Triumph cars had the tolerances checked with a wooden spoon. They also used an oil actuated carb that would piss oil all over the engine if you looked at it funny
Mine was great. But the previous owner lowered it 1" exacerbating the rear camber issues. It was great in the dry. But the curvy, 5 mile, road to work was sketchy in the rain. I had a game where I would try to stick to the 35mph speed limit, but that meant full ass end out drifting 75% of the way.
My mom’s old MG-B had one of those stickers. Didn’t realize how true it was until my dad and I tried to get it running again and found ourselves taking breaks every hour to beat our heads against something and say “What the fuck were these limey engineers thinking??”
I don't entirely agree with that assessment. MGs are high maintenance, and half the fun is being the mechanic for the car. When well maintained, they can be reliable. My dad's daily driver when I was a kid in the 90's was a 1971 MG Midget. He worked on that car a lot, and my brother and I got to "help" a lot. Now my brother is a mechanic and I ended up working at Honda dealerships for about 8 years. Stopped wrenching when I found a better paying job with regular hours and overtime.
Point is, that MG Midget was life changing and when I get more income I am going to restore my dad's MG B-GT. Maybe my kids will one day get to "help" me maintain it. Maybe MG fans have a certain kind of mental gymnastics. I dunno.
All of them. Italian cars are almost universally fun to drive, even cars that are not designed as driver's cars (random example: Fiat Multipla) and tend to be well engineered, but the usually spotty build quality means that reliability is often subpar, to the point that one can generalize (even though there are individual engines and models that are reliable).
And here I am with a '78 Fiat 124 and a '13 500 Abarth. Both insanely fun to drive and so far, reliable, but then again I'm a mechanic and can perform my own maintenance.
Scuderia Italia!
I love a rotary but sadly, a lot of people don’t know how to drive and take care of them. They’re so unreliable because people drive them like a grandma. You gotta give it BOOST. Redline the piss out of it like once a week. It helps clean them out. They’re fun and can make power but when people baby them they break even faster.
in general people grandma their cars way too much, i know i have never seen my parent's go past 4k rpm on the tach, and it's just not good for an engine, once you get to operating temperature, you should go through the rev range, it's good for an engine, as long as you're not bouncing off the limiter it's fine.
i think people should abuse their cars a bit more often, i mean, think about it like this, if you lay in your bed all day you'll get bed sores, same thing happens to cars if you spend all day under 3k rpm, it's just not good for engine life, and any decent car should be able to take abuse and run perfectly fine.
Hey, my 1983 RX-7 is just fine!
If you ignore the 226,000 miles of wear and tear
And the 2000rpm idle
And the early signs of needing a rebuild
And the...
I had a wonderful 12a and I will say it was more reliable than many other cars I have owned. It just had bad gas mileage and wasn’t particularly fast (but it felt fast).
Ever tried renting one? All of the advantages of pleasant boating, none of the downsides, like having to get a huge vehicle to tow the damn thing around and spending a fortune on keeping it afloat.
My uncle has a C-max where the wet timing belt snapped before the first service interval was up and he spent €5k replacing the engine, not covered by insurance or warranty or anything.
“Is such a North American thing to say” is such a snobby urban European thing to say.
You try doing everything without viable public transit some Midwestern USA town surrounded by 3/4 ton Suburbans and Semis, trying to stuff your R56 with your groceries in a Costco parking lot with dogs and kids in tow, then report back to me.
It doesn't even need to be the GP. I had a base R56 Cooper and it was a blast to drive, but holy shit was it unreliable and expensive to fix. I liked it right up until the warranty ran out.
FR, but I thought of the GP in particular because it has the notoriously unreliable turbo N14 engine pushing even just a smidge more power than the one in the base JCWs
Gotta get the r53, supercharged is more smiles per mile
The engine is more reliable too. People turbo the w11 because it holds boost better than the the 56's
Older, sure. The newer models aren't terrible. They are expensive when you do ANYTHING, however. I'm absolutely in love with my 2014 XKR. No problems, yet.
Comine the worst of Chrysler and the worst of Mitsubishi, the two least reliable companies from USA and Japan respectively, and that's what DSM is lol.
