Here are the Top 10 Worst Subcompact Cars as chosen by you!

Note that a segment near the end of the video just before the end credits was removed on May 12 due to a copyright claim.

00:00 Start
00:42 Number 10
02:00 Number 9
03:19 Number 8
04:47 Number 7
06:11 Number 6
07:18 Number 5
08:43 Number 4
10:27 Number 3
11:51 Number 2
13:23 Dishonorable Mentions
14:21 Number 1

[arevee]

I don't think the Geo Metro deserved to be on the list. Sure, they are very lightweight, but they were surprisingly long-lived and not an unpleasant cars to drive. I had one and when I sold it at 225K miles, not all that long ago, it was still in excellent shape. And it had honest mid-40's MPG even with the crappy ethanol gas.

[nickgav]

The fact that the Aveo is the newest car on the list and still managed to be second on this list is very impressive
Well done GM

[Oddman]

Fun fact, some Aveo's had a brass colored dipstick for the oil. This of course is monumentally stupid, as the dipstick is the same color as the oil. I had to drain 8 quarts out of a friend's once.

I had a Metro. It was a 1991 model that I bought from a co-worker in late 2012. Bought it for the low, low price of "Just gimme $50 and get it the fuck out of my yard". It ran, but leaked water. I took it home, replaced the water pump and the timing belt - both of which were absurdly easy. Over the following several months, I removed and re-surfaced the head, replaced all six valves, built a muffler for it, and completely removed the interior to clean it. While cleaning the interior, I found $28 in change. The final thing I did to it was replace the wheels - the car came with 12" wheels, which were hard to find tires for. It turns out the wheels from certain years of Honda Accord fit it perfectly, so I bought four steel wheels from a salvage yard, painted them white to match the car, and put some 175/65R14 tires on them. After this the car cornered amazing, rode great, and was returning 55+ mpg highway.


It was also one of the most frustrating cars to drive. With 55 horsepower and three cylinders, one might assume it was frustrating because it was slow, but it actually got down the road just fine. The issue was, with my 55 horsepower, 1.0 liter three pot, it was apparently the fastest car on the road. I was always having to wait for someone with an Ecoboost truck or an R/T Challenger or some other much faster vehicle to get out of the way, or at least stop crawling down the onramp like an octogenarian on the way to the bingo hall. And once one of the clowns saw what passed them, they would all of a sudden find their gas pedal and would do any illegal or dangerous thing just so they didn't have to be behind it. And then they'd slow down again to check facebook on their phone or whatever, and I'd have to pass them again.

At one point I started using this quality to entertain myself. There was a place in town where there was almost always a speed trap when I'd drive home from work. I started using the tiny car to bait guys in lifted trucks so they'd run past the speed trap. It was easy. They'd be putting along thinking about what mod they were going to put on their pavement princess next or whatever, and I'd roll past them - not fast, but fast enough to get by them. And they'd speed up a bit. And I'd open it up. And they couldn't handle that, so they would show how much faster their $50, 000 truck was compared to my $50 car. Then they would roll by the cop at 70 in a 45. It was funny every time.

[driftx]

The Metro and the Festiva were very reliable cars, I still sometimes see them on the road. They may be small and slow and simple, but the fact they last so long makes up for that. For me what makes a car bad is unreliability.

[Georgije]

Fun fact: The Yugo continued to be produced until 2008, and is still a very common sight on Serbian roads even today.

[jgreenberg]

I was surprised to see the Geo Metro/Suzuki Swift on the list. In my home country the Suzuki Swift was and continues to be one of the most popular cars. They've always been fun to thrash about and they can take a beating. A few people still daily drive '89 and '90 Swifts there to this day.

[pedrofernandez]

I really wanted to buy a Hyundai when they first came out, went to the dealer and the honest salesman said that if I wanted to carry a few passengers and have the a/c on, then I'd better not get the automatic. I thanked him for his honesty and walked out.

[whattheheck]

I remember when the Aveo came out. Even as a 10 year old I could tell that thing was a piece of crap. I remember thinking that for the money one would spend on the Aveo, they could get a 1998-2002 generation Toyota Corolla, which would be a much better car. Today, I still see 90s Corollas sometimes but never Aveos.

Comment posted April 30, 2022 11:21 am

[leonm]

The metro was actually not such a bad car, always found it pretty fun.

[mzfe]

I really don't think the Geo Metro belongs on the list. Sure, it was short on power, but that in itself doesn't make it a bad car. Plus they were very reliable and actually had decent build quality. Plus, as you said about the Chevette, people should have known what they were getting. I would also agree that the Chevette shouldn't be on this list either as people should have known what they were getting. While the Chevette wasn't as good as the Metro, it was still a decent car.

[BoldBrandFlakes]

I’m surprised and impressed that he mentioned his daily driver being a Kia Stinger GT. It’s a nice car and it’s great to see people break the mold and drive something other than boring cars like Chevy Traverses, Ford Explorers and Nissan Altimas

[_Papa]

I completely agree with this list AND your disagreement about the Chevette. I knew a fellow soldier when I was in the Army ('84-'88) who raised the rear end, put oversized tires with Chrome mags on the rear and dropped a 2.8 litre Chevy Citation V6 under the hood of that '79 2-door hatchback coupe; that was a little screamer! (Until he blew the motor up, that is) Good video!
🚙!



🐰

[stanojevicnatasa]

This episode just proves that I am right when I say that certain cars work in some markets, while they fail in others. Renault 5 was a great success in Europe and is considered a classic. In USA it is a laughing stock. In my native Serbia, Yugo is a beloved car for many families and younger people do miracles tuning and modifying them - best examples have ATS wheels, Recaro seats and 150-170 horsepower. Trabant is the most misunderstood car by the American public. While it is a cheap poorly equipped car, it isn't ugly to look at, provides decent fuel efficiency, build quality and space both interior and trunk. Even the performance isn't that bad for city driving. While Americans are used to complete unquestionable reliability and customer service at the dealerships unparalleled with anything we see in the developing world, in countries where people aren't afraid to take a screwdriver in our own hands and fix small issues on our cars, many of these cars are considered absolutely iconic.

[kingkat]

6:46 There is a dealer in Toledo Ohio that sold Daewoo along with Kia. now they sell Hyundai with Kia. A co-worker of mine, at a job I had in the early 2000s had a Daewoo Nubria. He really liked it but years later I ran into him someplace and he said he ended up scraping it because he couldn't find parts to fix it.

[stlbryson]

I had a Chevette as my first car. It was a 1978 with a 4-speed manual. That thing was actually fun...I did a little move we called the "second-gear slowdown" by driving around 30 and dumping the clutch in second gear! The rear end would hop around and it made for fun driving!!! Ah, the memories!

[runoflife]

The Yugo is Fiat 127 based, not 128. But the 128 was also produced by Zastava.

[achandler]

Honestly I don’t think the metro and aspire deserve this list. They’re cheap, good on fuel, and I commonly see them get past 300k miles. They did what they were designed for, and did it very well

[BobNSuch]

The Chevette was a great car!!!! My dad had a 1978 4 dr and kept it for 7 yrs. Very few issues with it

[davidp]

I was given a Ford Aspire as a rental car while mine was in the shop. I gave it back the next day and got something better.

[RMSTitanicWSL]

I was quite pleased with my Chevy Metro, and wish they still made them. Literally the only thing I would change on it would be to add a USB player. I got 45 mpg with it all day long, and it was comfortable, even on long road trips. It was quite common for me to go on trips 500 miles or more in it, and the 1.3 liter 4-cylinder ran really well.