The Alleged Car

* This Troper's family used to own a white two-door 80's Citroen that might be called a car on the virtue of having four wheels and a mostly functioning engine. It was a patchwork of various minor repairs, once lost its rear bumper, and to top it off, also acted as an improptu storage space for all kinds of random junk.
* My dad loves Citroens, and always called them "the most comfortable place in the world to wait for a tow truck."
* Nlpnt once owned a Mercury Topaz. I used to buy el-cheapo motor oil for it by the case; between burning some and leaking some, it made oil disappear more quickly than I could keep up. Even my hard-core Ford man great-uncle admits the Tempo and Topaz were junk.
	+ Another troper has been acquainted with two very nice, very reliable Tempos. Her husband files the Escort they briefly had to deal with under his personal discontinuity in their car-owning history.
* This troper took part in a 2.5 week geology excursion across central Europe in a car like this. Nicknamed "the Silver Arrow". It was allegedly a bus, but it had barely enough room for all of us and a tiny trunk so we had to pile all our bags into a rather dangerously unstable pile on the only free pair of seats. It also had no seat belts, broken air conditioning, nearly no suspension and winter tires (which are illegal to use during the summer). One pair of seats broke halfway during the trip so we had to move all our bags there, where they constantly threatened to crush the poor souls sitting behind them. It also got really dirty, what with people walking in with muddy shoes and all. Every time we'd hit a bump a large puff of smoke would rise from the floor. Eventually we had to do a complete cleanup, as it was becoming impossible to breathe inside. We probably spent half of the trip sitting in the damn thing (some times for over ten hours straight)!
* Impressively averted by this troper. His first car, in a year, will be a 2009 Hyundai Accent.
	+ Impressive indeed, considering how many years Hyundai spent as the source of many The Alleged Car jokes. (this troper drives a 2005 Tucson, and agrees-their latest models are quite nice, for urban cruising).
* This troper drives a Pontiac Sunfire. It's relatively old: 1997 and 120,000 km as of 2010, old compared to mommy and daddy's 2003-2004 cars. From 2005 to 2007, when he was the sole driver, the steel rims were warped after falling on a ditch in the road (yes, a ditch in the road), and replaced parts over that period include a corroded battery electrode, a fried microcontroller, and a leaking cooling hose that created some nasty steam emissions before eventually stalling the engine. In 2008, the car was driven by his brother, who on his own managed to single-handedly destroy 2 injectors, a spark plug, 2 engine mounts, an oil pan, a section of exhaust, and a power steering pipe. (Said brother later managed to thrash an Escort twice within a single year). The cooling system eventually started developing an annoying leak noone has been able to find, which requires a water refill every week, and which has also resulted in having to keep spare overflow bottle lids in case the current one gets worn and refuses to unscrew. Lots of repairs? Maybe. But the car, however, will not die: as long as it has water, fuel, and its essential systems intact, it will still deliver all the 150 hp the GM Twin Cam engine has always delivered!
	+ Keeping with the time spent at the shop measure: In mid-2009, the Pontiac was subjected to a major overhaul: a crack on the windshield was fixed, the speedometer was fixed (water buildup on rainy days would short the lines and the speedometer dropped to zero), the A/C system was almost entirely rebuilt (evaporator and condensator were replaced), the radio was fixed, headlights were polished, the rear bumper, which was so dented and scratched this troper didn't even cared when he got rear-ended 4 times, was replaced, the glove compartment's lock (which degraded over the years and was eventually destroyed while frantically looking for registration papers while pulled by a cop) was replaced, the alternator's band snapped and was replaced, the ignition was fixed, the engine mounts were replaced, an oil leak was fixed, and the car was even resprayed from a badly burned pearl blue to a nifty silver with a red stripe along the doors. Pending repairs are the aging catalytic converter as well as that elusive coolant leak. Factoring in the highly convoluted logistics that arised from living 5 miles away from the nearest bus, during this overhauling period, the Sunfire did literally spent more time at the garage than on the road!
	+ This troper resents referring to a 1997 car as old. That is the average age at which I BUY cars
* This troper's old scout group had a minibus that fit the trope. Bought second-hand from another youth group after being rented from them a few times (each time requiring a push start due to a flat battery thanks to very little use), it was ancient. It even had ancient sun-bleached stickers, rattles, wind-down windows, tattered seats, and many, many spots of rust. Under the somewhat loving care of the scout group, it ran fine for years, even acquiring a huge trailer made by bolting plywood to the chassis of a caravan trashed by vandals, painted green and similarly as rusty as the bus itself. It soldiered on remarkably, apart from the occasional flat battery over summer periods caused by the clock running it down over time, with time. It was eventually stolen, instead of dying.
* This troper's father once bought an AMC Rebel off of a Gypsy, which promptly refused to work properly and earned a beating with a sledgehammer when it couldn't make it out of the garage. When it was impounded, he told them to keep it.
* This troper took the same tour as Michael Palin did (see the main page) and discovered some of the more interesting features of the Trabant first hand. These included the tendency to shed a wheel (which the driver thoughtfully waited until we were doing 40 mph to reveal, and thankfully for the troper's nerves didn't happen this time), the lack of even rudimentary working air conditioning or windows that actually opened properly (forcing us to periodically open the door on the move to avoid heat exhaustion), a tendency to stall in the middle of box junctions (prompting a Cluster K Bomb from the driver) and the fact that the fuel gauge didn't work properly.
* Cryptic Mirror has had the misfortune to own two such cars (so far) in her lifetime. The first being the very incarnation of this trope, the Austin Maestro and the second being a Mk1 Renault Clio. Suffice it to say she will never buy examples of either again since both cost under 500 UK pounds and cost nearly twice that in repairs in less than a year's ownership. One almost broke down on the way to the scrapyard.
* This troper's first car is an 80s Volkswagen Golf. It doesn't sound too strange and foreign, until you note that she lives in Michigan, in the part of it that's in the Rust Belt, and so foreign cars are rare AND frowned upon. It's so unreliable that she's been told not to use it for anything more than three mile grocery runs. Oddly, the biggest proponent of not going anywhere with it is her Citroen 2CV enthusiast boyfriend. Apparently, his 2CV was The Alleged Car until this troper entered his life, when it magically started behaving.
* This troper's mother had a baby blue Mazda pick-up truck with the primer grey patches (from when a train had T-boned it), and smelled pretty damn awful despite the mother's best efforts. Unlike most of the alleged cars, it managed to hold out for 18 years in good condition, despite its age, long mileage put on it, and the aforementioned train wreck, then it went all to pieces.
* Eric Der Konig's first car was a hand-me-down 1994 Ford Explorer with over 200,000 miles and no AC. It tried to kill him twice: first time, the engine coolant was leaking and the engine temperature gauge was broken, resulting in the car's engine overheating on the way back from school one day. It's amazing he (I?) managed to get it back to the driveway before smoke started billowing from the hood, especially since the power steering was cutting in and out. The second time was when the brake lines began failing while driving on the interstate; fortunately, enough fluid remained in the lines to drive the car home. When it was finally sold, the grand total value of the car was $500.
* This troper and her Nakama crossed the country in one of these. Yes, there was some pushing involved, and we had a delay to fix get the transmission fixed while staying with his family in Washington. It's amazing that the thing still runs.
* As of October 2008, this troper has been driving a '94 Chevy Corsica for a year. Bought it for $500 US, brought it up to emissions standards for another $500. Attempting to take it faster than 45 mph makes the caution lights come on, the engine smell like burning rubber, and the car shake. The Missus and I call it "Napoleon".
