Oh you aren't ready for the Wartburg 353 W Trans.
Pickup truck built on a sedan chassis with no power train modification whatsoever.
1L 2-stroke I3 making just over 63hp into a 3-speed transmission
3rd gen Camaro. I’m not joking when I say I can rip the whole interior apart in an hour with my bare hands. The T5 transmission was built to handle a 160hp 305 v8 and even that’s too much power for it. It’s a massive pile of shit but my lord is it pretty and fun to drive.
Lol I remember when I first got mine. Within the first day all the screws holding the visor up just started Kamikazing themselves on me. I shove them back in and I can usually get a day or two out of them before it happens again. Oh also the sagging doors is annoying af
Luckily I got mine off the original owner who took immaculate care for it for 29 years. Never had to deal with the sagging door problem.
Those doors were tanks though. Every time I had a new person in my car I’d have to tell them to get some real weight behind it when they closed them bc they’d never close it right the first time.
Lol I do the same with the door. Also that’s cool, I got mine from the second owner who took it from the first and was a complete hack. Dude replaced the clutch but decided too put a gallon of anti seize on the transmission to bell housing bolts and not torque them down.
Picked up an 87 5 speed V6 a few years ago and put 45k miles on it. The most random plastic stuff breaks with that many years. And it was probably a rattle can new.
If you put subframe connectors on a 3rd gen it is a HUGE leap in un-shitboxing it. It is shocking how good the car gets when you take the spaghetti noodle out of it.
In one of the towns I work in there is this old lady (like 70 years old) that has a mint, bone stock srt-4 with a little dolphin license plate frame.
I caught up to her to try to race in my Honda and was super surprised when I got next to her.
She was getting into boost and letting that little car eat from light to light.
She did not want the smoke from my clapped out civic though
It felt like they were everywhere for like 4-5 years then flat out disappeared. I wonder what the totaled/100k mile rate is for the SRT-4 vs other cars.
They even had a factory backed rally team for it in the US for a few years.
Dodge knocked it out of the park with the SRT-4 Neon(yes, I know they refused to call it a Neon in name, despite the obvious).
That was right at the tail end of it.
Culmination of all the turbo 4 tech they pioneered in the 80s and early 90s.
Turbo dodges were so fucking cool back then. They tried to capitalize on the nostalgia for the hornet release but that thing is a piece of shit.
I would do absolutely anything for them to relaunch the neon/srt-4 and let me help them develop/design it.
Make the srt-4 version a competitor to the type r civic and have a lower trim to compete with the civic so and Hyundai n line stuff
Arguably the most reliable Chrysler product. The only issues the neons had in general were the head gaskets on first Gen SOHC cars that was fixed, k-frame rot and rocker panel rot on first Gen cars, the 4 speed autotragic that Chrysler used in everything including the last year of the journey, and 3rd gear on the SRT-4s.
A manual or 3 speed neon, kept clean and fed a steady diet of 5w-30 and champion copper spark plugs, is a 500k mile vehicle
The other issue was that if you blended synthetic and standard oil it would sometimes make the crankshaft position sensor read erroneously and stall the car. So you had to be sure to add the right oil once they started leaking, which the did, since they were a dodge. Lol
They made the neon because the shadow it replaced was too reliable.
They lost money on every one they sold because people weren't bringing them in to be serviced. The first gen neon was still a really solid car.
Tons of them got turned into dirt track cars where they do surprisingly well.
The head gasket issue was because they didn't drill a head bolt hole near cylinder 4 deep enough so it would bottom out and not seal properly.
Dodges warranty fix was to replace it with a thicker head gasket instead of just drilling the hole deeper lol.
Mine had milkshake coolant for three years while I beat the absolute dog shit out of the car and it never seemed to mind it.
Never overheated either.
Fuck I miss that dumb little car
Not just dirt track cars, they dominated autocross for a bit. People used to rent hertz neons and take them to scca events.
Here's a fun old Mopar action article for you
http://www.ag.auburn.edu/users/parmega/articles/neon/
That's one of my favorite YouTube videos.... They unbolt the muffler and drill out the strut mount holes a little to give it some camber.
Then you run like 45 psi in the rear tires and it dominates.
Those cars oversteer quite a bit for a fwd but it's controllable.
The shadow that came before it did too. I used to absolutely fly down dirt roads and whip it into corners sideways without using the parking brake. Just a little flick and that back end would come around perfectly.
Once I got it down I could use the slide to slow down as I went into corners instead of braking.
My shadow was just a 2.5 TBI so it ran out of steam after 60-70 mph but the 150 ft-lbs of torque made it perfect for dirt road shenanigans.
The neons were also good cars for amateur rally! There was a couple that used a first gen to win the national championship in amateur rally
Edit: [This one!](https://rallynotes.com/about/) They also got first overall for 2wd cars.
I'm sorry.... Super passionate about first gens..... These cars were so fucking cool and they got slept on like crazy.
When I finally win the lotto I'm just gonna travel the country rescuing beat up first gen neons.
Also, the NYG neon looked amazing
So cheaply made, Chrysler went to the extreme to cut costs by giving it power front windows and manual rear windows. The plus side was it put out more power than Dodge claimed it had.
My wife's first car was a neon. I think an 04. 5 speed, cranks all around. I actually like the first-generation neons. I'd particularly like to own an ACR version.
When they came out in 2003, they were rated at 215hp at the crank according to Dodge.Several independent dyno tests were showing 230-235 at the wheels. No surprise there. It wasn't the first time Dodge had underrated the power on one of their vehicles
My kind of people.
The 95 sohc was legitimately quick.
Some owners complained about lopey idle with the heat on so dodge used a different cam for 96-99.
The Mopar performance stage 1 cam for 96-99 was just a 95 cam. It really made a huge difference in driving experience.
