Metro for sale: your comments?

[bennelson]

Hey guys,

I am generally on the lookout of a Geo Metro for purchase for my sister, who would like to sell her Focus (and it's payment) and get an old-school economy car.

Here is a Metro I saw for sale through Craigslist:

"Red, 5-speed, 2-door 1996 Geo Metro for sale.

102k miles. Rusty.

It is not currently driveable. Transmission issues. It does start. It died while being driven. The driver's side tie rod is broken. Something punctured the transmission.

GREAT PARTS CAR.

It will need to be towed from our location.

$350 or best offer."

Later, the guy e-mailed me photos, which I have re-posted here:
MobileMe Gallery



It does look pretty rusty, but the 2 door 5-speed is the one I am looking for, plus it's a 96, so that means I could use a ScanGauge on it!

What's it take to fix a tie rod? I think I could replace an entire transmission, knowing what I do now from the Electro-Metro conversion.

Would still have to did up a transmission from somewhere if it did have to be replaced.

What are your thoughts on this car?

[Coyote X]

The tie rod is not really a big deal to fix, much easier than a trans swap. I would not worry much about that. But whatever broke the transmission has to be a pretty solid object so it could have bent the unibody.

The rust on the bottom of the car is something that can be fixed if you have a welder and lots of time. some 16ga for the heavy parts and some thin stuff for the body is all you really need. Chances are the floor is about to come away from the sides so if you go look at it pull up the carpet or crawl under it and see what you can see. If the unibody and front/rear control arm structure is basically ok then I would have no problems buying the car personally. But if it needed a huge amount of rust repair then I would pass on it unless you don't think you can find a better one. Depending on your area they might have all rusted away worse than that by now.

Then again I guess I am willing to do a bit more work than most people to get a rusted out POS back on the road so my opinion might be a bit off from normal people. Just look at it as an opportunity to do some improvements to the car while you are fixing it

[metromizer]

I am reading this just shaking my head...

let me explain; I live in the sunbelt, in California. A 'rusty' car out here is one where the paint has been worn through and these a little surface rust. In the rust belt states you guys have to grind and cut back the corrosion so far just to get ahold of some steel that will accept a weld.

It's all a matter of perscpective, I understand how many hours go into rust repair. When you;re done, you have a solid car (more or less) but it's a patch-work quilt with so many hours into it. From my spoiled pespective, I'd pass on amything rusty unless it's a classic collectable worth a fortune when all the metal work is done.

[bennelson]

You Californians have it too easy!

I made it out to the Los Angeles area a couple times this summer.

I had never seen so many rust-free VW bugs (originals) and CRXs in my life!

They don't get rusty out there, but they sure get dusty. What's with that? Must be all those wildfires!

Seriously though, it's very tough to find any older car around here that doesn't have a fair amount of rust on it.

I have been looking for Metro's all summer, but the high gas prices caused the percieved value of Metros to double or triple this summer.

I figure now is the time to find one, while gas prices are low!

[dremd]

If it were me I'd avoid a car with that much rust.

Just my opinion.

Tie rod is very easy; hardest part is the alignment.