Worst 300 that you have driven?

[jtbo]

Preferrably one that is 'road worthy'.

Mine is one golden sedan with B19 powerplant.

Generally car did look rather beaten, rear wheel had snapped wheel bolt thing with threads, so wheel was attached only with 3 nuts, driver seat had failed in several ways, there were wooden log jammed between backrest and car body so that backrest stayed in position, driver's door was openable only from inside, sure it was rusty and had lot of dents too.

This was on sale at one car dealer, I think that asking price was something around 400 euros, it had several months of MOT left too.

So off to test drive, however battery was flat, so it needed booster to get it started, starting took rather long, for over a minute luring motor to run, at that point I did notice bad smell inside of car was replaced by fumes of petrol.

Kaboom, it finally started to live, there was naturally no idle at all, so had to keep it running with throttle pedal, no matter, to the road we did go, clutch was totally dead, it was on/off type with exception that if I did booted it started to slip, after 50 meters or so I started to loose hearing from my right ear as exhaust was blowing so badly, around 100 meter rear wheel bearing started to scream which hurt quite badly to my left ear, thing was pulling so hard to side that I had to keep both hands on wheel, also wheel did wobble quite a bit, so we decide to return back after driving 300 meters, there was hardly any brakes and those all seemed to be opposite side than car naturally did pull, so car did jumped to side when I pushed the brakes.

Now car did started to act as a kangaroo, managed to turn it around and then smoke started to pour into car from all air vents, could not open windows as there were no handles, tried to open door, but failed, could not find handle, when almost back at the car dealer motor started to splutter and misfire, with smoke inside the cabin, I tried to find free spot from yard, finally turning off the engine, which only caused engine note to change tone a bit, so I did stopped it by dumping a clutch on 5th gear, at this point there were more smoke than air in cabin and I started to feel panic arising as still I could not find door handle to open the door, remeber it was not possible to open the door outside. Finally noticed that string hanging loose and pulled from it, the door opens and I gasp air without seeing much to front of me as there was so thick cloud of smoke.

Next idea was that car is on fire, so popped bonnet open, oil was running onto exhaust manifold like someone would been pouring it, no visible fire though.

Car dealer comes to ask how was it with wide smile, price was set and he was not ready to drop it, so there was luckily not much to discuss as my lungs felt like being on fire and I had really bad taste on my mouth, literally speaking that is.

Probably the worst car that I have ever driven, even one VW comes close, however at that day I did bought my current 360 from accross the road from that horrible car dealer.

It is so long time ago, that can't remember all the details, but there were issues with gear shifting too, I believe, anyway it has puzzled me to these days how that thing could had MOT, I mean it surely had to be quite bad at time of previous MOT test too

I did test drive one Ford at same day, it had issue with motor temperature and it did not felt fault at all after that experience.

[CBA]

very good.

mines not a 300 and nowhere near as bad.
It was a 1991 fiat tempra, carburettor very worn and kept on fouling sparkplugs. it ran on one cylinder first thing in the moning, it was not really running but detonating on the one cylinder, sounded THUD THUD THUD, just barely 800rpm with floored accelerator. leaking clutch slave cylinder too so after a few miles it couldnt be stopped since the brakes were in a similar condition. Unfairly the body and interior were in good condition.

[SteveP]

I don't think I've ever driven a really bad 300... even the 343DL I had which was laid up for 6 years drove nicely but the brakes were very unbalanced as you'd expect!

[Chris_C]

Once you've driven something modern and bland you realise there is no bad 300.

The worst 300 I've ever driven was a RHD GLT bought by a chap in the forces in Germany, which we had stripped of most useful non running gear parts. It was fairly breezy!

[volvosneverdie]

Ive never driven a "bad one" either.
The steering on the silver vario was heavy. But thats a bit picky isnt it!