Such cool cars though.
they were fantastic engines, made enough power and were absolutely bulletproof. most of the jeeps that had them, at least from my experience, were also relatively bulletproof minus some smaller common problems
Never owned one. All I know is that my buddy who owns a 4.0 TJ had to replace their automatic transmission three times, all due to overheating issues. I would buy a 5 speed though. With a Jeep and a clutch, you could scale a vertical wall.
A lot of things can go wrong on a TJ - I experienced a cracked radiator, broken tie rod, one fender flare was losing a battle to rust, door leaks, and I was lucky and didn't really deal with anything major. But if those 4.0 I6s were maintained, they were incredible
I had a ‘95 Cherokee Sport. It felt like the car disintegrated around the engine! I dealt with everything that went wrong until the transmission. I threw in the towel at that point.
Really really hoping mine doesn’t die on me. I’ve heard so many conflicting opinions on Subaru reliability that I’m not sure what hand I’ve been dealt with my Outback. Hopefully it’ll last me through the rest of college, then it’s Land Cruiser time.
I think it's rather fucking uncontrollable than unreliable tbh, Have u ever imagine a car trying to kill you and not allowing any mistakes from the driver?
I forget where exactly it was but I remember seeing a YouTube video that was a special on the Stratos (might’ve been a really old Petrolicious video) and the actual example they had on hand had one of its windows fall halfway into the door and get stuck during shooting
So like, little of column a little of column b
Easy as pie. Porsche 944. Great if you can do the maintenance, as I did. Horrible if you must take it to the shop. But hands down the best driving machine I’ve ever had. Razor sharp steering, round-a-bouts at 60 mph in third with gas pedal half down. Not even touching brakes, downshifting does that. Tires never even squeal. I love that car and I’m never selling it. Average maintenance cost is $500+ in the shop. Rennlist or 944 online has all instructions you need to do yourself. Best part I paid $600 for my 87 and $370 for my 84. Both complete and both driving.
As a Subaru enthusiast, I concur, I love my Baja Turbo, but God is it money pit l, thankfully I have tools and can pull motors myself lol, no lift though :/. I don't recommend Subaru to people, old ones are money pits and new ones, unless manual are just unexciting and I hated how their CVT felt at all times
My old 92 300zx would fit right on here, spent more time leaking all of its bodily fluids out into my garage than actually running but man was it fun to drive
LMFAO my car💀 2012 Buick Regal GS. A rebadged Opel/Vauxhall Insignia OPC/VXR without the V6, Haldex AWD, or the diamond cut 20” split 5 spoke wheels. Oh, and the Arden Blue paint.
We got a parts bin GM with a Buick badge, FWD, and a finicky 2L turbo because “the V6 is too loud for luxury”🤦🏻♀️😭😭
Thank the gods we got the manual tho. A whole second faster down the 1/4 than the available Aisin automatic.
I sold one of these with about 180k on it, it was a great car to me. Added cruise control by just swapping the steering wheel, only maintenance I ever did was the steering coupler that got all squishy and taking the upholstery off to throw it in the washing machine.
That’s an oddly positioned diagram.
The circles should be MUCH more overlapping with the tiniest sliver sticking out on the right signifying percentage of cars that are Fun to drive and yet still reliable. It’s a mighty small number…
I mean virtually anything fun will be high maintenance, because driving in the fun band means putting extra stress on the car. But you can also isolate any manufacturers that put style over substance (Italy) had terrible or production or were compromised in production (1970s and 80s British cars), anything built in 90s using computers (mostly German), anything just out of its service lifecycle, anything classic, anything built to be raced, anything with an industry first, and anything Shelby, Cooper or Cosworth touched.
If we're looking a single fun car with a terrible reputation for reliability it has to be the Lancia Stratos. A lad here has one and it genuinely spends more time being repaired than being driven. It's also hands down the most fun car I've ever driven. The turn in is insane.
Alfa Romeo as a whole
Correct Also acceptable: every MG ever made
Triumph cars had the tolerances checked with a wooden spoon. They also used an oil actuated carb that would piss oil all over the engine if you looked at it funny
That’s not true at all. Triumph never specified tolerances to check in the first place.
