What is the most under powered car you drove

mengele

just wondering most under powered car you ever drove. can be a big car that just had no guts.
I think mine was a 1.4 petrol skoda octavia

Nekarsulm

Ford fusion, a rental one in France. Think it was 1.4 diesel. You could drive it, or have the air-con on, but not enough power to do both at the same time............

Supergurrier

Like OP my first car was a 1.4 ta via.

Drove a 1.9 straight daysul berlingo for about and it made the octy look like a supercar

Sconsey

Mazda 3, 1.4 petrol....everyone said get the 1.6, I thought I'd be saving money on fuel..wrong, it had to always rev really high to go at any kind of acceptable speed, overtaking was a bitch in that car too.

jimgoose

A friend of mine has an old 900cc Micra with automatic transmission. I drove it a couple of times and could not stop laughing.

Lofty123

Had A Simca 1100 way back when... Wouldn't pull a soldier off my sister!

dodderangler

Was thinkin of getting a Opel vectra 06 and drove one last week. 1.6 and fcuk all power.

Truckermal

I once owned a MK1 Golf days and Christ was it slow after a 20 minute drive it lost all power and you had to pull in for a while and then off again..

Matt_Trakker

A Polish car called the Polonez. It was said to be a 1.9 diesel but it drove like a 1.1 Micra.
Safe as houses though, sure it's just a big hunk of metal:

Polish cops even had them as Police cars......but they have Kias now....saying nothing.

Anan1

Mine was a Mk2 Golf 1.6 diesel. It was dog slow, but still too fast for my level of maturity at the time - after one four wheel drift too many, I put it into a tree.

Moneymaker

Dahaitsu Charade 1.0 diesel. 1.0, yes really.

The 1.4 Focus I had a few years ago was an absolute pig too.

mickdw

00 avensis 1.6 petrol.

bazz26

Nissan Serena 2.3d, needed planning permission to move.

whomitconcerns

my old 1.9 octavia before the turbo was cleaned/fixed....foot to the floor 90kph in 5th at a push...

Paddy@CIRL

A one point something Ford Escort MK VI belonged to my uncle whilst he was checking something on my van at the time. I had work in Cork and on the way there, tried to v-max it but ran out of interest before I got to the end of the slip road onto the motorway. I was doing a massive 68MPH despite trying to find the limiter in each gear. Shocking.

Mycroft H

1.4l Golf. Shed of a car

Viper_JB

Drove my uncles first gen kia Cee'd, I think it was the 1.4 litre one...that was horrible, really, really under powered, like to the point where I was having trouble getting to the speed limit on the on ramps, and driving at the speed limit on motorways engine was quiet high on the rev's so made the cabin quiet noisy and not a nice place to be for any extended period of time.

noelf

had a Citroën 2cv back in the 80"s slow but fun great for driving in Dublin exploiting the gaps in traffic. oh and going around corners with 45 degrees of lean

mickdw

bazz26 wrote: »

Nissan Serena 2.3d, needed planning permission to move.

And yet this (or similar) is what was chosen as get away vehicle from a bank robbery yesterday not forgetting they were also pulling a trailer that contained an ATM machine. Im sure a garda on a bicycle would have kept up with them.

mbyrnes

Had a old Daihatsu Charade 1.0L diesel back in the early '90's. Was afraid to to take it on the motorway in case it wouldn't make the minimum speed...

toyotaavensis

08 corsa 1.0 petrol

eisenberg1

I drove a Lada (Riva I think) which belonged to a mate, wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding.

Dfmnoc

B-max 1.6 turbo diesel mint to have the power of a 2 liter, a 1 liter micra would **** it off the road

fergal.b

Another one for the 3 cylinder Daihatsu Charade, I'm embarrassed just thinking about it couldn't pull it's own weight and definitely couldn't pull a bird






.

SleeperService

Corsa b, 993cc
Accelerator was a volume adjuster mainly.

Andrew_Doran

Almost new 2010 Clio E85 flexifuel

It had a cammy 16V 1.1L or something and never felt like it was pulling unless you revved the tits off it. Completely inappropriate state of tune.

By comparison a FIAT 1.2L 8v develops max torque at something like 2500RPM so doesn't need its neck wringing just to get up to 40MPH on a trip down the shops. Ideal for a small city car.

com1

I drove some sort of an Opel Corsa 1.3 eco (I think) rental in Italy a few years ago... jaysus you needed a push to get over a speed bump. And I've driven some underpowered cr*p in my day (the latest being the wife's 1.6 passat - scheeeesh -)

barone

1 litre corsa, stuck in traffic in westport one day with two adults plus me,and it would not go up the hill

road_high

1.2 L Corsa last year, the new model. Could not get over how slow this car was for a petrol and not a very heavy car either. Found it actually dangerous at junctions, pulling off it was so slow. Thought there was something wrong with it to be honest.

