I just built a 94 Geo Metro from
salvage parts. The body was perfect but it needed an engine.This is the
third one of these cars I have owned since the original Chevy Sprint ER
I purchased new in 1986. That first car with the Hitachi carb, special
gearing etc got 63 MPG on the highway. The two Metros I have had get
around 50-55 on the Highway and certainly have enough pickup to get
around. I drive the BMW on weekends and keep collector plates on it!
Metros are not all that unsafe either.
The self sacrificing body design protects the passengers well. There is
only one known bug with these cars and that is that the fuel injected
models tend to get the EGR valve ports clogged in the head which can
cause severe overheating of #3 cylinder an melt the valves. This is
rare but does happen. The thing to do is if you notice the car running
hot have the EGR passages and valve cleaned.
My first Sprint required zero, nil, no
$ maintenance for 259,000 miles and then it was hit by and Oldsmobile
and totaled but I was unhurt. The clutch was still good and I had
adjusted the valves around 5 or 6 times. Tires cost $15 each then. I
think they are around $20 now at Wally World.
Second car same story but it was not
wrecked.
I bought a car with a bad head and a
salvage car and put together the one I am driving now and enjoy going
for 3 weeks between fill-ups! It irks me to have the cash sucked out of
my wallet just to go back and forth to work. Some folks are dropping
$150 to fuel their cars. Hey I have nothing against large cars. I love
them.
Isn't it ironic all the buzz we hear
about hybrids! They base their environmental impact on the mileage and
the amount of pollution required to manufacture the car. The Metro wins
hands down in both categories. Most of the hybrids only get around 35
or 40 in town. My Metro beats that and when the hybrid dies you have to
either give the car back to be recycled or a huge hazardous waste
disposal problem.
Typical of the big three. Now they are
all in trouble and if they were still building Metros they could sell
faster than they are made. Now we are wide open for a Chinese mini car
invasion and it is happening as we speak. They showed several models at
the 2006 car shows.
Howard
I had a Geo Prizm with over 200,000 miles on it and it always ran
great. It even survived multiple collisions with the front end from a
Ford Explorer (which wouldn't run after the first few collisions).
It's a long story but let's just say I walked outside and found a Ford
Explorer running back and forth between a brick wall and my Prizm (The
driver's decision to do this was apparently preceeded by about a half a
bottle of Valium a full bottle of hard liqour and a rather depressing
Thanksgiving at church). The point is, the Explorer was done for, and
I drove the Prizm home.
Brandon
On Jan 19, 2006, at 3:25 PM, michael thomas wrote:
I bought a metro brand
new in 93 for $7,999. Drove it 150,000K miles with hardly a problem.
Worked out to about 5 cents a mile. Best value I had with a vehicle.
Drove it from Atlanta to Detroit with 5 passengers and 5 suitcases!
-----
Original Message -----
Sent:
Thursday, January 19, 2006 3:07 PM
Subject:
Re: OT - geocaching
Hoarding small, cheaply made but very gas effiecient cars from the
mid-1990s?
I had a friend with a purple Geo Metro once. We laughed at him a lot.
On 1/19/06, Judy Ranelli <jranelli(at)ewtn.com> wrote:
OT – anyone else on here
geocaching? I just started and it's already an obsession.
JUDY
