Metro death
 

My dad's Metro died the other day. I drive it a lot when I am in for vacations and the like. He said that he was driving it home the other day and he said one of the front tires felt like it was going to fall off, and he could barely get it up the driveway. The car's frame had rusted through.

Rough mountain roads eat these weak little cars up.

I'm gonna take issue with that!

The cars aren't weak ... until they start to rust. And that's something within our control - preventive undercoating & oiling, and regular inspection.

Of course you have to know it's a potential problem to keep tabs on it.

I thought for sure that we had lost an Ecomodder for a minute there. Whew

Defiantly a weak point on the cars . . . . .

any ideas n why this happens? Collects water? not painted on the inside? Must be something . . . . If it were me I'd be sure to hit them with cold Galv

If they structurally fail, they are weak. It shouldn't be up to the consumer to crawl underneath and fix something they should have done at the factory.

It is my understanding that rust causes the weakness . . . .
My question should have been, what causes the severe rust issue.

I agree 1000% however a lot of people love these cars (and you must admit they are crazy efficient) that would like to keep them with the least effort posable .

I love them too- wish I had one. Even so, the engineers really screwed up on that one.

If they're rusted, they're weak.

No doubt this was a design flaw. Water/dirt pools where it shouldn't; eventually the control arm mount implodes. Road spray off the tires can even enter the area (including salty crud).

Of course the consumer shouldn't have to keep tabs on something like this.

All I can say is to repair it and then keep the rust under control by liberally spraying bar & chain oil in the rockers and control arm mount areas. You can drill holes if you have too so everything gets oiled. Sorry about your dad's Metro. If it were mine, I would fix it. Even if a frame shop whacked you $1000.00 to repair it, it would still be worth it to me.

Keeping rust at bay. Electronic rust protection. Does it work?
 

Keeping a car going longer is obviously better as long as it's running as efficiently as possible.

Anyone know if those electronic rust inhibitors actually work?

Found this site which claims it does not.

Electronic corrosion protection

Best rust preventive measure I've seen is Ziebart. Everytime I buy a new vehicle it goes to the Ziebart guys before it sits in my driveway. Ziebart is also great sound deadening material.

But Ziebart is heavy. Essentially, it is cutback asphalt (cold patch without aggregate) mixed with zinc flakes.

Sounds to me like the Metro has some places for water to puddle. A lot of 1970s cars had that bug: the IH Scout and the early Broncos were notorious. It probably has a lot to do with why no old AMC cars or Datsun B210s are still on the road.