Just joking, but me it was the 2002 Ford Explorer and its endless problems with the transmission, the wheels, the windows and everything else that could go wrong.
Just looking at carcomplaints can show you the size of the problem, with 1,500 reports of transmission problems alone.
One of our early car purchases was an Audi A4. I don’t recall the exact model year but it would have been mid 2000s. That car was so dang cool at the time, but unfortunately it was also a nightmare. It was one problem after another and each incident was expensive.
My dad told me it was pronounced Ford Exploder…
still better than the cybertruck.
There’s a reason it’s nickname is the Ford Exploder.
Our 1997 Exploder blew it’s transmission.
I see your Ford Explorer and raise you one GM J-Body (Chevrolet Cavalier, Pontiac Sunfire, Cadillac Cimarron).
The 2nd and 3rd gen Taurus was also really a dog, and firmly cemented the public perception that “Ford is crap” in the 2000’s and 2010’s.
I an offer the following
dataanecdotes on that:- My uncle had a 1st gen one, traded it in for a 2nd gen and the transmission blew up.
- My sister had one, and the transmission blew up.
- Before we were married my spouse had one, and the transmission blew up.
- I had two friends who owned one each, one a regular Taurus and the other an SHO, and on both of them the transmissions blew up.
In retrospect, maybe making the car progressively heavier and heavier with each successive model year but still using the same dinky transmission as a cost cutting measure wasn’t the best idea.
Could be worse, like Ford Europe starting the huge cancerous trend of wet timing belts.
It was always stupid that they handicapped what was otherwise a pretty good platform with such a shit transmission. The Vulcan v6 was a tough puppy.
I was still amazed at the stupidity of them bringing back the Taurus name after it’s hiatus. Should have just kept the 500 name.
I bought my dad’s early 2000s Jeep Liberty off him for $1k. Every time I brought it to the mechanic, it cost another $1k to fix. The tow was extremely loose, so it felt like I was driving on ice. Hated it so much. Finally traded it in for a used Toyota RAV4.
