blew up (memory has dissolved the year) I bought a 2000 for me. If I could remember the year, the aforementioned SAAB qualified as a turkey. I think I skipped from the 80’s to the 2000’s. Listening to all of you makes me feel fortunate.
OTOH I have driven so much junk, especially during my Navy years, that I probably deserved a break. I have come to think that you are better off fixing a car than buying another. That kept me in my 77 impala wagon, a line of Datsun and/or Nissan pickups, during the 90’s. For the most part, not a lemon among them. That means that I have not more than this $.02 to contribute to this discussion. I am enjoying listening though.
You know it is worth noting how the cars of the nineties in general are far superior to the cars of the seventies.
Lily’s ’94 Subaru Legacy wagon has 150K and just keeps going and going. The interior’s held up real well too. And my ’93 Miata with 100K never ceases to amaze. I’ve got the hardtop snapped on for winter now. Took it to work through the heaviest rainstorm we’ve had in years last week, and not a drop inside. Good defogger too.
I nominate the Mercury Mystique (Mistake). Not a bad car per se, but because it cost double what it’s predecessor did (Tempo/Topaz) and had less interior space. Ford lost a lot of sales momentum on that.
Drive one before you call it a turkey – but get a stripper to get the real Mondeo rather than the Americanized versions.
My sister-in-law has a ’96 Contour: Ztech 2.0, 5-speed, AM/FM/cassette, cruise and A/C. And that’s it. Probably the most fun I’ve had in a compact sedan in ages. It’s only a tachometer, sway bars and more aggressive wheels & rubber from being a real good low-buck sport sedan.
Doug didn’t say they were bad cars, but they were too expensive for their target market. Tempo/Topaz buyers clearly valued low cost over a sporty ride.
A coworker of mine had a Mystique or Contour. It ate alternators fairly regularly. He said the alternator was down low on the engine. Not a good placement for the rustbelt. In the winter it would get splashed with salty slush.
How about the Ford Probe? Ford initially slotted this FWD car, which was almost entirely Mazda under the skin, to replace the Mustang. Thankfully they changed their minds.
One of my dad’s coworkers had a Probe. It was a pain to repair if anything broke: Ford dealers didn’t stock the parts and were slow to get them because they were really Mazda parts. Mazda dealers couldn’t get the parts because they had no cross-reference for the Ford part numbers.
Reminds me of the time I replaced the timing belt on my ’92 Probe-
I went to the local Checker/Kragen/Shucks and asked for a cogged belt for the 2.2 L Probe 4 cylinder. “No listing for it” replied the helpful counterperson. So I asked for a Mazda 626 2.2 L 4 cylinder timing belt. He gave me an odd look, but the belt was in stock and I wrapped up the job that night.
The Ford emblem on the valve cover was mounted with 2 screws, and I’m sure there was a Mazda emblem that could replace it…
The dorky, cheap, gutless, oil-burning Mitsubishi Expo LRV my parents subjected me to in grade school.
Oooo… good call… The Olds “unda-acheiva” and its even more hideous twin, the Buick Skylark.
Utter pieces of s*@# in every regard.
Still, this is “old” GM playing its usual, tired, stupid tricks. Same as ever. Not an epic disaster that way the ’96 Oval “Trout” Taurus was.
For the 90’s it really comes down to technology, I think…
The ChryCo 2.7 engine…Ultramatic…
GM engines with Dex-Cool and leaky intakes…
GM 4.3 “enhanced” Vortec leaky fuel spiders…
One big difference is you started to see established import brands trip over themselves.
-Subaru 2.5 head-gaskets, 1997-2003
-Mercedes wiring issues
…are two I can think of.
I’d read that when the 1997 Malibu/Cutlass was designed, GM benchmarked whatever was currently on the market for either Honda or Toyota. That explains a lot. The car was obsolete from its inception. Fortunately they finally figured it out but it took ’em a decade.
Cadillac started building some cool cars again…relatively…in relation to Caddies from the previous 20 years…still the Northstar should’ve been left in the development oven a l’il longer.
These were the years when it became essential to run VIN numbers on a potential buy. The same car could be a winner or a turkey depending on its drivetrain.
GM suffered the problem of benchmarking to the current offering from Toyota and Honda when starting a project. Never mind that the offerings kept getting better in a number of ways they kept looking at the model that was current when they started the project and by the time they actually hit the ground they were years behind. The Saturn marks the start of that style of design process.