* This troper was given his sister's second-hand car (Camira hatchback) when he got his L plates. Among its features were- no power steering of any form, a clutch that had to go to the floor for the gears to change (and at one point, disintegrated. While going 80kph) a leaking radiator that required a jerrycan full of water to be stored in the back, a completely new $5000 engine to replace the old one, which wasn't much of an improvement, the passenger side door couldn't be opened from the inside and the hatchback door would never stay up - you open it, gravity would close it. The last 2 were actually the cause of some hilarity - for some reason, some kids decided to break into it (god knows why, with 2 much better cars parked a few metres closer to the house) They got the back open, one climbed inside, the door shut and locked, they couldn't get it open, so he decided to go out through the front passenger door... which wouldn't open either. However, although we heard the banging noises, we didn't bother to check it until after they had managed to get out and bugger off.
	+ Why on EARTH would you pay $5000 to replace an engine on this? You could buy two decent used cars for that price!
	+ "no power steering of any form"? As in "not equipped with power steering by the factory"? Looxury! Try fighting against a broken power steering pump sometime!
	+ In this regard, this troper knows that the only way to steer a car with a malfunctioning power steering is by turning the wheel with exactly the same technique you'd use to fasten a rim's lug nut — i.e. a technique designed to provide maximum turning strength!
	+ And to think the Camira won car of the year in it's day...
* This Troper has met two such cars in her lifetime. One was her father's old Subaru, nicknamed "White Death". Yeah. It's deserved. The other was the truck belonging to the Physics department at her college: The Thundertruck. Oh God, The Thundertruck. The seats are metal (no padding), it stalls ferociously if you put it out of first gear, and God forbid should you ever try and ride shotgun in the thing. The passenger side door and seatbelt both fly loose without warning - dumping you out on the road if you aren't holding on to either the dashboard or the driver. The current theory is that it's actively trying to kill any and all of the undergrads.
* This Troper is presently stuck driving a 1995-odd Subaru Forester (not-entirely-affectionately nicknamed Clayton). It's rather scratched up, one of its doors doesn't seem to lock well, its horn doesn't function, its heater only barely approaches working, and it has a few issues starting, or indeed operating, in cold weather. This probably wouldn't ordinarily qualify it for this list, save for the environmental fact that she lives in the northern parts of Minnesota and thus basically winds up freezing herself whenever she touches the wheel. Or whenever anyone is forced to ride in it for more than a minute, really, which usually covers the time you spend just getting it started.
* This Troper and his friends once bought a Volkswagen Fox for $500. Our troubles started when the previous owner failed to fill out the transfer of title properly and then moved away, leaving no forwarding address. We didn't own the car enough to get it insured or registered or to sell it off, but we did own it enough to get charged whenever it got towed away for being an unregistered vehicle. Its charging system never worked. The CV boots had rotted off, and since we couldn't get the CV joints apart to replace them properly it wound up with its new CV joints sutured together with zip ties. The headlights both had zip ties holding them in, and the hood had fancy racing style hood-pins since the existing hood latch didn't work. The instrument lights didn't work either, requiring us to keep a bunch of glow sticks in the glove box which we would crack and place in the instrument cluster during night drives. Finally, if you turned to the right really hard the windshield wipers came on. If you turned left really hard the car died. Two separate people advised us to cut it into tiny pieces and throw it into a dumpster.
* This Troper grew up in Germany, the creators of the Trabant, or Trabbi. This was a fiberglass-framed car put on what was little more than a motorcycle engine. This had been the only car available in East Germany before the wall fell. She distinctly remembers hearing on the U.S. Military radio one day, "There's a traffic jam on the Autobahn, it looks like a Trabbi got caught on a piece of gum."
	+ The Trabant must be the Alleged Car Line.
* This Troper's first car was a 1980 Pontiac Bonneville, purchased for three hundred dollars. When found, it was sitting behind a farmhouse with vines growing around the front axle. Surprisingly, it started right up. Its official listed color was 'rust'. This troper lost a rental security deposit due to the permanent oil stain it left on his driveway (an oil stain, incidentally, that can be seen on Google Earth, thereby adding it to the annals of history), had to keep the high beams on to generate any form of light whatsoever from the headlights, and found it necessary to keep twelve cinderblocks in the oversized trunk to offer it any sort of traction whatsoever in the winter. Also, a gap on the flywheel required the driver to occasionally pop the hood and manually turn it with a socket wrench before it would even consider starting, and the AC/heater had two settings: Cryogenics and Surface-of-Mercury. It is sorely missed.
	+ This Troper's younger sibling is still (as of March '09) driving... I believe it's an '81 Bonnie. Amazingly, it seems to run alright, despite slapping into a deer on one occasion and wrecking up the front end rather nicely (and it didn't do the deer any good either).
* This troper's family used to own a very old and battered car. Then it got stolen. Then we found the stuff from it in the hedge (coats, gloves, cassettes, maps and so on). Then the police found the car, burned out, in a field a few miles away from our house. It looked like the thieves had been so disgusted with it that they'd simply set it on fire and walked off. What made it worse was that this troper's father had joked to one of his students a few days earlier that he wouldn't mind someone stealing the car as it would deal with the problem of what to do with it...
	+ This troper's dad had his 80s VW Polo stolen in front of the house overnight. We only found out about the theft the next morning with a call from a neighbor, asking us to remove our car from his driveway. Yep, it only took the thieves 300 feet to realize the piece of junk they had stolen...
* Subarus since at least the early 1990s have been designed such that pretty much everything can break before the car ceases to be drivable. This Troper's first car was a 1990 Subaru Legacy which departed this world with only one working door lock, no marker lights, the headlights wired directly to the battery, the tail lights wired directly to the cigarette lighter, and the warning that in the event that the vent fan ever stopped blowing, it was urgent that the driver kick the fuse box until it came back on, as that circuit was shared with the brake lights.
	+ This Troper's next car was another 1990 Subaru Legacy, whose only major flaw was that, after foolishly fording a flooded intersection (I found driftwood in the radiator grill the next day. ), the exhaust system rusted away to nothing.
		- This troper also has a 1990 Subaru legacy, which she dubbed Christine on account of the automatic seat belts that try to strangle and/or decapitate you whenever you get in. If you put it in park, it locks up and refuses to drive anywhere, and can only be persuaded to change gears through two people being on the outside rocking back and forth while someone else sits inside shifting gears. You have to put it in neutral and use the parking brake to park. You also have to push down on the lock button on the passenger door to get out, because otherwise it locks as you try to open the door, even if it wasn't locked before! And the headlights really suck.
* Much like the last, this troper's car is a subversion. It's a Kia Spectra with almost 150000 miles and five accidents (all repaired) under its belt, its interior is full of junk, and... it works. No problems have ever recurred after a fix; the acceleration is snappy and the handling forgiving. And yet someone he knows calls it "the most ghetto car [she's] ever been in."
* This troper is the proud owner of a swank-looking '94 Chevrolet Camaro - which just happens to be an utter trash-heap on the inside and under the hood. The dashboard panels are cracked to hell; the interior lights don't work, prompting such ingenious lighting systems as cell-phones and iPods; the heating is shot to hell, with "Outside Air" being the only temperature available; the cloth seats are full of burns and holes from the previous owner, who was a smoker; the hydraulics in the trunk lid are shot, which means that the 50-pound hunk of glass and metal has to be lifted and held by hand; and the fuel injection lines occasionally need to be pushed back into place by hand (anybody who has ever done engine-work or worked around high-pressure systems can tell you how colossally stupid this is: see That Other Wiki for details).
* On the Trabant:
	+ This troper owns a model Trabant (a souvenir of a trip to Berlin)- made of metal.
