New Member, trying to save some money

[5 O'Clock Charlie]

Hello all !

I just purchased a '92 Metro 1L manual a couple of weeks ago in an effort to save some cash. I lost my car pool partner and I commute 180 Km (112miles) round trip to work 4 days out of 8.

My previous commute vehicle is my 92 Ford Ranger 2.3 liter, and so far with the Metro I've more than cut my fuel costs in half !! So needless to say I'm pretty stoked

I wish I'd seen this site prior to my purchase, I'd would have known to look for cancer on the lower control arm supports I probably still would of bought it, but I'm sure I could have talked him down a couple of hundred. As it was I paid $800 Canadian for a 92 Metro with 260000km. Oh well, the fuel savings will be worth it ! ( I figure I'll save about $2200 in fuel in one year )

I'd like to say thanks to the folks on this forum, for all their great ideas !! I'll be shamelessly stealing your clever mods when ever I can !!

[Johnny Mullet]

Welcome to the site. That car will pay you back as long as you repair it and keep it maintained. Glad to have you here.

[ptsmith24]

Welcome from another n00b.

[ankit]

That's pretty cool, only if you had a pool partner to cut your fuel spendings into a fourth instead of just half. Do you know what you have planned for teh car? I'm guessing you are going to start with a belly pan.

[MetroMPG]

The Metro fleet groweth...

Congrats on the success so far & welcome to the site.

[5 O'Clock Charlie]

Hmmmmm .... planned Mods ????

Well, starting simple, I was going to do a mirror delete .... In a different thread ( maybe another forum ) I seen a mod where the fellow had removed both side mirrors and had mounted convex mirrors inside the vehicle on the door. Anyone try this ??

There was also an add in the local craigslist for an Xfi cam ... I'll probably give him a call on my days off, he wants $125 .... is this about average ?

Probably an engine kill switch, on portions of my route to and from work there are opportunities for engine off coasting .... I've been practicing just putting it into neutral and coasting with the engine idling.

My other thought was possibly a propane conversion. the fuel prices in my area as of this morning ( in Canadian ) was $ 1.32 per liter for gasoline, and 78.9 cents for propane. If I were to convert to propane and had the same mileage ( probably be worse but not too much ) I figured I could save an additional $ 775 on my fuel bill per year. And propane being a cleaner burning fuel might extent my engine life. Has anyone here any experience with propane ?

My first order of business is to get it in a state of repair I'm happy with

[cfg83]

5 O'Clock Charlie -

Welcome to EM! In the USA, I think someone posted that the cost of CNG kits was reasonable, but the cost of the required certified professional converter dude is maybe $10K+, . However, that doesn't mean it isn't reasonable in BC ... searching Ecomodder ... Ok, here's there thread :

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...kits-4139.html

And here's the post :

Originally Posted by rmay635703

To chime in here, in the good OL USA you need a registered, licensed installer to do an CNG conversion which is over $10k for most plus the pumping costs.

Generally however equivalent to a gallon of gasoline CNG here in the us including pumping costs goes from $.90 a gallon in Utah and out west (gas equiv) to about $2.50 depending on where you live.

Sadly the $800 including installation Mexican conversion specials are illegal here in the states except I have noticed that the law specifically saws a registered installer on all OBDII (whatever that thing is) vehicles so does that mean I can use a non-registered installer on old carburated crapola I have laying around?

CarloSW2