I think that the Bubble Taurus takes the cake as mentioned they took a perineial #1 contender upped the ante in a number of ways and then stuck it in the worst looking wrapper to come out of Ford in a long time.
However the Explorer had become the best selling car in the land with some of the highest profit margins in the business so it didn’t hurt the company overall as much as it could of. Of course that didn’t mean that they didn’t see the error of there ways and push up the mid-cycle refresh a year. As mentioned above I think they did a good job fixing the Taurus but the Sable went further downhill IHMO.
Despite what Chrysler told everyone the problem with the 2.7 is not sludge it is plain and simple that they did not design the timing chain tensioner system so that it was able to take up the slack caused by any wear. I’ve seen them fail on engines that were clean as a whistle inside. I’ve also saved a few where the owner was smart enough to have that rattle on start up checked out. With a brand new chain and tensioner the tensioner is at the end of it’s travel or 95% of the way there.
Their other engines that have problems that they blame on sludge, the 3.7 and 4.7 are also serious design flaws in this case poor casting quality control and/or not enough material to have the needed strength. Lash adjust bores do not crack due to sludge. Again the ones I’ve seen that failed were super clean inside.
I just thought of the king of the Turkeys of the ’90s-
The Mercedes E class w210.
Mercedes triumphantly proclaimed upon its introduction that they would no longer over-engineer their cars. Apparently ‘over engineering’ involves painting chassis components and applying paint to the interiors of box sections.
The cheap and nastiness of these cars is apparent on first touch. They just feel thin and cheap- and they cost more than the w124 they replaced.
By the 2000’s, even in Detroit, you just wouldn’t see many rusty cars. Even Ford and Chrysler, Toyota and Nissan, who collectively contributed more iron oxide to the world in the ’70s than anyone else, had nothing on this car. The 210 Mercedes was notorious for having springs burst through pans; having bodies rust through mounts, and front fenders show unsightly rust everywhere.
The rust was bad enough, but there were quality issues galore. It really seemed that Chrysler must have unloaded their best beancounters to Mercedes during the merger. The 210 was a lemon, and single handedly destroyed the reputation for unbreakable quality that Mercedes spend 95 years building.
I had a 1990 250D w124 with 250K miles on it a few years ago. In spite of its age and use, it drove like a new car, and the interior looked perfect. I went to Berlin to purchase a Wartburg- (another story) and was picked up at Schoenfeld in a beige w210. Now, if I was blindfolded, I’d think I was in a ’70s Caprice taxi in Matamoros. It rattled, banged, and had the cheapest interior available, complete with pick and peel plastics.
In the UK, people don’t equate Mercedes with quality anymore- bling for sure, but not quality. You’d be mad to try to buy a new Merc and expect it to last 30 years. Thanks w210- for ruining a company.
very true!
The W210 predates the DCX merger by several years. Daimler raided Chrysler’s war chest to fix Mercedes’ quality issues and proliferate their model lineup.
Is a consensus emerging?
Perhaps we need a three course meal? A “turd”ucken?
1.) ’90s Design/Sales Turkey: ’96 Oval Taurus/Sable
2.) ’90s Mechanical Turkey: Chrysler engine and transmission (under)engineering
(dis-)honorable mention to: plastic intakes
3.) ’90s Management Turkey: GM badge-engineering (thanks Ron Zarrella!)
(dis-)honorable mention to: Mercedes-Benz
Paul probably has something out of left field for us though…
FINALLY: ’90s Fashion Turkey!
That goddam early ’90s teal green paint. WTF?
These teal GEO Storms still burn in my retinas.
OK, I’m done now!
You forgot the late 80’s-early 90’s bright green/bluish color on Berettas! Or…maybe you didn’t…
I mostly remember Fords in this color. I always called it Ford “Uglyblue”. How about the nasty two-tone pastel Aerostars? Ugh!
Hahaha! Ah, teal! The girl I dated in high school, her mom had a teal Pontiac Sunfire. Very awful color, but second to that pinkish/magenta-ish nightmare that was put on a number of small cars.
Oldsmobile took a decent car from the 80s, the Cutlas Calais, and turned it into a turkey with the Achieva. I’ve owned both and I still like my Calais. I spit whenever I see an Achieva.
The Ford Explorer.
Why? Well, we can start with the safety issues of the early ones. Take a vehicle that is inherently more likely to roll than the sedans its early-adopter owners were used to, and equip it with self-destructing tires. Real bright move, Ford.