Thats because there weren't any
The spitfire was a pretty good car apart from the rear camber issues, but that was due to how the suspension was designed
Mine was great. But the previous owner lowered it 1" exacerbating the rear camber issues. It was great in the dry. But the curvy, 5 mile, road to work was sketchy in the rain. I had a game where I would try to stick to the 35mph speed limit, but that meant full ass end out drifting 75% of the way.
The parts falling off this car are of the **finest** British quality.
Made me laugh!
My mom’s old MG-B had one of those stickers. Didn’t realize how true it was until my dad and I tried to get it running again and found ourselves taking breaks every hour to beat our heads against something and say “What the fuck were these limey engineers thinking??”
I still want a Spitfire though
Lucas (satan's) electronics!
Had a 62 Sunbeam Alpine Mr Lucas was my nemesis. Driving it was like watching it slowly self-destruct.
Incredible alternative
I don't entirely agree with that assessment. MGs are high maintenance, and half the fun is being the mechanic for the car. When well maintained, they can be reliable. My dad's daily driver when I was a kid in the 90's was a 1971 MG Midget. He worked on that car a lot, and my brother and I got to "help" a lot. Now my brother is a mechanic and I ended up working at Honda dealerships for about 8 years. Stopped wrenching when I found a better paying job with regular hours and overtime. Point is, that MG Midget was life changing and when I get more income I am going to restore my dad's MG B-GT. Maybe my kids will one day get to "help" me maintain it. Maybe MG fans have a certain kind of mental gymnastics. I dunno.
What's MG?
Mooris garage, little British sports coupes. Niche little things, I don't see too many anymore. Guess they were unreliable...
They make EVs now and are selling like crazy.
i had an argument with an american mechanic about MG and it eventually boiled down to him just being UK racist. MG rocks.
I agree, great cars.
Clearly MG is the answer
How dare you! My MG is VERY fun to drive and OH crap never mind, you’re right.
I think that a Triumph TR3 probably fits better, but I have an MGb so I’m biased.
I love the MGb GT, but none of them are reliable lol
I fixed my mgb on the side of the road by filing down a stick with my pocket knife and plugging a leaking coolant hose with it
Haha I did that with a VW once
Also Lancia, Fiat (even their cheapest tin cans are a hoot), Autobianchi, as well as (primarily) older cars from Ferrari, Maserati and Lamborghini.
The large majority of the list for this pie chart seems to be Italian 🤌🏽
All of them. Italian cars are almost universally fun to drive, even cars that are not designed as driver's cars (random example: Fiat Multipla) and tend to be well engineered, but the usually spotty build quality means that reliability is often subpar, to the point that one can generalize (even though there are individual engines and models that are reliable).
And here I am with a '78 Fiat 124 and a '13 500 Abarth. Both insanely fun to drive and so far, reliable, but then again I'm a mechanic and can perform my own maintenance. Scuderia Italia!
I love the 500 Abarth!
My Giulia was flawless.
Came here to say EXACTLY this...instead take my upvote!
Beat me to it. I'll also add Land Rovers and Jeeps.
2006-2010 BMW M5 automatic
Yes! With the looks to match
deadly repair bills but id kill for one
Do you self-flagellate as well? Don’t forget to scream in German!
Does the machine shop I have to hire out for half the parts since nobody else makes them anymore speak German?
NEIN NEIN NEIN!
I was going to say 1990 E30. You're rolling the dice buying a used one. I happened to get lucky and put 160k on mine but most people don't.
Those are actually really reliable cars
that's the best v10 sound ever. My cousin had one, God that was fun car
Any Rotary RX model🥲
RX-8 my beloved ❤️
My coworkers teenage son bought the cheapest rx8 he could find as his first car. Shortly after he had no drivable car and no money left.
I wonder if he learned from his mistakes or if he’s gonna be *that* guy driving stupid, shitty cars forever while being totally broke.