The Real B-man

1.0 Mk3 Seat Ibiza 50bhp!

Zcott

1974 VW Camper. 50hp when new...considerably less now.

Stella Virgo

opel astra, dire piece of junk......

BMJD

a 1.8L non-turbo diesel Ford Escort, it was a 1995 or 96 model, horrible horrible car

mitosis

Charade for me too. And a Daf 44 Combi with 44bhp (allegedly)

Jesus.

Laguna II 1.6

Very slow

O.A.P

East German Trabant, although probably no slower than some of the cars already mentioned. They really are a horrible thing to drive for any more than 10 or 15 minutes .

brokenarms

Peugeot 205 1.1. And a beetle. Both horrible.

R.O.R

Pre-Lci E90 316i - shocking.

b318isp

I think the issue hear is that we can expect certain cars to be slow, such as 1 litre yokes, but a number of mid sized cars are extraordinarily disappointing...

Mark II Ford Focus 1.4 petrol (worse than I expected)
Avensis 1.6 petrol (shockingly bad)
VW Golf/Bora 1.4 petrol

...but there is nothing like the old-skool non-turbo diesels to really describe being underpowered...

Opel Ascona 1.6D
Opel Rekord 2.3D
VW Golf/Jetta 1.6D

...you'd see glaciers overtaking you...

toyotaavensis

The 1.6 avensis is not that underpowered. It is lively compared to the likes of a 1.6 vectra.

Nekarsulm

b318isp wrote: »

I think the issue hear is that we can expect certain cars to be slow, such as 1 litre yokes, but a number of mid sized cars are extraordinarily disappointing...

Mark II Ford Focus 1.4 petrol (worse than I expected)
Avensis 1.6 petrol (shockingly bad)
VW Golf/Bora 1.4 petrol

...but there is nothing like the old-skool non-turbo diesels to really describe being underpowered...

Opel Ascona 1.6D
Opel Rekord 2.3D
VW Golf/Jetta 1.6D

...you'd see glaciers overtaking you...

But of course there is also the phenomenon of really underpowered cars that feel a lot faster than they are. The Mini 850 and a Hillman Imp ,(the drum brake ones) 60mph in either feels like 90!

b318isp

toyotaavensis wrote: »

The 1.6 avensis is not that underpowered. It is lively compared to the likes of a 1.6 vectra.

Not in my experience.

pajo1981

1.6 FSI Passat. Slow and bellowed at revs.

For Forks Sake

Mk4 Golf with the 1.9 SDI engine. That's a heavy car with only 68hp.

Actually a horse would have been a better option.

toyotaavensis

b318isp wrote: »

Not in my experience.

You, me outside now

ZV Yoda

My first car was a 1986 Fiat Uno 45s... just like this bad boy:



It wouldn't pull me out of bed in the morning. 44BHP (yes, you read it right) Claimed top speed of 87mph. Yeah, right... it would start to shake apart if the needle approached 70mph. A truly frightening experience.

On the plus side, it was an environmentalists dream car because it slowly disintegrated as the bodywork dissolved around me.

Lofty123

bazz26 wrote: »

Nissan Serena 2.3d, needed planning permission to move.

Slightly off topic, but this was also the most uncomfortable vehicle I've ever driven. Drove a brand new one as a Taxi, after a twelve hour shift my backside was numb and every bone in my body ached. Also numerous drunks had their hands/fingers caught in the sliding door, what a brilliant design! :rolleyes:

Marty McFly

The father has a 1.2 Seat Cordoba it's horrendous.

Murt10

Renault 4 van belonged to a friend.

I was driving it home to Dublin for him from Navan, flat out at 45mph in 4th gear. We came to a tiny little rise in the road, too small to call a hill, and had to rrop it down into 3rd gear just to stay over 40mph.

He used to have to cover the whole Country in that van.

Superdedupity

957 Mk 1 or 2 Fester, had both. You know youre a certain age when you can recall the distinctive noise they made...I had a Mk2 when I was 18, slow enough, fitted an xr2 bodykit with 15" rs wheels , thought I looked the bomb, literally was overtaken by 50cc scooters.

Its amazing what passed as acceptable power only 15 yrs ago, cant believe the sort of cars that are being described as woeful and a lot of people seem to have had models that needed repair rather than an inherent fault. Fair enough, a 1.6 Avensis is no rocket, but its the Starship Enterprise compared to what came before:)

Superdedupity

ZV Yoda wrote: »

My first car was a 1986 Fiat Uno 45s... just like this bad boy:



It wouldn't pull me out of bed in the morning. 44BHP (yes, you read it right) Claimed top speed of 87mph. Yeah, right... it would start to shake apart if the needle approached 70mph. A truly frightening experience.

On the plus side, it was an environmentalists dream car because it slowly disintegrated as the bodywork dissolved around me.

yeah the 999 fire engine was where it was at:D