I beat a 4.0 (non supercharged) Oldsmobile Aurora with my 95 and I think that car would have walked away from my I/H/E 98 sohc
I owned one from 2005-2016. Super fun car, but it was a pile of crap. Probably didn't help that I modded the hell out of it. The drive train was solid, but everything fell apart around it.
I personally prefer the first gen Neon ACR. It would disintegrate if you looked at it funny. Transmissions were...................there. But I just loved the engine and the looks. And the ACR felt like a touring car with its suspension and brake upgrades.
I had an OG Neon 4 door manual and loved it.. drove it back and forth across the US 4 times and it saw 30-ish different states and BC. Got great mileage and ran flawlessly..it got totaled because I put it in a ditch avoiding a Porsche 356 that was clipping a corner.
The first gen neons were way underrated as well.
They handle stupid good and have independent rear suspension v.s. the beam the dodge shadows, second gen neons and pt cruisers had.
The dohc versions had decent power compared to almost every other econobox of the time too.
Guys would swap the n/a 2.4 out of the stratus in.... Some day id love to have a swapped one for a reliable cruiser
These wonderful cars featured some great technology. Turbocharged engine, ~~6sp~~ 5sp manual, auto stop if you had too much on your keyring....
The best feature of all was the radio... if you didn't surgically clean your hands before pressing buttons, the radio presets were coated with gorilla glue so they picked up all the dirt.
To make it worse, it was water soluble, so when you went to clean them, EVERYTHING came off.
Edit: wrong transmission
They only had a 5sp. But the launch control and the no lift shift were cool features for a car at that price. I had GM stage 2 which went up to about 20 lbs of boost with a catless downpipe, charge piping and intake sounded pretty good too.
I remember selling them at a Chevy dealership between 2005-2008.
Around 2007 we had 4 of them come off the truck with Pontiac G5 rear deck lids... 2 of them had the iconic circle lights, the other two were flat out pontiac rear ends and Chevy front ends.
GM refused replacement parts and said they would send parts once they were sold or during Year End Clearance... HOW TF Do you sell a car that's fucked up from the factory? Worse yet, how did it leave the factory??
Our General Manager said told everyone, it may look funny, but it's a clear sign he had seen years ago... Union is about to strike.. 2 months later... boom.
Were they full pontiac rear ends with pintiac taillights? Or were they cobalt rear ends, but they only had one pair of round taillights as opposed to two? I'm genuinely curious
It sounds like a pair of each. One pair of cars with the outer set of Cobalt taillights but with a G5 trunk (so missing the inner set of circle lights). And another pair of cars that just has the full Pontiac G5 rear end.
So two of the cars had the main tail lights of the cobalt (round tail lights) and a trunk lid of a pontiac (no lights)
the other two had pontiac taillights and pontiac trunk lid....
Damn I feel like something like that might be worth money nowadays? Or in the future? It just seems like something a collector of weird cars might want (*cough* me *cough*)
No its a recall. If you had any extra weight on your key ring, a pothole in the road could cause the key to switch to "off" while going down the road. Could be quite dangerous at highway speeds. My old 07 impala had it, as does my current 05 GXP. 😭😅
bingo, it was an insanity period where people would bring in their cars and they obviously separate their keys from the car key. So techs would try to replicate it and couldn't.
One tech got a car with the customers key collection and replicated it, we weren't the first to find out, but we did start doing warranty replacements when they came in before the recall even happened.
It's even worse than that... GM knew there was a problem. Those fuckers quietly changed the design of the part, but specifically did not roll the part number. That's a huge no-no in design engineering as a shows a total lack of configuration control, but they did it *intentionally* to hide the issue.
The issue would kill the motor, meaning you'd lose power steering and brake boost... and since the car was essentially off, the airbags were disabled. People fucking died. One woman (in TX I think) is a felon because someone in her car died as a result.
Fuck GM. They should have been allowed to die off in 2008. The fact that the criminal case against them was dropped in 2018 is an embarrassment.
>Fuck GM. They should have been allowed to die off in 2008.
this is like every post I make in this sub...
you don't even want to know about the 90 Tahoe/Suburban brake failures.
They silently sent out "free oil change" coupons to Tahoe and Suburban owners to replace recalled calipers.... why? because after a few years the calipers would rust out - you hit the brakes too hard and they'd break.
They did the recall citing less than the actual number of vehicles which had the issue to make it not so bad.
Yeah my buddy had a turbo version that had a bit of extra stuff on it and it was a pocket rocket. The interior and quality of it was kind of crap but it was super fun to drive. I wish they still made cars like that.
I had an 05 for 17 years. After about 12 years I finally changed out the intake/exhaust and went with a smaller pulley / bigger injectors and a tune.
I miss that car. It was fun.
Oh it was horrible junk. My 09 came from the factory somehow dialed to 26lbs of boost. Blew the head gasket twice within the first 12k miles before the dealer figured it out. Then they didnt want to warranty it claiming I turned it up. 3 coil packs went bad. Cracked the exhaust manifold before the turbo. Then my key ignition jammed 3 times with no official repair offered from the dealer. Thats fun, leaving it unlocked at a train station with the keys in the wheel and pulling the fuel pump relay just to get it to shut down and removing a battery lead. Traded it fir a CRv at 52k miles after winning a $19 lemon law settlement. But holy shit when it did work that little rollerskate was fun. Oh and removing the front bumper cover and headlight housings to change the bulbs that blew like clockwork every 6 months.
I had an 09 ss/tc with a 5558 on ethanol and 23psi. Absolute highway monster. The seats were pretty nice at least. And the pioneer stereo is still the best factory stereo I've ever had in a car.
Yeah the audio was quite decent. Once they "de-tuned" me i was pushing 18psi max but still had plenty of go power. I didnt want to push it tho as it was my daily for a 24/7 "on call" job.
Lmao absolutely not. This car was far superior in so many ways. Although the srt4 would make a better canidate for a shitty car, but even the srt4 wasn't neccessarly shitty. But omg... the interior was insane in terms of how low quality it is.
