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Quality is something we all want when it comes to cars, especially older used ones. But how do we get it? I have been studying this question in one form or another for nearly 14 years now. I began my automotive career as a car dealer, buying and selling hundreds of vehicles a year. As time went on, I became an auto auctioneer, a remarketing manager and a part-owner of a wholesale auto auction.

Just yesterday, one of my favorite classic-car magazines arrived in the mail, containing a list of "10 future collector cars you should buy now." Sitting back with my morning coffee and looking over the list, I was appalled to find it contained both an AMC Matador and a Chevrolet Chevette Diesel. Well, not appalled. There's an element of offbeat good fun in stumbling across cars like these in your neighbor's backyard, but I can't see anyone actually "collecting" them on purpose. Still, I suppose this list was inevitable. After all, we live in an age where car auctioneers are wringing...

Making a list of the worst cars of all time, which we compiled last year, is easier than making a list of the worst cars currently on the market because, frankly, all cars are built pretty well these days. However, even now in the early days of the 2005 model year, several vehicles stand out for subpar performance in several important categories--in some cases, matters of life and death such as safety. What follows is a roundup of the ten worst cars on the market, based on three criteria: the worst crash test scores, the lowest projected reliability and the...