[Speedy88]

Out of all the ones I've gone to test drive (for the hell of it with no intention to buy), I can safely say they all drove perfect and a blind sight better than mine in terms of worn-out-ness. So the worst 300 I've driven is... mine But mine is also the best I've ever driven for other reasons, if that makes sense.

[whiskeyonesix]

Worst 300 that you have driven?

I've only ever driven mine! I wouldn't know a rough or mint 300 from a hole in the ground

I imagine a properly fettled PAS-equipped Leather'd up 360 GLE would be an absolute thing of joy though!

[jtbo]

Worst from the best can still be good

Mine has some issues, unless I have already solved them, I really don't know, but I would need to get it to road to find out if it is so or not.

Mine has always had big problem with light throttle situations, like when driving at city around 40kph, it very easily starts to rock back and forth, feels like being in pouch of roo and I dislike that feeling.

Also it has had lot of issues when applying throttle, it does not go instantly, has delay and then goes, but not as well as one would except.

Having some dents by previous owners and molden interior, oil leaks, fairly noisy motor, failed engine mounts, one gearbox mount broken and collapsed front strut tops only add to issues lits, but it still is better car than my french crap. It is better car how it handles and how it feels to drive it.
Did I mention rust holes and rotten beams underneath?

Kind of having bit of inspiration at the moment, but garage is stuffed, maybe I go to see if there is some little things that I could do to make it bit closer to road worthy, like lifting front end to stands so I could start fixing engine mounts and strut top mounts, oh and there was also that front beam that runs under motor which is rusted from one end.

Or maybe I just start with cleaning up the garage, moving all stuff that is not needed to other location so I get space to work with car, to get garage door open I have to move 5m x 10m x 1m of snow, of couse I could walk into that deep snow, but will not do that

I have driven once perfect 360GL, it was same colour as mine too, was driven only 120 000km and it was rather new during that time, really loved it, but was stupid enough to listen my father and not bought it, that would of been my first car.

[volvosneverdie]

I imagine a properly fettled PAS-equipped Leather'd up 360 GLE would be an absolute thing of joy though!

I can attest to that.

[jtbo]

I believe PAS will spoil sensitive wheel/steering feedback that is one of the great things in 300, unless there is something wrong in steering.

Just came back, managed to get 1 meter more space to front of car and 0.5 meters more behind the car, there is still a lot of junk that should be moved so that I could get garage to work as it should, however I can already do some work there, which is improvement, so maybe I can make my 300 bit less bad state.

-18C out there, brrrr. Oh the joy of moving piles of snow, at the point I managed to get garage door open, I was already exhausted

[volvodspec]

worst 300's i've driven are a few:

1977 343DL special, not mine. owner had a few troubles with the engine and cvt and i did a diagnostic ride first. the original 2-piston calipers on the front wich don't brake nearly as good as the later single piston calipers were seized, it barely braked at all.. engine was running rough; on idle the drivers seat was like sitting on a massage chair, cvt had a broken membrane and leaking EMVK so constant kickdown and belt's out of balance... and even the alignment was off so letting go of the steering wheel while driving would result in an offroad trip... after a long day of working on it, i've managed to fix everything, it drove like new.

1987/1988 340 with cvt, (also not mine) driving off made a loud CLUUNK noise and stopping too, constant speed was a hard rattle. i found the secundary gearbox of the cvt hanging on 2 threads of 1 nut, the other 3 nuts were completely missing so the gearbox was jumping up and down banging into the gearbox subframe ...

and a 1988 360 (also not mine) wich looked lowered and drove a bit "weird", it had vague responding suspension and steering. on the bridge (when the car nearly went throught the floor when going up...) i saw that more than 50% of all chassisparts had rusted away ; 2 rear leafspring brackets were gone, sills gone, front subframe half gone, strut towers were wobbling around etc.., i advised the owner of that car to take scrap money for it as besides the chassis the rest of the car was very, very far gone..

[V6 Man]

Worst 300 driven?

Nessy........