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Old 10-22-2015, 02:09 PM   #289 (permalink)
Daox
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Germantown, WI
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CM400E - '81 Honda CM400E
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Haha, we shall see. I test drove an iMiEV the other day and didn't super fall in love with it the way I half way anticipated I would. Its still a nice little car, but not worth what they're asking IMO. That being said, I'd still love one.

Anyway, it has been just over a year since bringing the Metro home to be my daily driver. I figured I'd give a overview of the last year.

So, first off... the mileage is ridiculous on this car. Its literally hard to get bad mileage in it. The engine is so small that it simply can not burn THAT much fuel to get bad mileage. Yes, this is an overstatement, but any ecomodder will generally find it to be true. Also, yes, it is slow but not painfully.

Here is my fuel log for the past year:



The reliability leaves something to be desired. To keep things in perspective this is a 16 year old economy car. So, can I really complain? Actually, yes I can. The rust issues are pretty bad and have consumed much of my time working on this car that could have been put into much more fun modding. The rest of the stuff I've done hasn't been that bad. Here is a list of the work I've done on it thus far (no mods included):

tires
cleaned the pcv valve (these get gunked up)
cleaned up the distributor cap several times
air filter
oil filter
wiper blades
battery
rust repair
pcv valve replacement


Issues and/or things that need to be done yet:

more rust repair
grinds going into 4th gear
low engine compression
MODZ!!!


Speaking of mods, here is a list of mods I've done in this first year. This is all documented in the garage entry (and I'd encourage you to do the same).

Tires at 50 psi
Kill switch
5W-30 synthetic engine oil
Synchromesh gear oil
Vacuum gauge
Grill block
Exide group 24 lead acid deep cycle battery
Custom 3d printed shift knob
Vacuum gauge mk2
Alternator disable
Air dam
Passenger mirror delete



Cost wise the Metro is doing pretty good. I have about $1200 (car) plus $400 (parts) plus $265 in gas into it. I could easily sell it for the same price. I've gone about 5k miles in it over the past year. So, you can say my cost is $0.37 per mile at this point. In just gas its a ridiculously low $0.05 per mile. In contrast, the iMiEV I recently test drove would cost me roughly $0.03 per mile to run in electricity. This would save a whopping ~$120 per year. I think I'll save the few grand and run the Metro for a few more years.


Future mod plans are to have fun with the car, perhaps try some newish stuff out. I hope to get to my electric water pump soon after this rust is taken care of. With winter around the corner it would be really nice to have heat while EOCing. Next up on the list is also about heat, and that would be utilizing the exhaust heat to warm the car up faster. I also may throw a block heater in it.

So, thats the summary. Its a nice little cheap car that does great as long as you don't take it on the interstate much.
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