But the real reason it is the turkey of the decade is that the Explorer, more than anything else, is the specific cause of the death of the full size station wagon. Had there never been an Explorer, there would surely have been a wagon version of the 1992 Panther redesign. It would have been much better looking than the 1991-96 GM whale wagons, which we have to admit we love in spite of, not because of, their looks. Imagine a Marauder Sport Wagon. Imagine being able to pick up police package Crown Vic wagons at the surplus auction.
I don’t know if the Explorer can be held 100% responsable for the lack of an aero Panther wagon. The writing was on the wall for the end of the station wagon in general. The Chrysler Minivan certainly takes much more blame in the demise of the wagon in general and thus making offering a wagon version of cars that came after a very risky investment. By the time the last Panther wagon rolled off the line the accounted for a very small percentage of production.
Don’t get me wrong I would love for there to have been a 1992 Crown Victoria Touring Wagon. However the Explorer did become the best selling “car” in the US and had the best profit margins for both Ford and dealers of any vehicle to wear the badge at that time.
Chrysler “Imperial”, at the very beginning of the 90s. Gee, let’s take a dated compact car, put in some tufted velour seats, give it really big bumpers, and a self-destructing transmission! The suckers will never notice! The LH cars couldn’t come soon enough.
Speaking of LH cars – while they were ahead of the game in styling, the transmissions, inherited from the last of the K-Cars, and the 2.7 engines left a lot to be desired in terms of reliability.
Volvo S80 T6. Nice looking car with powerful engine and very comfortable seats – shame about the transmission, a GM design (the car was introduced before the Ford merger) that was apparently cheapened.
Ford Windstar. There is a good reason these have all but disappeared from the road.
VW New Beetles and their Mk4 (1999.5-2005) Jetta/Golf twins. When you hear about a “VW Lemon”, it is likely one of these. (Someone else argued that VW didn’t start to gain popularity until the 2000s – maybe, but they had a great ad campaign going on starting from the mid-1990s. The aforementioned cars were introduced in 1998/1999 – still the 1990s!)
Nevertheless, in general, cars improved greatly in the 1990s. I personally feel that OBD-II made diagnostics a lot easier, and I can’t see why others dislike it.
How about the Lumina APV? I do like the looks of them, but have to nominate them for turkeydom. They were not very space efficient, with a three-foot long distance from the steering wheel to the windshield base, and odd 2-3-2 seating that required you to remove or fold a seat to get to the third row. Mechanically they were fine, they were very advanced looking, and the polymer body panels were a cool feature, but these vans were supposed to seriously challenge the Chrysler minivans. They didn’t.
How about the Nissan Quest/Mercury Villager. I can’t even remember the engine, except that I had to cart 10 of them a week back to the L/M dealer from the depot. I can’t remember having to cart any 302’s or even craptour engines back. Only those Nissan things. When was the last time you’ve seen one? I haven’t seen a Villager since 2002.
97 Malibu/Cutlass. GM brings out their version of the 1987 Camry 10 years later, and expects the world to jump for joy. Also was named Motor Trend COTY, one of the last times when MT still separated imports from domestics for COTY. The Big 3 loved having that award to themselves and seemed to ‘take turns’ annually.
The last Cutlass? Long forgotten, even the CC Cutlass series doesn’t show a pic of one, why bother?
The 1990s were tough because so many vehicles seemed promising, and ready to regain Detroit’s glory, and ended up as bitter disappointments.
*The Northstar-equipped Cadillacs: By the late 1980s, it was clear that Cadillac needed a new engine if it was going to meet BMW and Mercedes head-on. While the ohc-versus-ohv debate has been beaten to death on other sites, at that time it seemed as though an ohc V-8 was the answer. The result was the Northstar V-8, which was initially impressive, particularly when installed in the handsome new Seville and STS. Unfortunately, over the long run, it proved to be another GM engineering disappointment, and ended up doing even more damage to Cadillac’s reputation. Twenty years later, GM’s ohv V-8s are still the best engines it makes.
