Newbie from Colorado
 

I'm an oldie that's been driving GEO metros. It was very foggy here last Monday and I ran over a rather large rock and badly damaged the undercarriage. GEOs are getting hard to find and I wanted some suggestions about other old cars that get good gas mileage (35 mpg+). Will it need repairs ? ..... Of course. I might modify something on it if it's not too difficult. Money is a problem. Thanks
:(

Welcome to the forum!

Money is expensive. That's why we ecomod to save money.

I always liked GEO Metros but never owned one. The closest car I had to one was a 1993 Mazda 323. I advanced the timing on it and got really good fuel mileage, although the engine would ping if I kept my foot into it, especially on these mountain passes.

Depends on the damage. It ain't broken but it's badly bent?

Will it accept a [four-wheel] wheel alignment?

At this higher altitude you can advance it a few degrees and not get ping. Warm up the engine and then take it up a steep grade on a hot, high barometric pressure, dry day and floor it. Pull over every once in a while and advance it a degree or two. Don't forget to go over a range of RPMs with it floored. As soon as you hear that rattling marbles in a can sound immediately pull over and retard the timing a couple degrees. From there you should be good as long as you don't get that sound again.

A small amount of ping shouldn't hurt the engine. But it should be stopped immediately. When I advanced my car I didn't realize I had advanced it too far and was pinging upountain passes for years. I thought it was a loose piece of fender. I even drove it like that clear down to Puerto Vallarta and back over several steep roads down there at temperatures over 105⁰ at sea level and didn't ever have any engine problems. Not that I would recommend doing that, but I did get great fuel mileage. It was around 45mpg on the highway when I would measure it.

If it isn't too bad, beat it back in shape with a hammer, weld some more material on it to close it up and, as freebeard suggests, go get it an alignment.

It's probably "too bad", but just in case it's not...

My automatic Echo gets about 35mpg in it's short (10 mile) mixed commute. She's probably good for closer to 50mpg pure highway(55-60mph) with a warmed up engine. Unmodded.

As long as you can eventually beat it back to shape, or patch it with either fiberglass or some replacement sheetmetal, seems worth to keep the Metro. Why scrapping if you can fix it on a budget, plus you would have a hard time trying to find anything else which is as fuel-efficient and not so hard to perform preventive maintenance at home?

Keep an eye for a Toyota Yaris/Echo, or a Mitsubishi Mirage. Actually, even the underrated Chevrolet Aveo is worth considering. On a sidenote, it's possible to make some stealth improvements to fuel-efficiency if you're able to source some components from overseas versions or to adapt some fitted to the Opel-based Chevrolets from Mexico and Brazil.

That does change things. :(

I\'d head the list with the Geo Metor XFi; 45 MPG if you follow the green Eco-light indicator on the dashboard.

https://ecomodder.com/forum/member-f...-metro-xfi.jpg

Then the VW Dasher [diesel]; it was rated from the factory at 36 MPG, I have one with a five-speed conversion and I've gotten 45 MPG with it as well.

https://ecomodder.com/forum/member-f...8-100-1154.jpg

It's looking for a good home. It's driveable but not streetable. The tags are expired, but I need to find an Oregon buyer because it has Pacific Wonderland plates. Hmm, maybe I could get the plates transferred to a different VIN?