	+ My father had one of those. Once, a truck bumped into it, which resulted in a big hole in the plastic hull.
* This troper has a book called Lemons: The World's Worst Cars. The Trabant is there. Need I say more?
* This troper's family once owned a 1985 Toyota Tercel wagon. This troper was born in 1988. It was painted the most godawfully ugly teal color, had paint chips peeling off, the air conditioner and heat didn't work, the thing would often not start at all, the passenger's side (the one this troper always rides in) hand-cranked window got stuck. The antenna got broken... Yet this troper was often forced to ride in this junk heap due to the fact her parents were too cheap to get gas (Gasoline was $1.60 at the time, American dollars) at the nearest (5-minute drive) gas station for the other car. To this day this troper wondered Why didn't they just siphon the gas out of the Tercel? Last year the wagon finally gave up the ghost and the insurance on it ran out. Of course my mother had to walk 2 hours home at 3 in the morning, and to top it off it had been towed by the time we got there the next morning. Good riddance.
* This troper had not one, but two friends with alleged cars during his sophomore year. His roommate drove a pickup that was approximately half broken, including the speedometer, gas gauge, windows, and passenger side seat belts. His best friend drove a Geo that didn't even have power steering, yet somehow managed to carry three 200-plus lb. people on a weekly basis.
* This troper has never had a car that wasn't in some state of disrepair. His first car (in 1998!) was a 1988 Oldsmobile Delta 88 that had been crashed a few times; its interior was falling apart, and it had persistent electrical problems. His second car, a 1984 Mercury Colony Park (full-size wagon), also had electrical problems and eventually blew its head gaskets. He totalled a 1993 Taurus wagon in 2006 (though, in his defense, it was at one of the most dangerous intersections in Northern Virginia), which was an OK car otherwise; he ended up having to donate the 1994 Taurus wagon that replaced it to the Kidney Foundation since it, too, had blown its heads, and it needed work we didn't have the tools to perform (and which would be simple on just about anything else, no thanks to Ford) to pass state safety inspection. He's currently driving a 1994 Chevy S-10 Blazer, and it actually runs well and has no major electrical or mechanical problems, though the 4WD shift motor is wonky (easily fixed) and it needs a tuneup.
	+ And then, in late September 2009, it too became The Alleged Car after developing massive oil and coolant leaks for apparently no reason at all, as well as having had its rear glass destroyed in a mishap with a concrete light post standard. It got traded in for a 2010 Toyota Prius just yesterday (October 3).
* This troper has run into more than a few Alleged Trucks, mostly while working at camp. Two favourites were the camp bus that everyone except the driver had to get out of to get up hills, and the ancient Indestructible Truck. This troper's personal theory is that it kept working out of some bizarre form of momentum, since everything that could break already had, rendering the remains indestructible. On one rather memorable occasion, the parking brake finally let go, presumably dying of old age, while the thing was parked on a hill (naturally). It proceeded to trundle down the hill and slam into a smallish tree, which promptly fell over. The Indestructible Truck showed absolutely no sign of crashing into said tree other than a slight ding in the rear bumper near the trailer hitch.
* My friend's uncle drives a banged-up car that my friend calls "The Bomb", because it's huge, red, and liable to explode if you look at it funny. Once she slammed the passenger door too hard and it fell off.
* This Troper's friend refers to his current car as Appa, it spends a great deal of time up in the air.
* This troper's first vehicle was a 1986 Toyota Pickup. Allegedly. The troper, however, referred to it as a pile of bondo, duct tape and mud with a turbo-charger attached.
* This Russian troper (in Russia not everyone owns a car) owns The Alleged Scooter Bike. It has an accumulator battery taken from a computer UPS (very cantankerous, don't try this at home), non-functional fore headlight (no light bulb, no lamp-holder), a badly adjusted carburetor, often causing the spark plug to foul and stop functioning, and the gauge cluster occasionally stopping working. And these are only the known faults of this cantankerous device. This little piece of mad science was made by a joint Russian-Chinese enterprise, the brand is "Stealth Scythian". Nicknamed "the Pika Pika Ganzen" (an allusion on the Dai Ganzen from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann).
* This troper's parents brought a red Ford Escort '86. It was fine until the drive-shaft went out and at that point it would only go backwards. So my dad had to drive to work backwards for several weeks until he could fix it. Needless to say we upgraded soon and gave the fixed Ford to a friend.
* In 2004-05 this troper and her husband owned a 1987 Honda Accord, a gift from his parents. Our driveway slopes down from the house to the street. This is important, because when the seal around the retractable sunroof finally died, rainwater started collecting inside the roof... we learned of this problem when leaving for work the morning after a very rainy night. Backing out with a sharp stop at the end of the drive = unexpected deluge. Driver's side only. Husband was VERY UNHAPPY. After a number of failed fixes, we finally resorted to caulk - the white sort you seal your bathtub with. On a dark green car. Classy! (Now we have a 2004 Impala.)
* My mother's beloved, but abused, ten-year-old Skoda Felicia began its death throes at the same time my sister passed her driving test and started using it on a regular basis, thereby tripling its weekly mileage. These death throes expressed themselves by inexplicable stalling if you went under about 10mph, even in first gear. Attempts to merge at junctions required a litany of prayer and profanity and massive amounts of luck. Stopping at a checkpoint once ended with getting the car roll-started by two hugely entertained policemen who knew every joke in the book about Skodas. Then it started rolling forward/back a foot or so when you let go of the handbrake lever after putting the handbrake on. The less said about subsequent hill stops and starts the better. Some time later, when the stalling graduated to dying repeatedly on main roads and finally on the motorway to Dublin, my father put his foot down and colluded with the mechanic (who was sick and tired of retrieving the thing) to impress upon her that this was the point where she bought a new car. It still took three weeks to convince her.
* This Troper's first car was an 85' New Yorker. I bought it from an old lady whose husband had died. He had ordered it off the lot. It was all digital, from the fuel to the speedometer. Leather interior. I bought it a year before I started driving, and it sat for a while. A week after I got my license, I got in an accident. It was my fault, and the front passenger side had a hole the size of a toaster oven next to the headlight. Found out from the body shop that it would cost $1200 to repair, on the cheap, which was more then I paid for the car. And the passenger door didn't work any more. Still not too bad for a first car, the leather interior was nice. Then the A/C broke, and I didn't have the money to repair that either. I was often completely drenched by the time I got to my destination. Started picking my outfits based on how much they showed moisture. Then the engine started leaking oil. About a quart every 2 weeks. Then it started having trouble with overheating. Replaced the radiator, and the fan, and it didn't make a difference. I was filling up the coolant tank every week. It wasn't a big problem when I was driving more than 30 m.p.h. thanks to my car's handy ventilation system (see, hole in the front end). But when I was stuck in traffic, I would have to turn the heat on to stop it from overheating. Having to drive with the heat on in the middle of August was a lesson in just how hot you can get before heat stroke sets in. The car talked, did I mention that? Electronic voice you could barely understand. If you drove with a door slightly open it sounded like "a door is a jar" then one of the sensors got messed up, and it started telling me that my washer fluid was low every time I turned a corner. Then the electrical system started malfunctioning. Every week a different light would go out. The cop who patrols near my exit on the highway got to know me real well. "Did you know your left stop light is out?" "No, thanks officer" The next week "Did you know your right brake light is out?" "No, thank you officer" Three days later "Did you know your right headlight is out?" "You know, I noticed that one on my own officer." Over the course of my car's life I spent $800 on an alternator pulley (not the belt, the whole freaking pulley flew off while I was driving), $600 on various repairs to the intake system, $700 on new brake pads and calipers, who knows how much in random lights and oil, and $700 on a power steering system that did not actually get fixed. And got rear-ended, but the guy in the pick-up did more damage to his front end than my rear bumper. It was just a little crooked. I retired her after the engine spontaneously caught fire, while I was stopped at the gas station. I drove my friend's old Ford Pinto for 3 months while I looked for a new car, and was impressed with its performance and reliability.