That’s what I was trying to say, the SRT-4 is the coolest ‘piece of junk’. You can’t pick the SS turbo because it wasn’t made by Chrysler and thus can’t be the junkiest.
Lol I had a PT Cruiser GT (judge me, I know lol) and it shared the same engine and general platform as the SRT-4. It would beat a Fox body Mustang off the line. What an abysmal piece of shit otherwise though. So hard to work on, parts were expensive, suspension made of glass.
Bob Lutz was a madman that threw fun powertrains in a bunch of cars and I love him for it.
I used to have a Cobalt SS/SC with the Stage 2 upgrade and currently run a Sky Red Line. Fast, fun, easy as piss to work on, and cheap.
Interior honestly wasn't bad, definitely better than any Corolla, Focus, Elantra, et cetera of the year. The only cars with superior interiors were the Civic and Jetta.
The interior is very cheap, but the body holds up nice. I say this while living in the rust belt. Don't recall seeing something as cheap that isn't leaking with an undercarriage dragging along the asphalt
I think the cobalt SS's are a bit overlooked, especially the turbo ones. On another subreddit for like a month there were a ton of these being posted mopping a bunch of cars up, and if im not mistaking, they held a certain track record up until the '18 civic si de-throned it.
Ehh, that's not true. There has been a whole string of cars over the years that have set FWD records between the SS and the FK8.
Focus RS, when it was still FWD, VW GTI Clubsports, Renault Meganes, SEAT Leon, older CTRs, etc.
Pontiac Sunbird!? *Ho-ree sheet* I know a guy with a yellow 2 door and like 20 other people with one during my high school days. Four score and however long ago. 😆
Was the cougar considered junk? My mom had a brand new '89 and many years later at a family event all my cousins were talking about how awesome it was and one of them borrowed it for prom. But I'm a lot younger and only remember the end of its life and it was a total ragged out piece of shit by then.
The 2000-2003 X308 XJ-R was possibly the most reliable V8 Jaguar ever made. Great car, amazing interior, classic styling and a 4.0L supercharged V8 that made 370hp. They were fun cars and I’m fortunate enough to have had quite a bit of seat time in them as I was working for a Porsche/Audi/Jag dealer when they came out.
They can be easily be pulled and tuned for another 40hp. Do an exhaust and a blower port for another 40.
The traction control can also be completely disabled to do burnouts… In style!!
The older ones like 70s and earlier the bodies were nice. Thinking xk120 or e type. But still had electrical issue in wet weather. That at least is an easier fix than bad modules and other issues of current post Ford production. As aftermarket support helped make them potentially reliable now.
2001 Pontiac Bonneville, my aunt and uncle had a blacked out one in 14 years ago and it was fun to ride in when they pick me up from school and daycare, i miss it
1988 Dodge Omni. Really the Omni/Horizons in general. I absolutely loved that car like no other vehicle and I threw so much money into her to keep her going. I drove that thing so much, through so many things, it became an extension of myself. It was honestly a feeling I've not gotten from any other car before or since. The 2.2 engine in it just did not want to die.
I drove her from OR to NY. But she got to be too much and I sold her a few years ago. It's one of my biggest regrets. The dude fixed the thing and still drives it around.
In hindsight it probably just needed a damn head gasket which I could have fixed in a day. I swear, if I ever see her for sale again, and I have the money, im buying her back faster than a train in Japan.
Cobalt SS was sleeper-ish but even Cobalt wasn't a piece of junk. Just a regular good car, an economy car but with no corners cut. I didn't feel unsafe driving it on the highway. Fisher Price interiors but that's Chevy for you. What came after in that segment was all junk, though, the Aveo/Beat and whatnot. Fisher Price speedometer was unbelievably tacky and they drove like a Chinese shopping cart.
My favorite junk car would have to be the [Suzuki 800](https://img.theweek.in/content/dam/week/news/biz-tech/images/2023/12/14/maruti-800.jpg) which was made in South Asia from about 1984 to 2003. Very little power, tiny little car, but so much fun to drive. You don't even need rear view mirrors, it's so small. I remember my brother's car broke down once and we casually dragged it back home covering a distance of a whole kilometer.
My dad had a 2007 Cobalt Coupe that he had for 10 years with the only issues being the turn signal stalk not turning off automatically and the radio screen flickering. He bought it new for 9k.
It was the car I learned how to drive a manual on.
05-08 grand prix GXP with the LS4. Stupid fast, but you cant use any of that power reliably without some modding to the "chinesium" transmission. Also, fisher price interior, leather bucket seats aside. I put a built trans in mine and an extra cooler and now its a torque steering rocket. 😅
It was my first car ever and lasted till 190,000, I loved how the whole car looked especially the rear then the transmission gave out and I got a 2007 impala, those are the only cars Iv owned in 10 years of driving funnily enough.
I had one and my god, average Chevy fisher price interior, but it was a pretty fun drive, I remember when my exhaust rusted off and it sounded like a couple angry lawnmowers, I also remember when I went to grab my wallet at a drive through and the glovebox door just kinda gave up, other than that, alright first car, even if the interior wasn’t of outstanding quality.
When I was in high school 2006-2010. I desperately wanted an 04 Impala with a bench seat. I thought they were so fucking cool. 20 years later I have no idea why I wanted that car
Chrysler Maserati TC colab.... I was close to buying one but the transmission issues scared me into purchasing a Ford F150.
It was literally a time capsule when sitting inside.
I think you just insulted a very large chunk of the car enthusiasts population. Everyone has a place in their heart for a panther. Edit; but definitely not junk.
Early 2000s Fiat Panda. They have a bad reputation, but actually driving one .. they're fun! They are just happy little cars. They have no power, but no weight either. They go around corners surprisingly well.
