Asklemmy

My wife's old 2004 Honda Civic. It was the worst piece of shit I've ever had the displeasure of driving. And it was super unreliable to boot!

It was dangerously slow. Getting on the freeway always required full throttle to get up to speed in time, which was never enough. Some cars egg you on, "Go faster! Let me rev! I love revs! Speeeeeed! Power!" This thing was like Eeyore on Adavan, "Huh? Power? If I have to. Ththrhtbbt. That's the best I can do."

The "top rated" Goodyear tires we put on it were fucking awful as well. The tire compound was super hard, so despite the pitiful power, you could always spin the front tires in the dry. Despite the hard tire compound, they wore out 20,000 miles before their warranty was up. One time while exiting the freeway, the shit box decided it wanted to oversteer (the tail slid out) as I went around a corner at a very reasonable speed. Luckily, I was able to hold the slide and correct it (which was pretty cool). I like to push cars and to go fast, but I've never ever had a front wheel drive car oversteer on me before, especially at super low speeds. This isn't really the car's fault, but the shit tires come with the shit territory.

It had no safety features other than seatbelts and a couple airbags. No anti-lock brakes. No traction control. It had manual windows (fine, I guess), manual mirrors (eww), and manual door locks (gag me with a spoon!).

Despite all these omissions, it had alloy wheels and a spoiler from the factory! Oh, but it's ok, it's the fucking "value package" so all my friends won't know I cheaped out on a car until they have to wait for me to get in the car to unlock their doors!

In the 4 years she had it, the following broke:

• The thermostat got stuck closed, which caused it to overheat which required the head gasket to be replaced
• The alternator failed catastrophically. Forget not charging the battery, try shorting out, discharging the battery and killing the engine in seconds.
• The tie rod snapped, causing the front wheels to be pointed in opposite directions (luckily this was in a parking lot so we didn't die)
• The steering rack had to be replaced to fix the steering wheel that was 30 degrees off center to go straight.
• Something was wrong with the brake booster, it hissed when you held the pedal down in a certain position, which really inspired confidence.

What an awful car. Still, at least the previous owner left a new condom in the glove box when she bought it.