*Ford Windstar: Ford took a crack at the minivan market, and, at first, this one seemed to be the vehicle that would break Chrysler’s dominance of this segment. Except, of course, that Chrysler had already trumped the competition with a driver-side sliding door. Ford’s beancounters, who could always find a reason NOT to do something, took solace in customer-clinic feedback that supposedly said that this was not an important feature for minivan buyers. The solution, if it could be called that, was to make the driver-side door a little longer than the passenger-side door…which ended up offering no real benefit. (It also recalled the infamous AMC Pacer, which offered a passenger-side door that was four inches longer than the driver-side door.) Customers, meanwhile, proved that what they say in clinics isn’t necessarily the gospel truth, as they went for the Chrysler minivans in a big way. Which, considering that the Windstar was cursed with a 3.8 V-6 that ate head gaskets and a transmission virtually guaranteed to grenade by 70,000 miles, was a wise move on their part. Ford tried a cheap makeover of the Windstar, with a name change (Freestar) to protect the guilty, but customers weren’t having it. Eventually, Ford just gave up.
*Chrysler Concorde/LHS/Dodge Intrepid/Eagle Vision: Lee Iacocca, for all of his smarts, apparently hadn’t studied the history of the American automotive industry. He proved the old saying that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Under his leadership, Chrysler had relied on its K-car platform for far too long. By the early 1990s, its passenger car offerings were definitely showing their age. Which recalled Chrysler’s slumber in the early 1950s, as competitors ate its lunch with more up-to-date, stylish cars. The answer then was to leapfrog the competition with the Forward Look cars. Chrysler tried the same tactic with the sleek cab-forward cars of the early 1990s. They generated considerable excitement – just as those finned wonders of 1957 did. Unfortunately, within 2-3 years, “Suddenly, it was 1958” for the hapless owners of those cab-forward cars, as they discovered that, once again, Chrysler had skipped key steps involving consistent quality control and long-term durability testing.
Of course, it wasn’t just Detroit that unveiled turkeys in the 1990s:
*Honda del Sol: The original CRX was a sharp, light, tossable two-seater that was everything that the Ford EXP and Pontiac Fiero weren’t. So, after two generations of the CRX, what did Honda do? Abandon the concept completely for a rather boring two-seater with a lift-off roof that wasn’t really all that special in the fun-to-drive department and wasn’t particularly good looking. The del Sol lasted for one generation, and when it went away, even Honda loyalists didn’t really care.
Ooo, I thought about the del Sol, too. In Japan, the del Sol got an electric roof that slid back under the trunk at the touch of a button. That could have made it a bit cooler here, but I’m not sure what it could have done for the squishiness and squeakiness of that particular Civic…
The First Windstars hit the market before the dr side sliding door showed up on the Chrysler. The king door was a 98 only stop gap measure and wears a unique grille for that year too.
We had one for a number of years and yes I replaced the trans in it at this point I forget the exact mileage that it expired. Other than that the only other problem it had before I got rid of it at 90K + was my own fault.
On the family vacation I had planned to stop at the last “big” town on the freeway to fill up before cutting through the middle of nowhere ND en route to Mt Rushmore. So I had to stop at a shady station. The next day pulling hills in SD It acted like its fuel filter was plugged. Thankfully it was during the day, I was near town and I popped one in at the local chain parts store parking lot. Long story short It took 4 more filters to make it home and another at home till all the crap was flushed out of the tank.
With the optional air suspension that was on mine and the 3.8’s high for the time torque it was strongest puller and best handling minivan of the era when loaded to the gills.
SKYLARK! SKYLARK! SKYLARK!!!
Have no idea whether it was the worst-built car or not, but it was just so freakin’ pathetic in every other way…both pre- and post-rhinoplasty.
Everyone seems to be zeroing in on reliability or bland styling for the turkeys of the nineties. I’m taking a different approach and nominate the last Plymouth: the Prowler. Aside from a relatively reliable drivetrain, the ersatz hotrod did virtually nothing well. In fact, the stout (but boring) Mitsubishi drivetrain was a big part of the problem. A retro 1933 Ford roadster with a sterile Japanese V6 just isn’t very retro.
Combine poor performance with an expensive to repair (and insure) body, a tiny gas tank requiring fill-ups every 200 miles, an equally tiny trunk and uncomfortable interior with virtually no carrying capacity (many Prowler owners resorted to buying a matching trailer to tow behind), and a hard, buckboard ride on big, stylish wheels. After the usual initial hoopla, even with a later bump in horsepower for the engine, sales dropped off quickly for an expensive, impractical car. The once proud Chrysler division deserved a better end than the Plymouth Prowler.
A vivid memory was seeing one of the final ‘Woodward Edition’ cars (a black over red paint job) on a showroom floor with nothing less than a $100,000 mark-up over the MSRP. Needless to say, that car sat there for more than a few years.
The 3.5L V6 and transmission were Chrysler, not Mitsubishi. The 3.0 was the Mitsubishi motor.