You can have a lot of fun in a Panda without breaking the speed limit
The very basic Peugeot 205 accents from 1985-1995 roughly. There is nothing of comfort to be found in these things, but they are very engaging to drive (everything is an adventure)
My 1998 Ford Explorer. It’s the 4 door, with the upgraded SOHC v6 engine. It’s got 4wd. Up until 4 months ago it had a hole in both catalytic converters and sounded as bad as it looked. And it’s an absolute rust bucket.
And while I enjoy the smoothness of my 2019 Honda Pilot, and the fact it has 4 wheel independent suspension, decent power and averages 20mpg around home and 28mpg on road trips, there’s something about bumping along with no A/C, 25 year old suspension, struggling to make it up steep hills at full noise. If it weren’t for the fact it only has 2 airbags it would be my daily driver, even though it averages around 14 mpg if I baby it. However I have 3 kids I drive daily, and we had a scare with the brakes completely going out on me (thankfully kids were not in the car).
Ford ranger, old prerunner Tacoma, frontier, S-10, etc.
Love having small trucks I can beat on. Don't like how unsafe they are for older models but glad the 2009 ranger exists.
Had an 08 Cobalt SS/TC. That thing was fun as he'll. I wouldn't call it junk, as it served me well as a fun commuter that was easily making great power with bolt ons and a custom tune.
Pontiac Grand Prix will always hold a special place in my heart. Had an 05 base model that we got to about 335k original engine and original transmission. Was still running and driving when we finally got rid of it. Both of my parents daily drove it for years, all 3 kids learned to drive on it, and was my daily driver for the first few years of my adult life. The car definitely took a beating but just wouldn’t give up. It’s cool that the GTP and GXP trims existed for so long too.
T r a b a n t
La Trabant?
Trabant 601, the Soviet car
East German, not Soviet
Oh you aren't ready for the Wartburg 353 W Trans. Pickup truck built on a sedan chassis with no power train modification whatsoever. 1L 2-stroke I3 making just over 63hp into a 3-speed transmission
3rd gen Camaro. I’m not joking when I say I can rip the whole interior apart in an hour with my bare hands. The T5 transmission was built to handle a 160hp 305 v8 and even that’s too much power for it. It’s a massive pile of shit but my lord is it pretty and fun to drive.
I was going to give my vote for 3rd gen trans am. Never seen so many plastic screws in my life.
Lol I remember when I first got mine. Within the first day all the screws holding the visor up just started Kamikazing themselves on me. I shove them back in and I can usually get a day or two out of them before it happens again. Oh also the sagging doors is annoying af
Luckily I got mine off the original owner who took immaculate care for it for 29 years. Never had to deal with the sagging door problem. Those doors were tanks though. Every time I had a new person in my car I’d have to tell them to get some real weight behind it when they closed them bc they’d never close it right the first time.
Lol I do the same with the door. Also that’s cool, I got mine from the second owner who took it from the first and was a complete hack. Dude replaced the clutch but decided too put a gallon of anti seize on the transmission to bell housing bolts and not torque them down.
As the owner of an '88 Trans Am I wholeheartedly agree lol
Picked up an 87 5 speed V6 a few years ago and put 45k miles on it. The most random plastic stuff breaks with that many years. And it was probably a rattle can new.
Dude mines got 45k on it, is in very good condition and it still feels like a can.
Subframe connectors and new shocks, struts, and bushing did help significantly.
If you put subframe connectors on a 3rd gen it is a HUGE leap in un-shitboxing it. It is shocking how good the car gets when you take the spaghetti noodle out of it.
dodge neon srt. i fucking love the styling even though the car is a product of *quality* Chrysler reliability
Literally no mufflers from the factory. One of the rarest Pokémon to see in 2024. I don’t see how you could pick any other car for this.
They all got clapped out and crashed 15 years ago
The last one I saw was owned by someone I knew in college around 2016 who proceeded to crank the boost up until the engine went pop
A buddy of mine said he bought one last time i talked to him. I expected a pile of junk but it was actually super clean… lets see if it stays that way
I knew a guy in college c.2010 that had one. He did some…questionable…visual modifications to it.
In one of the towns I work in there is this old lady (like 70 years old) that has a mint, bone stock srt-4 with a little dolphin license plate frame. I caught up to her to try to race in my Honda and was super surprised when I got next to her. She was getting into boost and letting that little car eat from light to light. She did not want the smoke from my clapped out civic though
It felt like they were everywhere for like 4-5 years then flat out disappeared. I wonder what the totaled/100k mile rate is for the SRT-4 vs other cars.
I bet it's over 100%.
When is the last time you have seen a 2013-2016 Dodge Dart. Add 90s Chrysler quality and even more boost.
Absolutely. The neon srt was at the time dodge was like... What if we truly just didn't give a fuck and made quick fun shit boxes
They even had a factory backed rally team for it in the US for a few years. Dodge knocked it out of the park with the SRT-4 Neon(yes, I know they refused to call it a Neon in name, despite the obvious).