	+ That car was bad enough to make a Pinto seem trustworthy? Holy crap.
* This tropers family's old Ford station wagon was 3rd hand, had to have several engine components changed while we owned it, and once, the driver's door got stuck and her father had to bend the frame in to get it to open properly again. Oh, and we once crashed it into the backyard gate.
* This troper's family had a car which worked if warm and dry. One of the back doors wouldn't open, and the front doors would only open from the inside, so to get in the car, you'd have to open the right back door, lean in and open the front door from the inside, and get back out and lean in through the front door to open the driver's door. The radio worked for a while if the front seat passenger pushed a certain spot on the floor with his or her foot. The car is no longer with us.
* Mine was a 1993 Ford Escort, lovingly named "Fox" after Grey Fox, another guy who wouldn't give up. At the time of its death, it had a completely destroyed driver's door, by my shadetree mechanic's hand no less, it was missing the driver's half of a bumper, had a massive dent in the back half of the car, a transmission that wouldn't allow it to idle without dying, an electrical system that was flaky at best, and I think the muffler was going out too. Its death? It threw a rod. I bought this car for $750. It lasted me over forty thousand miles. Worth. Every. Single. Penny.
* This Troper's family has a 1994 Saturn SL 2. The engine will start sputtering when you turn on the A/C (that always needs to get fixed), after going up a hill, or because it feels like it. You have to rev it to 3500 RPM to get it sort of working again (it might probably idle too fast until you turn it off and on again). The sunroof leaks and water will leak in any time it rains or I wash the car. The entire interior above the seats, except the plastic molding and the dome light, has been removed and replaced with duct tape. 3/5ths of the driver's side window work. You have to manually move the glass itself up or down to open or close it all the way. I own a 1994 Geo Metro that, before I got it, looks like it was driven to Hell and back. The entire center console is missing. The radio barely works; the LED display doesn't work, it can only pick up some stations, and there's only 2 speakers that work. The two aftermarket speakers on the hatch itself were glued on and broke off. The pistons for the hatch don't work anymore so I have to use a PVC pipe to hold it up whenever I go get groceries or something. The driver's side window can at least go down but I need to get out of the car and pull it up making sure it doesn't come out crooked. The passenger's side window doesn't work at all and is a little bit opened so rain will get onto the passenger seat when it rains. And if you use spray windshield wiper fluid, a fuse shorts out and the windshield wipers stop working. Still, I got it for free and it gets 51 miles per gallon.
* This Troper's '72 Volkswagen Beetle fits this trope to a T. The fuel gauge went out, so I started relying on the odometer, that went shortly after, now I rely on the "gallon of gas in the trunk" to determine when my car needs fueling. Not content to be automatic or manual, I have an abortion of a transmission called an auto stick. It consists of four gears (reverse, low (0-20 hill climber), drive (0-35), high (30+ terrible acceleration) ) and you don't use a clutch to shift. Now finding replacement parts for an Autostick is all but impossible, so when the drive gear burned out for reasons unknown, I learned to get up to 20 in low, then switch to high and barely touch the gas to maintain city speeds. That was of course before the car stopped shifting while on. I then learned how to turn off the car in neutral, shift, and then kick the car back on while in motion. I once pushed it to 75, on the freeway, behind a truck, going downhill, A cop blew by me lending credence to the theory that my speedometer is also chronically wrong or that no one wants to be seen behind a Volkswagen. As with any older car every now and then the main brake pedal stops being effective, and I have to supplement it with the e-brake. When the e-brake is working that is. It turns out that the majestic German engineering that runs leads to my battery got the colors backwards to determine positive and negative leads. The result when trying to jump the car was smoke and sparks. Did I mention I have to remove the entire passenger seat to reach the battery? I am not entirely sure whether or not the windshield fluid works, as it draws its pressure from the spare tire, which has precious little to spare, the one time I did try it I ended up with a nice mess on my legs. The only thing it has going for it is its seeming invulnerability to all forms of vehicular crime. Other cars nearby it have been broken into or even hotwired. I suppose mine could have as well, but good luck to any thief trying to figure out the nonstandard gear positions and special tricks to keep it in motion. It was also backed into, sideswiped and otherwise harmed by other drivers repeatedly, unfortunately for them metal beats plastic and nice white scrapes and holes in bumpers grace their vehicles while mine is unharmed. Still, I think barely meeting the definition of a legal motor vehicle should definitely qualify.
* Cleverly subverted by troper's first-generation Saturn SC. On the outside, it's a clunker: the paint is peeling, one of the front signal light covers is busted, the radio and speakers are ripped out, the driver's side window won't roll down because the crank is off the gear, and the clutch has to practically be stood on to get it to go down. On the inside? The original owner used it for drag racing and had to give it up when he couldn't afford some repairs. The tires and cylinder are practically brand-new and the engine is tuned for top performance.
* On top of his own car woes, this troper must also mention his mom's 1993 Dodge Grand Caravan, the Van That Refuses To Die. It's been through 5 kids, untold road trips (as far away as Atlanta), 4 different houses, one new transmission, one new engine, and tons upon tons of abuse and negligence (not changing the oil, using plain water instead of proper coolant, etc.). The paint on the roof is ruined and showing rust. The door seals on the A pillars are torn, letting water leak in during heavy rain or while going through a car wash. The ABS is cursed and has failed entirely at least once due to a design flaw (something Chrysler has a permanent recall on, since the thing is, well, cursed). It leaks transmission fluid for reasons we're not sure of. The heater hasn't worked in years. The rollover valve in the fuel pump is stuck, meaning it gets horrible gas mileage due to all that gas vapor stuck in the tank. Some of the trim is missing. The front suspension is shot (needs new struts at the very least, along with new wheel bearings and front brakes). The interior smells funny and has some set-in stains. But, despite all this, the thing still runs and will still get you where you need to go; it's saved our asses countless times, and Mom refuses to get rid of it because it's one of the last things her father bought for her before he died. I'm actually planning on throwing in some new brake pads and a new set of bearings once I get the money, just as a sign of gratitude.
* Our Toyota Carina (it's really my mum's car, but I'm insured to drive it) is getting to be one of these. The engine still works fine, but the brakes have failed three times and the chassis is almost falling to bits thanks to rust.
* Mr B owns a Mercedes 200C when he got it it would cost 2857,14 dollars to fix it said the repair shop, on call to a uncle later it did cost 300 Dollars, now it just leaks water and have some problems with the gaspump, and just recently it only had 3 cylinders instead of 4.
	+ Now later i want to add that its in the repairshop again, now down to 2 cylinders and the last time i drowe it, it spat out a huge bow of sparks and flaming stuff, twice, on another occasion i almost lost the front left wheel.
* Impending for this troper. It used to be a Cool Car, but eventually things happened and now it's nothing more than an invincible frame with an engine that's disintegrating due to the fact that various corrosive liquids are leaking all over important bits like the battery. It also won't start up unless the front wheels are pointing forward and would cost much more to fix than it is worth on the market.
* This troper's younger brother's 79' Holden Commodore station wagon is one of these. It's held together with paint and rust, the engine runs smooth-ish (only after replacing the flywheel after the original was stripped of its teeth, and the headers), the radio doesn't work, the indicators are iffy, the roof pillars look like they've contracted herpes or some other nasty STD, and the gearknob is probably worth more than the car.