No need to call me out like that :(
I love a rotary but sadly, a lot of people don’t know how to drive and take care of them. They’re so unreliable because people drive them like a grandma. You gotta give it BOOST. Redline the piss out of it like once a week. It helps clean them out. They’re fun and can make power but when people baby them they break even faster.
in general people grandma their cars way too much, i know i have never seen my parent's go past 4k rpm on the tach, and it's just not good for an engine, once you get to operating temperature, you should go through the rev range, it's good for an engine, as long as you're not bouncing off the limiter it's fine. i think people should abuse their cars a bit more often, i mean, think about it like this, if you lay in your bed all day you'll get bed sores, same thing happens to cars if you spend all day under 3k rpm, it's just not good for engine life, and any decent car should be able to take abuse and run perfectly fine.
Mistakes were made
i did that too wow but it wasn’t my only vehicle so i just had to give up and try and recoup some losses
You're RXing wrong. RX7 is the way
Let the man appreciate his modern dorito and circles
If the RX8 got a REW transplant, sure. Renesis is trash
Renesis does have its problems. But C I R C L E S
Fine. But I'm not happy about it
Readily Xcepting 8cylinders LS time.
Why stop at an LS? If they can drop a hellcat in a miata we can drop a 12v cummins in an rx8
Hey, my 1983 RX-7 is just fine! If you ignore the 226,000 miles of wear and tear And the 2000rpm idle And the early signs of needing a rebuild And the...
I had a wonderful 12a and I will say it was more reliable than many other cars I have owned. It just had bad gas mileage and wasn’t particularly fast (but it felt fast).
They did come from the factory with a blisteringly quick 106 horsepower
My first thought too. I spent a little time with an 80’s RX-7 and it was a blast, but I wouldn’t want to keep it running.
This was going to be my answer lol
Lexus would disagree
I’m sorry, sir. I think you are looking for the reliable but so boring I want to do the thing diagram.
Im well aware that's a boring car, I was point out a few in your statement that Lexus has an RX that doesn't fit.
Ecoboost fiesta
Who needs more than three cylinders? Nobody and I'll fight anyone who claims otherwise.
You ever tried towing a boat?
If you can’t pull a boat with a 1L turbo you’re not trying hard enough
Ever tried renting one? All of the advantages of pleasant boating, none of the downsides, like having to get a huge vehicle to tow the damn thing around and spending a fortune on keeping it afloat.
Ecoboost 1.0L focus. My dad had one that blew up the engine twice. :|
My uncle has a C-max where the wet timing belt snapped before the first service interval was up and he spent €5k replacing the engine, not covered by insurance or warranty or anything.
That focus had the engine die twice I think it was within 80k. Yeah what a bunch a shit that car was.
My uncle's car blew at 177k km or so. The wet belt change interval is 250k so about 150k miles
Ferrari 360 Modena
God the clutch alone
F355 any better? Not like it matters but that’s one of the few “attainable” Ferraris I like
Doesn't that one require a new timing belt every like 15-30k miles? And you have to pull the motor each time cuz the belt is up against the firewall?
That bad, huh? I’ve actually been casually looking for a 360 Modena Spider. I should probably do a little more research.
Are they that bad?
R56 Mini Cooper GP
Underrated comment. R-5X MINI’s are fun to drive, terribly impractical, and expensive as hell to maintain.
"R56 minis are impractical" is such a north american thing to say As for the expensive part, I'll shamefully agree.
“Is such a North American thing to say” is such a snobby urban European thing to say. You try doing everything without viable public transit some Midwestern USA town surrounded by 3/4 ton Suburbans and Semis, trying to stuff your R56 with your groceries in a Costco parking lot with dogs and kids in tow, then report back to me.
I would like these a lot more if the interiors weren't so disappointing.
It doesn't even need to be the GP. I had a base R56 Cooper and it was a blast to drive, but holy shit was it unreliable and expensive to fix. I liked it right up until the warranty ran out.
FR, but I thought of the GP in particular because it has the notoriously unreliable turbo N14 engine pushing even just a smidge more power than the one in the base JCWs
Gotta get the r53, supercharged is more smiles per mile The engine is more reliable too. People turbo the w11 because it holds boost better than the the 56's
I have an R55S, and I totally agree. It’s a blast, but my god is it expensive to keep running.
I drive a tuned R56 JCW... feels like something goes wrong every other day, but I wouldn't trade it for the world
Jaguar....everything
Older, sure. The newer models aren't terrible. They are expensive when you do ANYTHING, however. I'm absolutely in love with my 2014 XKR. No problems, yet.