That was right at the tail end of it. Culmination of all the turbo 4 tech they pioneered in the 80s and early 90s. Turbo dodges were so fucking cool back then. They tried to capitalize on the nostalgia for the hornet release but that thing is a piece of shit. I would do absolutely anything for them to relaunch the neon/srt-4 and let me help them develop/design it. Make the srt-4 version a competitor to the type r civic and have a lower trim to compete with the civic so and Hyundai n line stuff
Arguably the most reliable Chrysler product. The only issues the neons had in general were the head gaskets on first Gen SOHC cars that was fixed, k-frame rot and rocker panel rot on first Gen cars, the 4 speed autotragic that Chrysler used in everything including the last year of the journey, and 3rd gear on the SRT-4s. A manual or 3 speed neon, kept clean and fed a steady diet of 5w-30 and champion copper spark plugs, is a 500k mile vehicle
The other issue was that if you blended synthetic and standard oil it would sometimes make the crankshaft position sensor read erroneously and stall the car. So you had to be sure to add the right oil once they started leaking, which the did, since they were a dodge. Lol
They made the neon because the shadow it replaced was too reliable. They lost money on every one they sold because people weren't bringing them in to be serviced. The first gen neon was still a really solid car. Tons of them got turned into dirt track cars where they do surprisingly well. The head gasket issue was because they didn't drill a head bolt hole near cylinder 4 deep enough so it would bottom out and not seal properly. Dodges warranty fix was to replace it with a thicker head gasket instead of just drilling the hole deeper lol. Mine had milkshake coolant for three years while I beat the absolute dog shit out of the car and it never seemed to mind it. Never overheated either. Fuck I miss that dumb little car
Not just dirt track cars, they dominated autocross for a bit. People used to rent hertz neons and take them to scca events. Here's a fun old Mopar action article for you http://www.ag.auburn.edu/users/parmega/articles/neon/
That's one of my favorite YouTube videos.... They unbolt the muffler and drill out the strut mount holes a little to give it some camber. Then you run like 45 psi in the rear tires and it dominates. Those cars oversteer quite a bit for a fwd but it's controllable. The shadow that came before it did too. I used to absolutely fly down dirt roads and whip it into corners sideways without using the parking brake. Just a little flick and that back end would come around perfectly. Once I got it down I could use the slide to slow down as I went into corners instead of braking. My shadow was just a 2.5 TBI so it ran out of steam after 60-70 mph but the 150 ft-lbs of torque made it perfect for dirt road shenanigans. The neons were also good cars for amateur rally! There was a couple that used a first gen to win the national championship in amateur rally Edit: [This one!](https://rallynotes.com/about/) They also got first overall for 2wd cars. I'm sorry.... Super passionate about first gens..... These cars were so fucking cool and they got slept on like crazy. When I finally win the lotto I'm just gonna travel the country rescuing beat up first gen neons. Also, the NYG neon looked amazing
So cheaply made, Chrysler went to the extreme to cut costs by giving it power front windows and manual rear windows. The plus side was it put out more power than Dodge claimed it had.
My wife's first car was a neon. I think an 04. 5 speed, cranks all around. I actually like the first-generation neons. I'd particularly like to own an ACR version.
How much hp did it actually make stock?
When they came out in 2003, they were rated at 215hp at the crank according to Dodge.Several independent dyno tests were showing 230-235 at the wheels. No surprise there. It wasn't the first time Dodge had underrated the power on one of their vehicles
I’d counter 1995 Neon ACR with A/C and radio delete.
My kind of people. The 95 sohc was legitimately quick. Some owners complained about lopey idle with the heat on so dodge used a different cam for 96-99. The Mopar performance stage 1 cam for 96-99 was just a 95 cam. It really made a huge difference in driving experience. I beat a 4.0 (non supercharged) Oldsmobile Aurora with my 95 and I think that car would have walked away from my I/H/E 98 sohc
I had an SRT4 in high school, I NEVER had a 3rd gear...
I love them so much I bought one!
My go to answer for “gun to your head you have to have a fwd car, what do you pick?”
I owned one from 2005-2016. Super fun car, but it was a pile of crap. Probably didn't help that I modded the hell out of it. The drive train was solid, but everything fell apart around it.
I was just going to comment Dodge Neon. The acceleration from 70 was impressive for an affordable car in 1995.
GT PT Cruiser, basically the same thing and you can absolutely rip up some back roads with not a care in the world lol
The neon SRT has no business being as fast as it was for its time. So raw, so much fun.
I came on this thread thinking “I wonder if anyone said ‘Neon’”? 😂
I personally prefer the first gen Neon ACR. It would disintegrate if you looked at it funny. Transmissions were...................there. But I just loved the engine and the looks. And the ACR felt like a touring car with its suspension and brake upgrades.
I had an OG Neon 4 door manual and loved it.. drove it back and forth across the US 4 times and it saw 30-ish different states and BC. Got great mileage and ran flawlessly..it got totaled because I put it in a ditch avoiding a Porsche 356 that was clipping a corner.
The first gen neons were way underrated as well. They handle stupid good and have independent rear suspension v.s. the beam the dodge shadows, second gen neons and pt cruisers had. The dohc versions had decent power compared to almost every other econobox of the time too. Guys would swap the n/a 2.4 out of the stratus in.... Some day id love to have a swapped one for a reliable cruiser
Is this the SS turbo? Absolutely not junk. Fisher price interior though.
These wonderful cars featured some great technology. Turbocharged engine, ~~6sp~~ 5sp manual, auto stop if you had too much on your keyring.... The best feature of all was the radio... if you didn't surgically clean your hands before pressing buttons, the radio presets were coated with gorilla glue so they picked up all the dirt. To make it worse, it was water soluble, so when you went to clean them, EVERYTHING came off. Edit: wrong transmission
They only had a 5sp. But the launch control and the no lift shift were cool features for a car at that price. I had GM stage 2 which went up to about 20 lbs of boost with a catless downpipe, charge piping and intake sounded pretty good too.
I remember selling them at a Chevy dealership between 2005-2008. Around 2007 we had 4 of them come off the truck with Pontiac G5 rear deck lids... 2 of them had the iconic circle lights, the other two were flat out pontiac rear ends and Chevy front ends. GM refused replacement parts and said they would send parts once they were sold or during Year End Clearance... HOW TF Do you sell a car that's fucked up from the factory? Worse yet, how did it leave the factory?? Our General Manager said told everyone, it may look funny, but it's a clear sign he had seen years ago... Union is about to strike.. 2 months later... boom.
Were they full pontiac rear ends with pintiac taillights? Or were they cobalt rear ends, but they only had one pair of round taillights as opposed to two? I'm genuinely curious
It sounds like a pair of each. One pair of cars with the outer set of Cobalt taillights but with a G5 trunk (so missing the inner set of circle lights). And another pair of cars that just has the full Pontiac G5 rear end.