	+ update, the indicator stalk on the side of the steering wheel broke off
* This troper's mother owned five of these in succession post-divorce. Memorable incidents included an Alleged Mk4 Escort's exhaust literally falling off, and an Alleged Renault Espace's transmission intermittently vibrating so hard that the driver had to grip the gear lever and hold it in place to stop it jumping into neutral. This troper's father, who is a trained mechanic and former auto-repair shop manager and thus really should have known better, also briefly owned an Austin Allegro during the same period. In his defence, it was that or a bicycle.
* celticfang's father owns a Triumph estate. which embodies the trope completely. First off it's from 1976, has no MOT, no insurance. So driving it home at 70 on the motorway was fun. For a while until it rained and the roof leaked. Then the fuel system leaked. And three tires went flat. He STILL wants to get it running...
* This troper's brother loves subverting this one. He's a DIY mechanic who buys old cars and soups them up for autocross racing. The best one so far was a rusted-out '84 Mustang: he upgraded the drive train and tires, tuned the engine, and, most importantly, installed a turbocharger. 'Cause the thing about turbochargers is that they a) can double the engine's horsepower, and b) take a second to kick in. When out on the road, he'd pull up next to shiny new sports cars at stoplights and rev his engine at them. The other driver would see a beat-up old junker with what sounded like a sad little four-cylinder engine and, smiling smugly, would accept the challenge. Then the light would turn green, the turbocharger would kick in, the Mustang's engine would give a mighty roar, and the other car would be left in the dust.
	+ Sounds like Troper Tales needs an entry for What A Piece Of Junk!
* More like The Alleged Bus, in This Troper's case. The minibus which used to take her to school (sorry, not sure what type or model) had been cheap - but it was like travelling in a giant box on Lego wheels. It (and the other two the school had) also broke down regularly, to the point of when a certain group of people were late, everyone'd know exactly which of the buses had broken down, and the teachers wouldn't be too bothered.
* This troper's stepdad bought a used black VW Golf (dubbed "The Chavmobile" by the troper in question, due to the model and color being popular with chavs and other hoodlums). Something breaks in it with terrifying regularity - to date, it has a still-broken sunroof (motor went bust), passenger-side front window is held up with a chunk of wood (the cable used to lower it broke) and fixing the failures of more vital parts like brakes, clutch and transmission cost just as much as The Alleged Car itself.
	+ Earlier, the same stepdad owned a Nissan Sunny, an early 80s model that had some interesting "features": gearbox was pretty much fucked and putting on the reverse gear required ungodly amounts of strength (sometimes two persons had to do it), the clutch barely worked (the troper, having to drive the alleged Nissan once, stated it behaved like "fungus was growing all over it") and when you braked too hard, the passenger's seat was leaning forward, along with part of the thoroughly-rusted floor plate. The kicker? We managed to SELL IT.
* This troper had a rusty old VW Golf 1. Let's just say that the standard radio maintenance routine was to "whack it hard." But it served fine, the chicks dug it (the Alleged Chicks, but still), it was easy to maintain (whack-it-hard was a standard method) and it served as something of the class vacation car in high school.
* This troper's Chevrolet S10 doesn't have anything fancy, like GP Ses, surround sound, working radios, mirrors, or working doors. The only way to get into the driver's seat is to open the window, and open the door from the inside, or climb in from the passenger seat and try to get over the oversized gearshift. Every 50 miles, water needs to be poured into the radiator or it overheats. The only way to get the radio to work is to whack it and hope the wiring reconnects. A hand mirror is duct taped to where the left side view mirror used to be.
* This troper's first car was a Honda Civic, a good model — except it was a 1984 picked up in 2000, after it had already picked up about 120K miles and some abuse. It had started as blue but faded to gray, as had the upholstery. On cold days it would constantly sputter, threatening to sit by the side of the road and pout. Pushing it past 60 would also create disturbing sounds, which added a level of excitement to highway driving. It regularly failed smog checks and needed some repairs that cost more than I paid for it. Speaking of which, the 1984 model was also impossible to find replacement parts for, and certain areas of the engine couldn't be accessed without special and obsolete tools. While trying to take it over the Grapevine (the mountain pass between the California central valley and LA), it overheated three times; on the trip back, we towed it behind another car. In 2005 California came up with an early version of the Cash for Clunkers plan and offered $300 for it, which I happily grabbed, knowing I couldn't give it away otherwise. Despite my complaining, the Honda usually got me from Point A to Point B; it just did so very ungracefully.
* This Troper is currently borrowing his mother's car. While it runs fine, it qualifies as an Alleged Car due to the gearbox missing a spring, and so replacing third gear with a loud crunching noise unless you remember exactly where it is. It hates reverse, and occasionally will fake going into that gear, requiring you to try the shift again. Doing this too quickly results in a loud crunch. First gear is only accessible without a huge feat of strength when you're moving at walking pace or slower. The brakes are often worn down because of overuse. The tires wear quickly. The various electronic gadgets are starting to break down and fail, such as the windscreen de-mister. The passenger door trim comes off whenever would be most embarrassing. It's full of a decade of trash. The gear ratios are strange, with occasional gaps and a strange habit of running perfectly fine where other cars would have stalled long ago. The windscreen has acquired a huge greasy oily patch that sticks to the wipers. This troper has a love-hate relationship with it; it's a brilliant car when it works fine, it's running on empty roads without need to change gear, and none of the controls need to be messed with. It's a bratty pain in the ass when anything needs to be used, gears need changing, or any other traffic appears, mostly because this troper can't make sense of the stalk-mounted controls.
* 1979 Plymouth Horizon. Nicknamed the "Event Horizon" for a number of reasons - because outside observers would frequently watch it unexpectedly stop moving, and because it was a vehicle that had apparently returned from Hell. The power steering and radio were broken, the battery frequently died, it burned oil so badly it left clouds of smoke at every stop, and, to top it all off, it once made me late for a date because I had to put out the engine, which had caught on fire.
* This Troper's family owned a Gremlin.
* This Troper owned a Gremlin back in college. It was this trope to a 'T' - It literally spent more time in the shop than on the road. Then, one day, some buddies of mine decided that it was possessed by evil spirits and began an exorcism - jumping around, making chanting noises, waving sticks. Then they all called out "Evil Spirits Begone!" and the rear windows spontaneously exploded.
	+ How on Earth did that happen?
* This troper's first car was a 1960s Volkswagen minibus found abandoned in the desert with three doors missing. The engine was replaced with a second hand bargain engine from Eastern Europe. It was actually pretty awesome. Bragging rights about having the worst car in the state, actually landed this troper in his campus news letter, and made me popular with the "ironic" crowd.
* This troper's first car was a LEGENDARY piece of shit. Its make and model were completely impossible to identify; it seemed to be made of spare parts from several different cars. It was known as the Gray Car, because when I asked the previous owner what kind of car it was, he answered "It's Gray." I bought it because it only cost fifty dollars, and something broke every time I drove it. Every time. The muffler actually fell off on the highway at 60 mph. The funny part is that it lasted longer than any other car I've ever had.
* This Troper bought his first car for 70.000 chilean pesos (around 100 dollars at that time. It was a 1968 Fiat 600, that had paint that had faded all the way to the primer, and a gearbox that had to be tied under the car so it wouldn't drag when we were towing the car back home. The floor had rusted so much that pieces of it were missing, and in fact one of the door handles fell through a hole and was lost forever. The car beacame the family hobby, as me, my father and my brother spent our weekends working on the piece of crap. After about a year, we had rebuilt the engine, sanded it down, replaced the transmission and redone the brakes, so we sent it to the body shop, where they rebuilt the floor and gave it a nive metallic blue paintjob. While rebuilding the car, we found out it was one of the last 600D units, produced in Italy before they were outsourced to Yugoslavia (as the Zastava 750)and Argentina (as the 600E), so we used to call it our "italian sports car", even though it barely broke 60mph. I ended up selling it, but i will forever owe that car that teached me everything i need to know to never get ripped off by a mechanic.
