What's the worst deathtrap you've ever driven on the road?

[Hooli]

Oh that reminds me.

Merc W124 260e with two seized rear callipers I didn't know about as it stopped ok. I forget if they were sliding or twin piston but worn pads and discs meant the inner pads fell out out both together when I was going for it. Last second braking into a tight left from 80 plus is interesting when the pedal hits the floor.
It was about a 30mph bend and somehow pumping the brakes, dropping the auto into second and a massive Swedish flick followed by the most sideways I've ever driven a car got it round the bend.
I drove very carefully for the next hour or two to get home. There's no way I could corner like that deliberately but thank fuck I managed it once as there were stone walls on the inside and a stone barn on the outside of the bend.

[Eddie Honda]

I couldn't think earlier, but now I recall the worst. It was a loaner Fiat 500 (Bambino sort) that had a mish mash of 500 & 126 brake parts. I left the house to go down Treadaway Hill and on braking for the mini roundabout at the bottom, ran out of pedal. (I don't think I hit the end of the the master cylinder, but the floorboard.) Luckily nothing was coming and I managed to carry on and stop it somewhere past the roundabout.

This same car also had a rear wheel overtake it on the way to a MOT due to an insufficiently staked stub axle nut.

[AutoshiteBoy]

I had a Marina suffer total brake failure approaching a 4 way cross roads and I just scathed through.

[Cruiser45]

Every Reliant I've owned.mainly the Regals,which were pretty deadly when new,more so after 45 years and minimal metal holding the front swingarm to the chassis

[marvinsmom]

there are only a couple of things that i have driven that should not have been on the road.

first was a mark 1 (and very very ripe) mark 1 Golf GTi. it smelt like something had died in it. and had only 3 gears. when we jacked the car up on base of the drivers A-post, the jack seemed to be going on up like forever. there was a crunching sound, and well, we'd jacked the jack straight though the floor. slightly later, when i took the wonky spoiler wind deflector thing off the side of the windscreen, i found that underneath said plastic trim there was some silicon sealer stuff, and a bloody big hole! it got scraped, the engine, gearbox and running gear taken off, then the doors and glass removed, and the remains chopped up with an angle grinder and cold chisel before the remains were trailered to Marske Metals...

i guess i only lost £1500 on that thing.

then the second car would be actually be Marvin the Metro, which i got from Sheffield. problem there was that by the time i got it over to Kerry's there was next to no brakes left on it. it was shrieking well, but it didn't want to stop. the front pads were down to the metal, and the backs weren't working cos the wheel cylinders were not just leaking, they were pissing the stuff out! still, new pads, disks, shoes and wheel cylinders were all bought locally and were fitted, and all for not alot of money. we even managed to fit all that on our own too! at least with the Metro, i had only spent £600 on it, and i still have the car now 11-odd years later.

[captain_70s]

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Subframe partially sunken into the chassis leg leading to the steeling column acting as a support so the steering was so heavy it wouldn't self centre. Brakes needed pumping up to full power. Exhaust leaked into the cabin. Would do 90mph.

[SiC]

Worse deathtrap I've owned and driven?
Nothing as I only buy decent cars

[Eddie Honda]

Worse deathtrap I've owned and welded up before not driving?
Everything I can't resist taking a tappy hammer to.

[mercrocker]

Last weekend was our local Carnival and of course on Sunday was Father's Day. My daughter called me (from Ibiza on a piss-up) on Sunday to chat and reminded me of a long-ago Carnival weekend when I had a Mk4 Cortina. I think she would have been about three or four years old. The Corty was a temporary replacement for my yank which was in for a recon small-block and cost me £30 up the auction - literally the last car to limp through that afternoon.

It was probably not a death-trap in itself although the void bushes were fucked and it had to be started with a screwdriver. Needless to say the MOT and tax were optional extras I chose not to take up. It was just a bit of a clown car - despite my best efforts bits just kept dropping off it....

Anyway, we get caught up in the Carnival backlog as the main parade came through and I nipped down a side street which I thought might be quicker. It would have been if Plod hadn't been in charge and I got the Big Hand of Stop just as it was my turn at the Give Way sign. As I braked a little sharper than I may have needed the car dipped down and disgorged the radiator grille onto the road surface. After dealing with the next wave of traffic Plod bent down, picked it up and attempted to hand it to me. Unfortunately the driver's window was jammed so I awkwardly tried to feed it through my open door, failed, wound down the back door window and plonked it onto my daughter's lap - in the back seat with no seatbelt.

"Your daughter should be wearing......And Where is Your Tax?" Somebody nicked it, I replied. "I'll be looking for you son (I was bloody 32 FFS)" he said as he waved me through. At which precise moment my daughter chose to yell "Doughnuts!!" at him - far too many episodes of "COPS" on Sky, obviously...

Thankfully the Cortina of Doom only had to perform for another couple of weeks and I flogged it to a banger boy. The copper hung up his pointy hat a few months later, grew his hair and beard and became the town hippie for a few years. Good old times....

[Guest]

If we're going for the no brakes, it would either be an Austin 7 (it had working brakes, they just didn't slow it down) or the Opel Manta belonging to my dad's cousin.
I was warned the brakes weren't very good. What this meant was that you got the horrible noise of metal on metal while it tried to guide you into a ditch.