Terrible Cars That Were a Waste of a Good Engine

Great engine stuck in a pathetic oversized SUV resembling a tipped-over Kenmore refrigerator.

As absurd as the Escalade-V is, absurdity doesn’t always equal good. And something that’s over 18-feet long weighing over 6,000 pounds powered by a supercharged V8, that really belongs in a sports car, hurts my enthusiast heart when I think about it.

Submitted by: Jim Scarpelli via Facebook

This might get some hate but the Syclone/Typhoon GM made in 91, 92, 93. That 4.3 V6 with a corvette throttle body and a big ole Mitsubishi turbo on it. Along with the all wheel drive, it would smoke most things at stoplights, all the while giving them hope with the turbo lag. It was glorious when spun up but one year of the Sonoma and 3 years of the Jimmy was all the action the turbo’ed 4.3 saw.

I had a Syclone and it was still making mustang GT’s cry in the early 2000s before I sold it. What I wouldn’t give to have it back...but it was an early 90s Sonoma. It creaked, rattled, and wasn’t overly comfortable, even with the hand pump lumbar support in the seats.

These performance versions of GM’s GMT325 platform trucks and SUVs were a great example of showing what happens when all of a vehicle’s development money goes into the engine rather than vehicle quality.

Submitted by: 2nd Gear Start

The Oldsmobile W41 version of the Quad 4 engine. If only they’d put that engine in the Fiero, or better yet, if GM had put it in the Isuzu Impulse.

The Quad 4 showed what GM could do when they really put their engineering minds to work. While the engine got some heat for vibration problems, it was decent enough to be compared to some turbocharged I4s, despite being naturally aspirated. Sadly, it spent years wasting away in GM’s cookie cutter front-wheel-drive midsize sedans and coupes.

Submitted by: Peter Parlock via Facebook

The old saying is you got the most reliable engine ever made wrapped up in a turd.

The Chrysler transmissions were 1960s designs with overdrive tacked on (literally - it’s an add-on unit on the end of the transmission). These transmissions were designed for gas engines, and in order to keep the torque the Cummins engine was capable of producing from instantly destroying the transmissions, the engines were detuned to 160 HP.

Basically these trucks were remarkably slow just to avoid breaking the automatic transmission. With a manual transmission you could turn up the fuel and suddenly have a fun to drive truck with plenty of power.

These should have come with an Allison transmission from day one. If Chrysler had sold them with a capable transmission they could have had the most powerful diesel trucks on the market.

Submitted by: I’m not good at making up names

and

Cummins diesels in Ram trucks. Nothing like a powerful, reliable power plant in a truck that can’t even keep its front end together for much more than 30k miles at a time. On top of other major issues that varied through the generations. They supported an early retirement from the repair business for me though.

Submitted by: Fred Krabach via Facebook

The EZ30 isn’t a brilliant motor, but that face is an affront to the brand as a whole, and especially to whatever motor could have been used at the time. The only upside to that combination is that it preserved a fair number of those EZ30s for weirdos like me who want to plop them into something smaller and force a little more air through them.

There’s a reason you can’t find the B9 Tribeca if you go digging through Subaru’s photo archives (they do have the subsequent Tribeca, which was the same car with a refreshed front fascia and name change.) Subaru’s EZ30 H6 engine only ever saw duty in Subaru’s first attempt at a seven-seat crossover as well as top trims of the Legacy and Outback.

Submitted by: Kamen Burton via Facebook

2008-era Chevy Impala SS. Weapons-grade rental/fleet special, with the typical GM fantasti-plastic interior and slow shifting automatic bolted to the sweet feeling and sounding 5.3L V8...and routed through the front wheels. I’ve had some as rentals back in the day, and while they were a riot in a straight line, anything beyond a 5 degree turn in the wheel could give you the mess you see in the picture below...

This was the era of GM saying essentially saying “screw it” and throwing V8s in cars that really shouldn’t have had them. GM’s W-body cars for Chevy, Buick, and Pontiac all got those big 5.3L V8 engines. While that big-displacement engine may look cool on paper, they were bolted to transmissions that really couldn’t handle the engine’s power, so they drove quite poorly.