* This Troper has the alleged motorcycle. It's a 1982 Kawasaki 1000 Police Model which I bought off of... some dude. I managed to get it a whole three blocks before I discovered a leak in the gas tank. Patch that up, now the carburetor is failing (somehow). Fix that, then it was the break line. Then the tachometer (which I just removed, I can gear shift by sound). Then the turn signals. Then I just gave up and bought a new bike. One with a warranty.
* Averted by this troper, who's car (A 1974 Dodge Dart. It has some rust on the roof, a small hole in the floorboard, and a worn-out driver's seat, but the rest of it is in great shape) is in much better shape than his grandpa's truck (A 1989 Chevy Silverado. It's very rusty with torn-up seats, a messed up transmission, and broken power windows, among many, many other things). Played straight by my mom's 1990 Toyota Corolla, though, which loved to leave us stranded on the side of the road (Especially if we where out of town), as well as having some of the strangest electrical problems I've ever seen (The radio turning on and off with the turn signal).
	+ This troper can attest to the durability of the Dodge Dart — the only thing that could stop his parent's '72 Slant-6 was running out of gas. Until the day that became literally true by the brakes failing, sadly.
* This troper and his wife's first car was a 1989 Honda Accord DX. The radio wouldn't work unless the AC was on full-blast (and the AC didn't even work), the car overheated constantly so we had to turn the heat on (like another troper mentioned IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FREAKIN' SUMMER! Needless to say we always drove with the windows open), there was a hole in the oil pan, my wife accidentally cracked the windshield by barely tapping it when flipping off another driver, parts were rusted together, the brake light switch kept dying, and the entire electrical system was pretty much fried. Hell even the glove compartment was broken! Needless to say when the car died (as my wife was trying to park) it took up two parking spaces in our apartment complex and because of that it was eventually towed away. We told the towing company to keep it and mailed them the key. Our new car (a 1999 Ford Explorer Sport) runs much better, the only recent problem is the drivers side door won't unlock, but that's the only problem so far... \* crosses fingers\* .
* In June of 1996, I had just finished college. A friend of Mom's arranged to get me a car - a 1983 Plymouth Turismo hatchback, 130,000 miles, needed a LOT of work, but it was drivable. For paperwork purposes, it was sold to me for $1.00. The driver's side door handle was broken on the outside, the rear hatch didn't latch or stay open (it came with a board of appropriate length, and I could open it by just pushing it slightly to one side), the gear shift took some cajoling (more than once I took off in 2nd gear just because I couldn't tell whether it was in 1st, 3rd, or reverse), the brakes made horrible scraping noises (first thing I got fixed), the car made hissing noises while the engine was running (must have been a leak in a vacuum line, several mechanics never found it), and I later learned that the engine mount was falling apart. Some of my coworkers thought the muffler had been glass-packed, but it was simpler than that: rust had eaten holes in the exhaust system, and you could SMELL exhaust inside the car. Once while I was driving down the road, the lug nuts came off the left front wheel and I had to make a crash landing in the median - thanks to recent heavy rains and muddy ground, very little damage was done. A couple weeks after that, a tie rod came loose and the steering wheel went "clunk" every time I went around a corner. I got rid of the car after that... in February of 1997.
* This troper's first alleged vehicle was a 1993 Chevy S10 Blazer. It had the biggest gas-powered v6 I've ever heard of, 218,000 miles, huge rust holes, and at least one dent in every trim peice and body panel—including the roof,— WHEN I BOUGHT IT! My father did a tune up and then I drove it for 10,000 miles and a year and a half before I remembered to change the oil again. In that year and a half, it was in a low speed head on collision, had a heating system made purely of Bars Leak (highly recommend it), left occasional chunks of rusted metal in the driveway, and had doors which required NHL level body checks to open and frequent kicks to close. The windshield wipers eventually developed a single setting—whatever speed they freaking pleased. It would frequently leave mud puddles even muddier than it found them and generally owned the dirt out of any trail I found. Eventually the heater core gave out and exploded catastrophically, emptying the engine's coolant over my shoes and out some of the rusted holes and smoke out of the vents. My sister swore it looked like Cheech and Chong. After a new heater core (read $50 used hunk of metal) and a day of work, it was fine although, afterwards, the only panel light that worked was behind the temperature guage, which didn't. The headlights also loved to suddenly and without warning switch off. This required switching prayerfully between high and low beams until they decided to return. It continued as a daily around town driver/work vehicle for another year until I became a responsible person and had to buy a practical car. Then after eight more months as my brother's first car, the transmission started dropping first and fourth gears. A local junkyard offered us $200 dollars for it on the condition that it got there under it's own power, as they inteded to use it as an onsite runabout. It was up to me because I was the only one who knew how to keep it alive for the ten or so miles to the junkyard. Cue a C Mo A as it made it, never topping 35 mph, to the junkyard at exactly 249,750 mi. and never drove under it's own power again.
	+ The new car is a 1997 Pontiac Sunfire and is the newest car anyone in this troper's family has ever owned down to this day.
* This troper's mother owns a car which sort of qualifies as an alleged car, at least as far as you can get for one made in the late 90s. This troper can't figure out which dashboard controls do what due to cryptic pictogram labels. The gearlever has no spring in it, making third gear extremely hard to find when stressed or just on certain pieces of road. The gearbox has very strange ratios and never liked reverse in the first place, and often just plain refuses to go into the gear for no reason. The rubber seal on the passenger door has a habit of coming off when the door is opened, and causes an ongoing condensation problem in cold weather. The screen heater only works on one side, the rear wiper is temperamental and broke in the recent freeze, and the interior is somewhat cramped for this troper's 6'2" frame, to the point where he can't get into the driving seat like a normal person because his knees get in the way of the wheel.
Regardless of all that, it still drives and handles very well, the stereo works (if you're tolerant of the tape deck chewing on adapters), and it deals with adverse conditions (such as a 6" of snow or half-melted slush, and deep standing water) far better than newer, heavier vehicles.
* This troper has had enough car trouble for a lifetime. He spent a couple of years driving a car without a working reverse gear. Aside from the occasional push, it was surprisingly easy once you get the hang of it. He also spent some time driving a '94 Buick Lesabre inherited from his grandfather, which had the charming habit of stalling randomly. Sitting in the middle of an intersection waiting to make a left hand turn or going 90 MPH down the interstate, this car could (and did) stall any time, without warning.
* When it comes to The Alleged Car, This Troper's family has a long and painful history with them. My aunt a;one has four of them littering her driveway and backyard. And when word got out she got a new car the first question we all asked was, "Does it actually work?"
* This troper's first (and sadly, current) car, a '94 Mazda 323 purchased for $3500, has lost the teeth off 5th gear ($1200 for a new gearbox), randomly shattered an indicator assembly ($60), sprung a leak above the front passenger foot well, short circuit in the lights/wiper control assembly ($350 for the new part), leaks through driver's door seal, dodgy synchro on the new gearbox, clutch is on its last legs (probably a good few hundred $ there), leaks into the boot (gaps now filled with bog, $19.95), radio no longer tunes AM stations, only one speaker works, stalls when pulling up with aircon or high beam lights on, automatic choke is stuffed, no tachometer, fuel gauge works when it wants to and never below 1/4 of a tank, duco faded along lower window seals, demister ineffective, barely accelerates to 100kph. All of this and there's only 148000km on the clock.