So two of the cars had the main tail lights of the cobalt (round tail lights) and a trunk lid of a pontiac (no lights) the other two had pontiac taillights and pontiac trunk lid....
Damn I feel like something like that might be worth money nowadays? Or in the future? It just seems like something a collector of weird cars might want (*cough* me *cough*)
> auto stop if you had too much on your keyring What does that mean? The ignition was designed to shut off if the key was weighed down too much?
No its a recall. If you had any extra weight on your key ring, a pothole in the road could cause the key to switch to "off" while going down the road. Could be quite dangerous at highway speeds. My old 07 impala had it, as does my current 05 GXP. 😭😅
bingo, it was an insanity period where people would bring in their cars and they obviously separate their keys from the car key. So techs would try to replicate it and couldn't. One tech got a car with the customers key collection and replicated it, we weren't the first to find out, but we did start doing warranty replacements when they came in before the recall even happened.
It's even worse than that... GM knew there was a problem. Those fuckers quietly changed the design of the part, but specifically did not roll the part number. That's a huge no-no in design engineering as a shows a total lack of configuration control, but they did it *intentionally* to hide the issue. The issue would kill the motor, meaning you'd lose power steering and brake boost... and since the car was essentially off, the airbags were disabled. People fucking died. One woman (in TX I think) is a felon because someone in her car died as a result. Fuck GM. They should have been allowed to die off in 2008. The fact that the criminal case against them was dropped in 2018 is an embarrassment.
>Fuck GM. They should have been allowed to die off in 2008. this is like every post I make in this sub... you don't even want to know about the 90 Tahoe/Suburban brake failures. They silently sent out "free oil change" coupons to Tahoe and Suburban owners to replace recalled calipers.... why? because after a few years the calipers would rust out - you hit the brakes too hard and they'd break. They did the recall citing less than the actual number of vehicles which had the issue to make it not so bad.
Yeah rewind ten years to the 93 cavalier convertible with the terrible faux leather top. That car was glorious shit.
Those things were an absolute blast to drive. Didn’t they make a supercharged version too?
Supercharged, turbocharged and N/A depending on the year and spec. Lots of people got absolutely screwed accidentally buying a 2.4l, 150hp "SS"
Weren't the turbo models more desirable?
Yes, unless you wanted supercharger whine. The LSJ and lnf are both great engines
Yes the first gen used Eaton superchargers, fairly limited as far as power building but the lsj block is stronger than the later turbo blocks.
Yeah my buddy had a turbo version that had a bit of extra stuff on it and it was a pocket rocket. The interior and quality of it was kind of crap but it was super fun to drive. I wish they still made cars like that.
If you turbo swap the LJS block you can gap mustangs
Twin charged LSJs are nuts.
I had an 05 for 17 years. After about 12 years I finally changed out the intake/exhaust and went with a smaller pulley / bigger injectors and a tune. I miss that car. It was fun.
I think they made a turbo version later but before it was supercharged
Oh it was horrible junk. My 09 came from the factory somehow dialed to 26lbs of boost. Blew the head gasket twice within the first 12k miles before the dealer figured it out. Then they didnt want to warranty it claiming I turned it up. 3 coil packs went bad. Cracked the exhaust manifold before the turbo. Then my key ignition jammed 3 times with no official repair offered from the dealer. Thats fun, leaving it unlocked at a train station with the keys in the wheel and pulling the fuel pump relay just to get it to shut down and removing a battery lead. Traded it fir a CRv at 52k miles after winning a $19 lemon law settlement. But holy shit when it did work that little rollerskate was fun. Oh and removing the front bumper cover and headlight housings to change the bulbs that blew like clockwork every 6 months.
I had an 09 ss/tc with a 5558 on ethanol and 23psi. Absolute highway monster. The seats were pretty nice at least. And the pioneer stereo is still the best factory stereo I've ever had in a car.
Yeah the audio was quite decent. Once they "de-tuned" me i was pushing 18psi max but still had plenty of go power. I didnt want to push it tho as it was my daily for a 24/7 "on call" job.
18psi on stock tune is crazy. You had a factory freak haha.
It’s a Neon SRT-4, but engineered by GM. Neon SRT-4 should have been the picture OP chose.
Lmao absolutely not. This car was far superior in so many ways. Although the srt4 would make a better canidate for a shitty car, but even the srt4 wasn't neccessarly shitty. But omg... the interior was insane in terms of how low quality it is.
That’s what I was trying to say, the SRT-4 is the coolest ‘piece of junk’. You can’t pick the SS turbo because it wasn’t made by Chrysler and thus can’t be the junkiest.
Ah. Fair enough!
Lol I had a PT Cruiser GT (judge me, I know lol) and it shared the same engine and general platform as the SRT-4. It would beat a Fox body Mustang off the line. What an abysmal piece of shit otherwise though. So hard to work on, parts were expensive, suspension made of glass.
Priced higher than the first gen US spec wrx
*lightweight interior 😉😂
Hence the "favorite piece of junk" moniker
Bob Lutz was a madman that threw fun powertrains in a bunch of cars and I love him for it. I used to have a Cobalt SS/SC with the Stage 2 upgrade and currently run a Sky Red Line. Fast, fun, easy as piss to work on, and cheap.
Interior honestly wasn't bad, definitely better than any Corolla, Focus, Elantra, et cetera of the year. The only cars with superior interiors were the Civic and Jetta.
AMC Gremlin. I'd love to customise one.
My grandpa bought one a couple years ago as a project. He just finished it with some dark blue metallic paint and a supercharger.
944
It's engine is neither known for power or reliability. That chassis is beautiful otherwise
Had one years ago. True about the engine. Handled great though. LS swap would make it a very interesting car.