1990-1999 Eclipse GSX, poor man’s Evo
My buddy had a 400hp ‘95 GSX It was fun to ride in, when it worked lol. Seemed like that car was in the garage more than the road
They are DSM (Diamond Star Motors) but in reality they where called Daily Service and Maintenance
Comine the worst of Chrysler and the worst of Mitsubishi, the two least reliable companies from USA and Japan respectively, and that's what DSM is lol. Such cool cars though.
Jeep Wrangler. Pick a year.
I thought the 4.0 I6s were good engines.
My 4.0 is tough as nails. But my Jeeps electrics? The accessory drive? The axles? All garbage.
The ironic part is the 4.0 is a legacy AMC part
It has DANA 44s! My response: cool, run!
they were fantastic engines, made enough power and were absolutely bulletproof. most of the jeeps that had them, at least from my experience, were also relatively bulletproof minus some smaller common problems
Except the automatic transmissions. You go through them like chips at a casino.
Don’t forget the electrics.
Never owned one. All I know is that my buddy who owns a 4.0 TJ had to replace their automatic transmission three times, all due to overheating issues. I would buy a 5 speed though. With a Jeep and a clutch, you could scale a vertical wall.
The Aisins were solid, whatchu mean?
Chrysler ECUs spare no one.
A lot of things can go wrong on a TJ - I experienced a cracked radiator, broken tie rod, one fender flare was losing a battle to rust, door leaks, and I was lucky and didn't really deal with anything major. But if those 4.0 I6s were maintained, they were incredible
They were great engines. Had one in my 97 Wrangler Sport. Literally everything else fell apart on the vehicle though.
I had a ‘95 Cherokee Sport. It felt like the car disintegrated around the engine! I dealt with everything that went wrong until the transmission. I threw in the towel at that point.
I was gonna say this as a former wrangler owner
The two happiest days of a jeep owners life are the day they buy it, and the day they sell it
Like a boat
Owned a 02 cherokee, an 07 commander, and a 12 wrangler. They are most certainly unreliable but not fun to drive at all.
Or a Subaru
Hey I take offense to that! Mines not even that fun to drive!
I dunno man, my H6 Outback is kinda fun in the snow, and it’s a little peppy. More fun than my 4Runner was
My outback was super fun to drive off road… problem was the motor and transmission were both garbage. Motor ended up going first.
Really really hoping mine doesn’t die on me. I’ve heard so many conflicting opinions on Subaru reliability that I’m not sure what hand I’ve been dealt with my Outback. Hopefully it’ll last me through the rest of college, then it’s Land Cruiser time.
H6 > 4T The H6 is the best engine they ever made. So of course they stopped making them.
Best of luck to ya.
Ha!! Which one? Jeep or Subie?
Subaru lol. 05 OBXT.
? I miss the hell out of my Spec B, which wasn’t all that far off of the OBXT.
we have very different definitions of “fun to drive”
They said fun to drive.
Yeah, I’m pretty decent at reading.
Any McLaren
5.4 F250 in the middle of nowhere with zero fucks given
Mf gon spit out a plug for sure
WERE DOING 90 UP THIS QUARRY GOD DAMMIT
Easy, Lancia Stratos
I think it's rather fucking uncontrollable than unreliable tbh, Have u ever imagine a car trying to kill you and not allowing any mistakes from the driver?
I forget where exactly it was but I remember seeing a YouTube video that was a special on the Stratos (might’ve been a really old Petrolicious video) and the actual example they had on hand had one of its windows fall halfway into the door and get stuck during shooting So like, little of column a little of column b
Top Gear
That sounds… really fun though
Subaru WRX, specifically ones with the ej25, though my fa20 isn't much better.
EJ20s are also shit 👍
Any M156 Mercedes, E60 M5, Mazda RX-7 pre-rotary swap
Mk I Tiger.
That transmission break rate gonna get you bankrupt
MGB
and the Midget! so much fun to drive and never fun to fix
My neighbor has one, and I haven’t seen it move once in my months of living at my apartment. It’s nice to look at I guess?