	+ Its only saving grace is that I can look forward to sending it for service and drive the considerably more solid, reliable and powerful '88 Land Cruiser turbodiesel that spends most of its time taking up space in my dad's shed
* This troper's sister recently started going out with a guy whose car does not go in reverse, which is especially problematic as we live on a cul-de-sacdead end road that doesn't even have the benefit of having a cul-de-sac at the end. To get back out of our street, he has to drive up our neighbor's driveway and put the car into neutral to let it roll backwards into the street.
* The guy who parked next to this troper in high school had what just might be the Most Triumphant Example of an Alleged Car. It was ancient, it was rusty, and it had a piece of PLYWOOD for a hood. (This was after a month with no hood whatever. Another friend replaced the knob on her gear shift with a Barbie head.
* This troper used to be a security guard at a warehouse for a department store chain, and would often need to use the the security vehicle to go to various locations. The mid-80s Chevy van had holes rusted out all over, including one which another guard eventually patched by placing a crushed soda can in the hole, then using calk to seal it in (and cover the rest of the hole, since it was larger than the can). The passenger seatbelt only worked about half the time, and both seats were so torn up that you had to sit very carefully not to be jabbed by springs. The driver's side door didn't like to latch closed, often requiring a slam that was all-but-impossible to pull off from inside (effectively, it could be completely closed only by throwing one's entire weight against it from outside), which one two occasions caused the mirror to fall out of its enclosure and shatter on the driveway. Even if it latched, there was no guarantee that it would stay closed, as one guard learned when he was almost dumped onto the road when making a turn. The emergency brake was the only way to keep it from rolling when parked on a hill, and even then it could be convinced to move with only one person pushing. It took more than half a block to safely come to a complete stop from about twenty-five MPH. The "safely" there is because putting any more pressure on the break pedal than necessary for that performance would cause it to veer sharply to the left (which is to say, toward oncoming traffic). The rear door would also open occasionally when going over a bump, which given that jewelry was transported in plastic totes in that van, caused a few fun experiences of dodging traffic to retrieve lost items.
* No one in This Troper family can start the engine of This Troper's '95 Mitsubishi. Only This Troper and his Dad who can turn it on. Don't ask This Troper why.
* One of this troper's friends recently acquired an ancient stick-shift pickup truck. In the short time she's had it, she's had to replace several bits of the inner workings, the clutch will sometimes give out when the truck stops, the speedometer doesn't sync up with the RPM, the ignition sometimes locks itself, the rear shocks are fine but the front ones are shot, the muffler's held up with wire, the engine won't start when it's cold, and she can't park facing uphill or she'll roll backwards when she tries to start again. Today the brake fluid ran out while she was driving down a hill. She still insists that it would take a full-on explosion to make her give up on it.
* This Troper owns a "mostly" 1973 VW Beetle lovingly dubbed Agatha. In 2007, his father bought Agatha for $500 as "a fixer-upper." From that time to this (April, 2010), this troper has driven Agatha perhaps two months total. Agatha was up on jacks for most of the first few years, as we discovered exactly how she had come to be. The people we bought her from had been a father and son (hmmm) using her as a first vehicle for the son (hmmm) and a hot-rod project (hmmmmm), and they'd made a fine mess of her. Agatha is two-thirds '73 Super Beetle, and the last third is to a '71 Beetle. We only found this out after the fourth attempt to fix the brake system, which is from a '72 Beetle. The brakes weren't the only thing: The 'practically new' radio has worked exactly once, the clutch cable has fallen off, we've never figured out what was wrong with the windshield wipers, et cetera. et cetera. Finally, we got her off jacks and on the street after a year and a half. This troper took her on some cautious rides around town, and then wanted to take her to San Pedro and she overheated, smoked, and busted through cylinder #3 twenty miles past city limits. After a complete engine rebuild (leaving only the flywheel that we had honed six months before) and a fascinating new paperweight, she was ready to go...and promptly developed a persistent oil leak, vacuum leak, and a dislike of starting any time before noon (much like her master). I took her to pick up a friend in San Jose (about 200 miles away) and managed to nurse her to the friend's house where I could drop him off. Agatha is coming out of the mechanic's tomorrow. I eagerly await what new adventure and mystery she'll deliver in the form of minor inconvenience.
This troper, despite all of that, loves Agatha dearly, as she is the most reliable and trustworthy automobile he's ever driven for long periods of time.
* Hermione, this troper's 2001 Blue Saturn SL 1 and her silver sister Ginnie are both pushing a decade on cars that are dirt cheap and still run. They were my mother and father's cars respectively, and have now been sold to myself and a family friend who were both in middle school when they were purchased new. Ginnie suffered a small fire, but is still running, and Hermione was sold to this troper for $10 bucks. People who find out about the age of the cars (we both have buddies in car circles) are surprised we've kept them this long. The truth is they get 40 highway miles to the gallon. In a bit of a subversion, my sister has refered to my brother's almost sports car as "The Great Tragedy" because it has no Cup Holders.
* This troper had one for his 2nd car, after the 1st ('98 318i) met its demise from an angry Russian man in a Durango. Work performed in order on the Eclipse (1995 GS), over the course of a year: stereo replaced (with the stereo from the previous car), speakers replaced (left one blew out), electrical work because of air conditioner (triggered when stereo was replaced), fog lights replaced, the little elastic cords that hold the hatchback on replaced, inside passenger door handle glued back in, underbody glued back into place (why it was fastened with fragile plastic screws I'll never know), rear brakes replaced, fuel line replaced, battery replaced and contacts cleaned, body panel repaired first with epoxy and then with a drill, and finally totaled when a deer ran out onto the highway. The previous owners didn't know there was most of an alarm system installed. I say "most" because whoever had it before them left in everything but the alarm itself (ignition wiring, fuses, etc). Also, the stereo is now on its 3rd car. Some say it is even....cursed.
* This troper's car is a Lada Cossack that he got from an old Russian bloke for $50. It has: two seats, one door handle and half a steering wheel. At one point it got taken over by a hive of bees who made a complete mess of the seats. After having a beekeeper get the bees out, the troper still occasionally finds dead ones around, about three years after the incident. Amazingly, it still runs like a dream.
* This troper's first car was a total aversion of this trope – 20 year old Toyota Camry with 150,000 miles that had fewer repairs in any given year than my father's Lincoln. Other than a cheap paint job and some glitches with the air conditioner, it ran fine. Of course, when a friend mistook a Celica that was covered in rust and appeared to have only one door for the beloved Camry, I was not happy.
