Just sold my 2000 Metro beater. Gone in 60 minutes! Fastest sale ever.
 

https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1631899072


The 2000 Metro winter beater is sold!

Price: $750.

Details:

- 230k km = 143k mi.
- I was completely transparent in the ad: needs front exhaust w/cat, rotors, axle (CV joint gone), maybe an inner tie rod. Clutch has at least one broken damper spring. Summer tires have lots of tread, but cracks in the sidewalls.

I have NEVER seen so much interest when selling a car before (in several decades of selling about a car a year).



https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1631899072


https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1631899072


Within 30 minutes of posting it on FB marketplace, I had several legitimate contacts, and several more legit contacts through Kijiji within the next couple of hours.

The buyer arrived to look at it within the hour, and had cash in hand. And I even said "no test drives" (not currently plated/insured).

I could have sold it 3 times over yesterday.

Clearly I could have asked for more money. But I didn't want to waste time with tire-kickers / negotiators.



Also, I only paid $1000 for it back in 2017.

The buyer was a mid-20's car guy who showed up in a slammed old Lexus V8 sedan. He was so excited! "I've wanted one of these forever!"


https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1631899072


Could it be that Metros are now seen as ironically cool old cars by a subset of today's yoots? Radwood influence, I'm thinking.

Even though it might not achieve the same cult status the VW Beetle achieved during the Hippie era, it's undeniable the Metro (and even the early Ford Festiva to a minor extent) are getting more appreciation, not only as a car of choice for penny-pinchers.

As I thought...

Chevy Metro status has jumped the shark:

Thread: 402 original miles 2000 Chevy Metro 1.0 / 5 speed up for auction!

As the officially-imported versions of the Suzuki Swift available in my country didn't have this facelift applied to the US-spec models, maybe the only 2 that I have seen in my hometown could eventually fetch a higher value.

I'm a mid-30's guy stuck in low/middle management in a production facility, about to start grad school to find a way to make more money without babysitting over 100 people every day. Most of my employees drive very nice new vehicles, many costing over $40k. I drive a $1500 1992 Civic VX or a $600 1996 Geo Metro (1.0 5-speed) depending on what I have planned for the day. I like having a car that stands out in the crowd, is fun to drive (in it's own weird way), and is cheap. Never had a car payment, and I truly don't understand how people afford all these shiny new vehicles. I'd LOVE to own one, but the costs are just outrageous. I'd rather pump $40k into my old Civic and make it exactly what I want versus dumping the cash into a new vehicle with extremely expensive maintenance and 850 "improvements in technology" waiting to break.

What drives the decision?

Getting fooled to consider it cheap, as long as the monthly payment fits their budget. Yet such long-term payments are always quite risky, as something could change regarding their employment or some other expenses down the road.


Nowadays it's hard to say some off-the-shelf new cars available in my country would serve me right enough to justify their high price too. Often I lurk about converting a motorcycle into a tricycle, and doing the math it seems to justify due to a lower total cost of ownership and presumably a lower risk of having it stolen compared to a normal car or motorcycle.

There is also the siren song of having a warranty to fix anything that is expensive, but might not fail during the warranty.

The problem is even worse when something fails immediately after the warranty expires.