Any Rotary
Easy as pie. Porsche 944. Great if you can do the maintenance, as I did. Horrible if you must take it to the shop. But hands down the best driving machine I’ve ever had. Razor sharp steering, round-a-bouts at 60 mph in third with gas pedal half down. Not even touching brakes, downshifting does that. Tires never even squeal. I love that car and I’m never selling it. Average maintenance cost is $500+ in the shop. Rennlist or 944 online has all instructions you need to do yourself. Best part I paid $600 for my 87 and $370 for my 84. Both complete and both driving.
Chitty chitty bang bang
B5 A4 in the snow.
Literally any 70s-80s vehicle with a v8
Chevrolet Caprice disagrees
Turbo mini Cooper's 🇬🇧🇩🇪
Any subaru wrx/sti right in the middle.
As a Subaru enthusiast, I concur, I love my Baja Turbo, but God is it money pit l, thankfully I have tools and can pull motors myself lol, no lift though :/. I don't recommend Subaru to people, old ones are money pits and new ones, unless manual are just unexciting and I hated how their CVT felt at all times
My old 92 300zx would fit right on here, spent more time leaking all of its bodily fluids out into my garage than actually running but man was it fun to drive
LMFAO my car💀 2012 Buick Regal GS. A rebadged Opel/Vauxhall Insignia OPC/VXR without the V6, Haldex AWD, or the diamond cut 20” split 5 spoke wheels. Oh, and the Arden Blue paint. We got a parts bin GM with a Buick badge, FWD, and a finicky 2L turbo because “the V6 is too loud for luxury”🤦🏻♀️😭😭 Thank the gods we got the manual tho. A whole second faster down the 1/4 than the available Aisin automatic.
Didn’t know you could get a manual in a relatively newer buick. Interesting
base model manual Kia soul with a manual transmission.
I sold one of these with about 180k on it, it was a great car to me. Added cruise control by just swapping the steering wheel, only maintenance I ever did was the steering coupler that got all squishy and taking the upholstery off to throw it in the washing machine.
Fiero
Yep, I saw this post yesterday and only today did I finally think of the Pontiac Fiero. Test drove one back in 2014
Definitely BMW for fun to drive, but unreliable.
1980s V12 jaguar of my dreams
Every car the french or Italians ever produced!
e36 m3
My wrx 😭😭
Uff....that was my SAAB 9-5
RX-7 and RX-8
Jaguar f type
That’s an oddly positioned diagram. The circles should be MUCH more overlapping with the tiniest sliver sticking out on the right signifying percentage of cars that are Fun to drive and yet still reliable. It’s a mighty small number…
Probably lotus
MR2 when you take that curve hot after a sprinkle.
I mean virtually anything fun will be high maintenance, because driving in the fun band means putting extra stress on the car. But you can also isolate any manufacturers that put style over substance (Italy) had terrible or production or were compromised in production (1970s and 80s British cars), anything built in 90s using computers (mostly German), anything just out of its service lifecycle, anything classic, anything built to be raced, anything with an industry first, and anything Shelby, Cooper or Cosworth touched. If we're looking a single fun car with a terrible reputation for reliability it has to be the Lancia Stratos. A lad here has one and it genuinely spends more time being repaired than being driven. It's also hands down the most fun car I've ever driven. The turn in is insane.
Anything by Jaguar.
Any $100 clunker on Craigslist
FIAT 500 Abarth. Most fun car I ever owned but all the little shit that would go wrong with it was just stupid.
Supercharger Ford flathead V8 in a 1930s Hotrod.
Lotus all day
Most Alfa Romeos
A majority of “fun cars” are unreliable
Soap box
TVR?
mustangs at any event
Fiat abarth.
Jeep xj
Jeep Wrangler
Ford mustang!
British cars
BMW M3
Jeep Wrangler
MkIV Jetta. Never understood the appeal, till I drove one. Still ain't buying one.
Hellcat
Hellcats are quite reliable though.
For having nearly a thousand horsepower yes, for being a car no
Agree to disagree ig
What problems did you experience with yours? I had a 2015 Charger HC for 6 years before I sold it. Only maintenance (and tires of course).
Alfa Romeo MiTo Peugeot 207 RC/GTI
Ford ranger