* This troper's first car was her mother's old car, a 1996 Ford Contour. Not only was it a Ford, and a Ford sedan (already two strikes against it), nearly every piece of the car had some horrible design flaw. Not to mention, it is currently 14 years old in Ford years, which are like dog years for cars. It's had over 200 repairs for stupid things in its 14 year run, and is affectionately named "The Blue Turtle" by the troper's friends and relatives. The list of reasons my car is ghetto-awesome are as follows: the driver's side window will not roll all the way up; the gears get stuck when you accelerate too quickly (like whenever you go on a freeway) (and also, it's an automatic, it shouldn't even do that in the first place) meaning you have to pull over, start accelerating slowly, until you're going at the same speed as the rest of traffic in the event that this does happen and often takes a very special technique to make it NOT do that; you can feel the gears change; if you stop and then start the car up again, sometimes it makes a horrendous screeching noise for no reason or the whole car shakes for god knows why; you can see the dashboard shake; you can hear the suspension; instead of a handle that you pull to make the seat recline, it's a wheel that you have to crank for a good 5 minutes to make the seat go all the way down, you have to REALLY want to lay down to even bother with that; the cup holder was just this thing you pulled out of the area by the gearshift and flipped up, which was a terrible design and horribly flimsy, often leading to the passenger having to hold the drink with one hand or the driver just forgoing it in the first place (currently it has broken off, which its horrible cup holder design is ridiculous, considering cupholders were made for Americans and Ford is an American company), the doors are so rusted shut in the back seat that no amount of WD 40 can make them stop screeching when opened; the backseat seatbuckles lost their caps so most people can't figure out how to use them at first; you can't even find the radiator (as in, five people, all of whom had driven the car extensively and done repairs on it couldn't find it so you have to put coolant in the overflow tank and hope for the best; the gas cap is stuck; it has no grip or handle or anything so you have to be careful when going around corners in case you flip the car; and on top of that, the air conditioner is broken and it's prone to overheating, as well as being a bit of a gas guzzler by today's standards. While a lot of these problems are due to time wearing on the car, it should be noted that this troper has tried to repair everything wrong with the car multiple times and that most of these problems had arisen within owning the car for 5 years. They had been attempted to be fixed multiple times, but a Ford is a car that, once something is broken, it's broken permanently. No amount of repairs done to the same bloody part would fix the part for more than a few months, hence most of its problems transcending simple car age and becoming reasons why my car is truly The Alleged Car. It's a miracle I even survive driving that car as much as I do.
* This Troper's grandfather used to own a Fiat. We don't know much about it, but... Let's just say one of Dad's favorite jokes used to be that FIAT stood for "Fix It Again, Tony!" Several years later, Dad himself would come into possession of a Toyota Corolla (I can't remember the year) which, while perfectly fine before he bought it, eventually devolved into this. The front hood had to be chained down because the locks had been broken, it took forever to start, windows had to be replaced (more often than not with sheet metal) and eventually, it ceased function altogether, incurring more damage than just hitting stuff with a hammer could fix, which meant the alternative was beyond what we were willing to pay.
* My personal mode of transport used to be a 197-god-knows-what Mazda Capella, consisting mostly of rust, dust and half-melted plastic. It has only one working headlight and that's the only feature that still works, and until recently the radiator was busted, so every time I wanted to drive it I had to refill the water tank.
* I know somebody whose vehicle subverts this trope. She owns a Corolla '91 which had spent twelve straight years in a barn without any new parts, barring a head gasket, before she bought it. Save for various bits of rubber, the only piece of hardware that genuinely needed replacement was the radio.
* This troper's older brother once drove a bright yellow, '73 Volkswagen convertible. In 2006. At several points, it caught on fire while being driven, the back seat floor collapsed, and the driver's side door refused to shut which caused my brother to have to hold it closed himself. Needless to say, it was a cool car but it failed safety inspection and this troper is sad that she can't practice her driving in it.
* This troper's dad had an alleged boat that sat in the back yard, collecting water and providing a home to a family of frogs for over a decade and never got anywhere near a lake. This troper desperately wanted it to sit there forever for some future archeologist to dig up and wonder why it was there. Sadly, this troper's dad had him take it a part and put it in a dumpster last year. Ironically, the thing turned out to be a bitch to dismantle.
* This Trooper's 2003 Dodge Stratus isn't a total alleged car, but if the fan selector isn't set to zero before starting the engine the 'Check Engine' light comes on. Nothings wrong with the engine, the light just comes on, and it's a hundred some dollars to fix. And at some point one arm rest came off that now rattles around while driving
* I once owned a Ford tempo that had to be entered from the drivers door regardless of where one wanted to sit. the stereo had a tendency to "BURST INTO FLAMES and no doors could be opened from the inside. the window crank had a tendency to 'disengage' so if you rolled the windows up you very well could be trapped inside since you could not open the doors. I flipped that car.... before this I had a chevy lumina that had no rearview mirror, no side view mirrors, the trunk had been shoved int the backseat when I was rear-ended by an illegal immigrant, and the drivers side door did not latch. so if you had to suddeny hit the brakes, the door would fly open... also it did ot lock into place one it opened so it would smack into the front quater panel, then fly back and hit you in the arm....
* this tropers girlfriend has a 1987 Nissan Stanza that for a year subverted this trope. when she came into possision in 2005 it was a dream car, no problems..... then she rear-ended a bus.... ever since, atleast nce a month. some other part falls off or goes kaput. we are currently trying to replace a faulty fuel injector, whih means basically tearing the entire engine out to get to it.
* When my father showed me my first car, a '94 Honda Accord, it had a interior literally caked on with dirt and grime, no AC, no speedometer, peeling paint, ruined wood grain, and a bumper sticker that said "My IQ is zero". The cost for the car ($800) has been outweighed by the cost of the parts ($1100). Thankfully, it appears that this car will avert this trope when I start driving because this troper's father has fixed the brakes and cleaned the interior, the bumper stickers have been removed, the AC is in the process of being fixed, and the speedometer works most of the time.
* Amazingly averted by this troper's car (96 Ford Explorer), but his mother's car (03 Dodge Caravan) has averaged about four to five calls to AAA for a jump over the course of six months ever since she bought it new, then had some modifications made to it due to her physical handicaps. Repeatedly, I've suggested we just paint it yellow and leave it on the side of the road.
* This troper owns an 1990 Mercedes playfully nicknamed KITT by his friends (my name being Chevalier, Knight in French, doesn't help). Despite being amazingly reliable, it permanently looks like it's soaked in mud, and is covered in dents and minor bumps... But it earned its nickname when we discovered the "Automatic Oil Purge" function, when after an unfotunate kickdown attempt, the pedal jammed (at full throttle) and the whole content of engine's oil sprayed on the road...
* This Troper's mother had a 1991 Chevy truck that fits The Alleged Car trope. Since about 2000 until she gave it up last week (August 2010) it leaked every imaginable fluid and those fluids had to be refilled almost every week. But near the end when she was ready to buy a new vehicle and trade in the alleged truck, everything began to fail almost at once. Of those failing items were the A/C compressor, the radio, the brake lights, right front tire, and fan clutch. This troper kept that truck on life support long enough to take it in to be put toward the purchase of a new truck.
* This troper's 1999 Toyota Camry is in need of intervention to avoid becoming this — the spoiler brakelight has never quite worked, the headlights are so scuffed up they're yellow, the power driver's seat needs a bit of switch toggling to work, and the passenger side door won't open from the outside.
* This Troper's car is a 1971 Volkswagen Super Beetle named "Sergeant Pepper" ("Sarge" for short), and painted in red, black and gray camouflage.. On the upside, this year has a lot of rare parts. On the downside, every part on it is held together by rust and a prayer. The turn lights don't work, no radio, the wiring is a horrifying rat's nest of poor splicing jobs (all the wiring needs replacement). The brakes DON'T WORK, so to stop you need to be very good at judging distances on the fly. The transmission intermittently refuses to change gears, no instrument lights or interior lights work, the speedometer doesn't work, and the floor pans are so full of holes that a small person could fit through some of them. The gas tank and trunk require a pair of pliers to open, it has a dead piston, the clutch is always just slightly engaged, the insulation is cracked and leaking, the doors won't lock, the finish is Rustoleum brand spray paint, and every inch of the thing is rusted out. Really, it's only a matter of time before it just falls apart on the job. The sad thing is, I ADORE my crappy Bug.
* This troper's father got a 1993 Nissan 4x4 truck in 1997 or 1998(he forgets which year). It went from pristine to rusty, dirty, wreck over the years. When it was finally sold, this troper was sad.