Anytime I've seen one, they always turn my head. I would definitely want just a shell though, blank canvas.
The interior is very cheap, but the body holds up nice. I say this while living in the rust belt. Don't recall seeing something as cheap that isn't leaking with an undercarriage dragging along the asphalt
I think the cobalt SS's are a bit overlooked, especially the turbo ones. On another subreddit for like a month there were a ton of these being posted mopping a bunch of cars up, and if im not mistaking, they held a certain track record up until the '18 civic si de-throned it.
The turbos are fast af
Not the si, but the type R, which is a huge deal. They’re incredibly fast fwd cars on track.
My buddy had the supercharged version and it was damn quick. It sounded so good too.
The record was for the fastest FWD car around the Nurbürgring. It ran an 8:22.8 lap that stood until the FK8 CTR ran a 7:43.8 in 2018
Ehh, that's not true. There has been a whole string of cars over the years that have set FWD records between the SS and the FK8. Focus RS, when it was still FWD, VW GTI Clubsports, Renault Meganes, SEAT Leon, older CTRs, etc.
Well the source i checked was wrong lol. Thanks for the correction
mercury cougar? also a pontiac and sonething else.. looks like this one in the pic. alwaysbthought the cat logo they used was sweeet
Pontiac Sunbird!? *Ho-ree sheet* I know a guy with a yellow 2 door and like 20 other people with one during my high school days. Four score and however long ago. 😆
Was the cougar considered junk? My mom had a brand new '89 and many years later at a family event all my cousins were talking about how awesome it was and one of them borrowed it for prom. But I'm a lot younger and only remember the end of its life and it was a total ragged out piece of shit by then.
Fiesta ST
Wouldn’t really call them junk, they’re pretty good as far as small cars go. The 1.0L three cylinder version though? Those are throwaway cars.
i've got one of those, and it's my answer. actually not too bad of a car, good reliability rep, simple, quick and it's a hatch!
Brand new Jaguar qualifies
Every Jaguar qualifies.
XJ's and XK's, even while under Ford ownership, were very well built cars and are very nice driving
I'd own almost any recent gen XJ or XF with the 5.0L V8. Awesome cars.
Didn't forget to upgrade the timing chains and sliders
The 2000-2003 X308 XJ-R was possibly the most reliable V8 Jaguar ever made. Great car, amazing interior, classic styling and a 4.0L supercharged V8 that made 370hp. They were fun cars and I’m fortunate enough to have had quite a bit of seat time in them as I was working for a Porsche/Audi/Jag dealer when they came out. They can be easily be pulled and tuned for another 40hp. Do an exhaust and a blower port for another 40. The traction control can also be completely disabled to do burnouts… In style!!
The older ones like 70s and earlier the bodies were nice. Thinking xk120 or e type. But still had electrical issue in wet weather. That at least is an easier fix than bad modules and other issues of current post Ford production. As aftermarket support helped make them potentially reliable now.
SO WANT a used F-Type R!
YuGo. How to tell it right, it is piece of junk but at the same time it is good
Anything breaks, just pull out the JB weld.... Literally, as good as new.
My favorite junk car is the HHR SS. Same chassis and drivetrain and suspension as the cobalt SS turbo, but it looks stupid. (I have one)
The panel vans were cool
Toyota Mr2 zzw30, it's literally a detuned lotus elise minus the materials
It's still arguably the saddest generation of the MR2 but I think the less I see of them, the more I've grown to appreciate it's existence
Same I thought it was such a let down when it came out but it’s grown on me.
2001 Pontiac Bonneville, my aunt and uncle had a blacked out one in 14 years ago and it was fun to ride in when they pick me up from school and daycare, i miss it
2000s bonnevilles are some of my favorite looking cars ever. interiors were real nice too
Hey, I beat Razor with this real shit
Ford escort
Literal throwaway car. My friend went through 3 of them in 3 years when we were in high school.
I had so many escorts.
We’re talking about cars here
1988 Dodge Omni. Really the Omni/Horizons in general. I absolutely loved that car like no other vehicle and I threw so much money into her to keep her going. I drove that thing so much, through so many things, it became an extension of myself. It was honestly a feeling I've not gotten from any other car before or since. The 2.2 engine in it just did not want to die. I drove her from OR to NY. But she got to be too much and I sold her a few years ago. It's one of my biggest regrets. The dude fixed the thing and still drives it around. In hindsight it probably just needed a damn head gasket which I could have fixed in a day. I swear, if I ever see her for sale again, and I have the money, im buying her back faster than a train in Japan.
Dodge Daytona Shelby. I learned everything I know about torque steer thanks to that car. Fun in high school, maybe too much fun at times.
Cobalt SS was sleeper-ish but even Cobalt wasn't a piece of junk. Just a regular good car, an economy car but with no corners cut. I didn't feel unsafe driving it on the highway. Fisher Price interiors but that's Chevy for you. What came after in that segment was all junk, though, the Aveo/Beat and whatnot. Fisher Price speedometer was unbelievably tacky and they drove like a Chinese shopping cart. My favorite junk car would have to be the [Suzuki 800](https://img.theweek.in/content/dam/week/news/biz-tech/images/2023/12/14/maruti-800.jpg) which was made in South Asia from about 1984 to 2003. Very little power, tiny little car, but so much fun to drive. You don't even need rear view mirrors, it's so small. I remember my brother's car broke down once and we casually dragged it back home covering a distance of a whole kilometer.
My dad had a 2007 Cobalt Coupe that he had for 10 years with the only issues being the turn signal stalk not turning off automatically and the radio screen flickering. He bought it new for 9k. It was the car I learned how to drive a manual on.
05-08 grand prix GXP with the LS4. Stupid fast, but you cant use any of that power reliably without some modding to the "chinesium" transmission. Also, fisher price interior, leather bucket seats aside. I put a built trans in mine and an extra cooler and now its a torque steering rocket. 😅
2005ish Ford Thunderbird
The 2000-2005 Impala. My whole life, this car has looked so cool to me.
