WHAT IS SA's

BIGGEST LEMON

Lemon

Holden Apollo – “Acceleration cable broke 3 times”

Rambler Classic – ‘First the windscreen broke as it was sitting in the driveway. A few month’s later the rear one spontaneously broke as well.”

We  set out to discover SA’s biggest Lemon.

Buying a used car can be a lottery. Some vehicles run for hundreds of thousands of kilometres with little more than routine servicing, while others seem determined to empty your wallet.

And a lemon isn’t necessarily an old bomb. Even brand-new cars can have problems. In fact, vehicle recalls affect hundreds of thousands of new cars in Australia each year.

We had hundreds of survey responses and combined them with data from thousands of cars that have come through our yards, giving us great insight into the lemons out there. We also drew on public and government data to support our other data collection methods.

Responses to our survey question What was your biggest Lemon? “, were very varied, from the unfortunate  “all of them” to the very fortunate “none yet”

Obviously some major makes and Models came up a lot.

Holdens and Fords were the two most mentioned, which is why they feature so prominently here. One Holden horror story turned someone from Holden man to Ford man for life, and vice versa.

Almost every make comes up, so in a lot of ways it is definitely about luck, or maybe how the previous owner drives and maintains their car. One Australian study found 54% of motorists experienced either a major or minor fault after purchasing a car, showing reliability issues are far more common than many buyers expect.

Ford ZL Fairlane – “door handles broke at the servo when I got fuel  on the way home”

Ford XB Falcon – “Was gutless, you couldnt even do a burn out in it. Sold it to U Pull It for 50 bucks”

Split Window Kombi – “It died on its maiden voyage.”

Holden Gemini –“I couldn’t get rid of the ants nests and Redbacks that continued to appear from nowhere”

Mitsubishi Pajero –“Bought it. Started it. Smoke everywhere. Sold it to the wreckers that afternoon.”

Here are the top 3, ranked using a special © formula involving public data, our survey and our Yard data, followed by some honourable mentions.

#3 Holden Craptiva

That was not a typing error: the Craptiva, or Captiva, has developed such a poor reputation that RAC WA advises prospective buyers to steer clear, noting that repair costs can often exceed the vehicle’s value. A car like this normally hits our yards around the 15-year mark.

#2 Ford Mondeo

This car hits our yards the quickest out of all cars, lasting only 14 Years in the wild before hitting the U Pull It Yards.  Certain years and the troublesome PowerShift dual-clutch transmission may be to blame for this one.

#1 Holden Cruze

Statistically and by reputation, it was impossible to pass up, hitting our yards at the age of 15 normally, and as many of our responders will agree, a lot can go wrong with this vehicle. Still, you never know because my parents have one and it has been running without any issues for over a decade.

What about the biggest individual Lemon? Between redbacks, cars blowing up on the first drive and repair bills higher than the value of the car, there are too many to mention, let alone pick one unlucky winner. But it may not be just a few unlucky owners. Australian consumer agencies received more than 14,000 complaints and reports about second-hand cars in a single year, highlighting that vehicle faults remain a significant issue nationwide.

Some second-hand vehicles reportedly developed faults on the very first drive home, with many others failing within days of purchase. Nearly one in four owners who experienced faults spent more than $10,000 resolving the problem.

One surprise was Jeep. Despite its pretty horrible reputation, it didn’t get a single mention in our survey.

Some honourable mentions–

There might have been a fair few around, but a lot of people had trouble with the Datsun 180B. The BMW 318I and Renault Megane (and its timing belt) came up a fair bit among several European cars that can be expensive to fix; must also shout out the Volkswagen Polo and Volkswagen Golf.

Ford EA Falcon – “Handled like a runaway barge”

2015 Holden Trax LTZ. “ just one of those cars that made me question my life choices”

 

Sources

  • U Pull It Lemon Survey 2026 (Thank you to the hundreds of respondents)
  • U Pull It Proprietary Data of the Tens of Thousands of cars that have entered our yard, and over 2,000 currently in our Yard https://upullit.com.au/stock-list/
  • Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. (2025). Consumer Issues in the Sale of Second-Hand Cars.
  • Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics. (2026). Road Vehicle Entry and Recall Statistics – May 2026.
  • Consumer Policy Research Centre. (2023). Detours and Roadblocks: The Consumer Experience of Faulty Cars in Victoria.
  • RAC WA. (2024). The Most Unreliable Cars Available in Australia.