Submitted by: Xavier1996

The R63 AMG comes to mind. A glorious engine pushing a 2.5 ton vehicle with a fairly unattractive body.

The R 63 AMG looked great on paper, but in reality, it would be a waste of a V8. Sure the idea of a rare 500-horsepower minivan is cool, but the potential problems that came with its ownership meant you should avoid it at all costs.

Submitted by: Stephen

The Garret-turbo’d 3.8 V6 in the Grand National GNX.

I’ll be that guy. The motor and the suspension were astounding. The car, was a heap of shit, in the most ‘80s Buick ways possible.

No seating support, shitty plastics, rattles and rattles and rattles, dash pads that can and will separate below the windshield...

It’s a cool looking, fearsome car. But underneath it’s an ‘80s Buick.

The 3.8L V6 that powered the GNX was brilliant — wait for it — for a 1980s engine. Tuned by McLaren Engines and ASC (American Speciality Company), this thing was hitting 60 mph in under five seconds over 30 years ago. And while the GNX cool looking and fast, underneath it was simply a craptastic second-gen Buick Regal.

Submitted by: JohnnyWasASchoolBoy

I wouldn’t say terrible car, however; the early Volvo XC90 had a Yamaha V8 that eventually found its way into race cars, boats, and the S80 sedan.

But what a waste (humble beginnings) of a fantastic Yamaha V8, to debut in an SUV...

Volvo would go on to race a 650hp variant in V8 Supercars.

Read this again: Volvo went to Yamaha for a V8 engine. There’s a lot to pick apart there. Regardless, while that theoretically could have been the stuff performance car beginnings are made of, this 4.4L, 311-hp V8 wound up in the soccer mom XC90 and mid-level executive favorite S80. The engine had greater success in racing and marine applications.

Submitted by: Zach

The last generation of the Mitsubishi’s fast cars. I believe the typical description of that evo was that it was a $40k drivetrain with a free car body on top.

The Evo and subsequent sport compacts hide the dark side of these often great cars: You’re paying a premium for the drivetrain, not the quality that comes with the price. So, while you’re having fun hooning around, you’re still doing it in something that started life as an econobox.

Submitted by: engineerthefuture

The GM Atlas DOHC I-6 was wasted in the GM T360 and should have been used in an RWD car. Instead it died with the platform in 2012.

GM’s Atlas I6 was actually one of an entire line of inline engines, but people remember the I6 most fondly. These six-cylinder powerhouses typically saw duty in trucks and SUVs. GM did tease a car application for it once in Chevrolet’s 2002 Bel Air convertible concept, but nothing ever came of it.

Submitted by: Slow Joe Crow

The Turbo Charged 2.4L “World” Engine produced 285 HP and 265 lb⋅ft of torque. Pretty good numbers. But, it couldn’t help this piss poor excuse of a Neon SRT-4 successor.

The turbocharged version of the 2.4L World Engine was actually a beast. Its 285 hp rating was rumored to be underrated. Unfortunately, the engine was bolted into the Caliber. Despite it being an SRT hot hatch, it was a rolling example of Chrysler’s era of horrible quality cars.

Submitted by: Knyte

The fact that some people are willing to pay upwards of $25K for a friggin’ Vega speaks volumes about what’s under the hood.

If you ever find yourself with some money to burn and stumble upon one of these, do yourself a favor and pull that engine out, then put it in something else deserving of it.

Submitted by: Earthbound Misfit I

The Taurus SHO has to take the crown here… not one, but four generations of a car with a pretty great engine stuffed into a pretty mediocre and not at all sporty body:

1989-1991 Taurus SHO - 3.0l Yamaha V6

1992-1995 Taurus SHO - 3.2l Yamaha V6

1996-1999 Taurus SHO - 3.4l Yamaha V8

2010-2019 Taurus SHO - 3.5l Ecoboost V6

I don’t think it’s ever been said that the Taurus SHO was never a particularly sporty car. We appreciated it existing in a space where sporty cars didn’t really exist, the realm of family sedans. But three Yamaha engines, and a turbocharged — suspected underrated — V6 engine could have made more sense in something else.