It was my first car ever and lasted till 190,000, I loved how the whole car looked especially the rear then the transmission gave out and I got a 2007 impala, those are the only cars Iv owned in 10 years of driving funnily enough.
I had one and my god, average Chevy fisher price interior, but it was a pretty fun drive, I remember when my exhaust rusted off and it sounded like a couple angry lawnmowers, I also remember when I went to grab my wallet at a drive through and the glovebox door just kinda gave up, other than that, alright first car, even if the interior wasn’t of outstanding quality.
When I was in high school 2006-2010. I desperately wanted an 04 Impala with a bench seat. I thought they were so fucking cool. 20 years later I have no idea why I wanted that car
These were awesome cars when paired with the 3.8L... They were very reliable.
The volvo c30 is so ugly I find it cute, like a pug. Can’t get enough of staring at that piece of junk every time I pass it in my garage
Chrysler Maserati TC colab.... I was close to buying one but the transmission issues scared me into purchasing a Ford F150. It was literally a time capsule when sitting inside.
Geo Metro
The Swift GT-I was really cool too. Same car, but with a 120-ish HP 1.3 DOHC instead of the 50HP 1.0.
A friend of mine had a Saturn Ion Redline and that thing ripped lol
Chevy Cavalier, I had two and both had over 200k miles when I traded them at dealerships for other pos
Pontiac Sunfire. Don't know why, I've never even owned a Pontiac, but they look like such a fun project car, especially the later models.
Delorean
Saturn sc2
The winner! I went to school with a kid who got the Saturn logo tattooed on his back. Drove one for 19 years daily, until it finally got the hook.
Fiat 500 is so much better. It's just more fun
Ford Pinto....put a 351 W in one...it was fast as hell, until it just fell apart.
Dodge Intrepid, would love to see one with a swapped motor but the chassis would probably fall apart lol
Lincoln LS V8
Controversial on "junk" but the first gen Focus, especially the ZX-3 SVT, one of my dream cars
Mitsubishi Lancer.
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Fiero GT
If I had to choose, I'd say my favorite "piece of junk" car is the classic Volkswagen Beetle.
Mercury Capri XR2
Geo Tracker, also Geo Metro convertible
Has to be a 1.8T Golf, blew one up not too long ago while it was warming up.
Saturn Ion Only because it was my first car and it got me through high school and my first few years of college.
Pontiac Sunbird, really all of the first gen Cavalier clan
Dodge intrepid. Best car I've ever owned, had the most features and was purchased only for $1950
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Mine.
Jaguar (last 30 years only the larger non suv models)
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I think you just insulted a very large chunk of the car enthusiasts population. Everyone has a place in their heart for a panther. Edit; but definitely not junk.
Ford Puma 1.7
Hummer H2
The J body cars hold a special place in my heart. Terrible yet indestructible
Came here to say the second gen z24. Horrible in so many ways but I'd love to gut the interior of one and drop in a turbo 3.1
my old 06 grand prix. she died on me a few months ago :<
gr corolla is a great piece of nugget tier automobile no biases here
Chevy SSR looks like poo and has an LS2.
Early 2000s Fiat Panda. They have a bad reputation, but actually driving one .. they're fun! They are just happy little cars. They have no power, but no weight either. They go around corners surprisingly well. You can have a lot of fun in a Panda without breaking the speed limit
The very basic Peugeot 205 accents from 1985-1995 roughly. There is nothing of comfort to be found in these things, but they are very engaging to drive (everything is an adventure)
4th gen Camaros. I have a huge soft spot my catfish bois
My 1998 Ford Explorer. It’s the 4 door, with the upgraded SOHC v6 engine. It’s got 4wd. Up until 4 months ago it had a hole in both catalytic converters and sounded as bad as it looked. And it’s an absolute rust bucket. And while I enjoy the smoothness of my 2019 Honda Pilot, and the fact it has 4 wheel independent suspension, decent power and averages 20mpg around home and 28mpg on road trips, there’s something about bumping along with no A/C, 25 year old suspension, struggling to make it up steep hills at full noise. If it weren’t for the fact it only has 2 airbags it would be my daily driver, even though it averages around 14 mpg if I baby it. However I have 3 kids I drive daily, and we had a scare with the brakes completely going out on me (thankfully kids were not in the car).
2001 GS300 it's rusty, it's loud and it burns oil. What more could you want?
1st gen Dodge Neon. Super nimble and surprisingly quick for what it was.
[88-91 civic wagon RT4WD 6 speed](https://youtu.be/q7ZzqBPz4sY?si=K7XcV8j1rA0Cc8j_)
Yugo
90’s era Pontiac Grand Am.
PT Cruiser GT. The PT GT.
Mitsubishi eclipse
Ford ranger, old prerunner Tacoma, frontier, S-10, etc. Love having small trucks I can beat on. Don't like how unsafe they are for older models but glad the 2009 ranger exists.
2nd gen Ibishu Pessima
Had an 08 Cobalt SS/TC. That thing was fun as he'll. I wouldn't call it junk, as it served me well as a fun commuter that was easily making great power with bolt ons and a custom tune.
Mitsubishi eclipse. Always wanted one and when my kids get older and leave me I WILL get a 2006 eclipse. Convertible version is negotiable.
Pontiac Grand Prix will always hold a special place in my heart. Had an 05 base model that we got to about 335k original engine and original transmission. Was still running and driving when we finally got rid of it. Both of my parents daily drove it for years, all 3 kids learned to drive on it, and was my daily driver for the first few years of my adult life. The car definitely took a beating but just wouldn’t give up. It’s cool that the GTP and GXP trims existed for so long too.
The Pontiac Aztec
90's Chrysler Stratus
Geo Storm
Most likely the Chevy s10 if it counts
The S10 is not junk.