Thinking about selling my 94 metro XFI
 

it has 95,000 original miles on it, it's blue all the paint, except the roof, looks great. The paint on the roof is a bit faded from snow sitting on it in the winter.

I took out the back seat as it was pretty much too small for anyone to fit in there, and did extensive soundproofing and built a wooden platform for the back seat area, so there is a flat carpeted area behind the driver and passenger seat. I currently have the passenger seat out of it too, just to give me more room to carry stuff. It has air conditioning.

I have no idea what this thing is worth. Any ideas? It runs like a champ and I bought it maybe 8 years ago and just used it for running around locally in my town. I maybe put 5000 miles on it in 8 years. No issues with it to my knowledge. Can someone give me an idea of its value?

From your brief post, ~$1,300.

Kelly Blue Book is a common source of checking car prices. There is also the Black Book, and other sources of information like NADA. Some people like KBB, some don't. I think it is fair for a ballpark, especially when one doesn't know the value of their car, or they aren't very good with cars/resources. You can also search your local area.

Kelley Blue Book

Try craigslist > sites and New Cars, Used Cars - Find Cars for Sale and Reviews at AutoTrader.com for other ballpark values.

I checked most of the usual places and there aren't very many of them for sale. Especially with the low mileage and with no problems- and I didn't mention, not a bit of rust.

If they were for sale all over the place, I would think the KBB would be accurate, but since I only found a couple of them for sale coast to coast, and most of them were either beat or had 200K+ miles on them, I thought that there may be a little premium on them. I looked on ebay, and there were none for sale.

I paid $1,000 for a no rust 95 Metro sedan that needed a tune up. It had very faded paint and oh, um 200,000 miles.

For an XFI, I'd ask more than Blue Book.

A rare car is a double edged sword- rare can mean hard to find, and it can mean little known.

If you are not in a dire position to sell, and your vehicle is in better condition then all of the rest, I would charge more. If you need to sell, I would stay competitive with the others. If you posted images and more details, I would imagine you could even have offers on here.

This is valid. The higher price can mean longer to sell.

But, over on a Geo Metro Forum, there were some threads of eBay XFI and non-XFI Metro's going for way more than KBB. I don't think asking $2,500 for an XFI, in good shape, is unreasonable.

Pictures, description, etc can really help the sale.

As I stated, as soon as it stops snowing and clears up a bit, I will clean up the car and post some pics. The one thing I really love about that car, is I can ALWAYS find a place to park, as it is like driving a go-cart.

I'd ask $2500 if it runs fine. Really depends what you want out of it

A car like that is worth a premium to the right person. The question is, how long do you want to wait until the right person comes along? 20 year old eco-cars are a very specific niche market, so a premium price could take a very long time to get. You stated there are none on Ebay - why don't you post yours there and see what happens? Set a fairly high reserve price on it and just see how much interest you get in it, if nothing else it will give you a guideline on how much to advertise it for locally.

Market value books are pretty much pointless on a vehicle that old and specific as they base their averages on average transaction prices, so if KBB says it's worth $800, that's because 99% of the 20 year old Metros that have sold in the last year have 200k miles and were beaters. The book doesn't see the condition of the cars, it just sees the numbers and averages them and applies "correction" factors for mileage, region, etc. I just sold my teal '94 Civic Si with low KMs for way more than "book" value, to the only person that looked at it, and he paid full price no questions asked. He was the right person, and there was nothing comparable to it on the market, so it's not like he could say "Well there are 3 other ones like it for sale I need to go look at first." It did, however, take 6 weeks for the right person to finally see the ad and come look at the car.

Depends on the market:

Some guy here in central Florida sold his XFI (pretty much same car as yours) the other day on Craigslist for 2,995.00 in less than a day. He just laughed at me when I offered 1,400.00, which is a little over Kelley Blue Book value here.

If I could somehow teleport yours here I'd buy it . . . . .

Do you have pictures that you could share. A lot of value goes into how it looks.

He said he will. Circumstances are preventing it at the moment.

Thanks. Sorry I missed that.

It looks like I need to post 5 posts before the site will allow me to post links, but maybe this will work:

Put the http: in front of this line to see if I can trick the forum police //s1031.photobucket.com/user/sinsky1/library/1994%20Geo%20Metro

Ok, I took pics. I probably will put the car on craigslist and ask for people to send me offers of what they want to pay for it. I'm not strapped for cash, but I do want to sell it pretty quickly as I have a friend holding another car for me to buy.

The only "damage" it has is there is a little dent on the driver's door, and the rubber side window seals have been eaten up the UV at this altitude, and probably needs to be replaced. That is it.

Let me know what you think. I will probably put it on Craigslist tomorrow and want to sell it by Wednesday next week.

I did the same thing earlier in the thread lol

One more post and you are good. Here is your image:

http://s1031.photobucket.com/user/si...%20Geo%20Metro

EDIT: It does not seem to be working :/

Do you still have the passenger seat?
I'm interested. PM sent.

Yes, I have the passenger seat in storage.

I like the box you built to replace the rear seat, looks pretty legit.

Hope you don't mind if I copy it for my Festiva. I was going to pull out the rear seat anyway, but didn't have a master plan on finishing it out . . .until now!

The link worked fine btw

Yeah, the rear seat was a worthless gesture. The box is working fine, the car is now like a mini pickup. I eventually took out the passenger seat, as my wife is embarrassed to drive in it. She only used the car to take the dogs to the river (her car is a 1203 VW Toureag Diesel). So with the front passenger seat gone, there is a ton of room in the car, and anything I put in there is very easy to get to.

In an probable effort to save every oz of weight in building the car, there was a lot of metal surface under the seats. So to the point of adding a couple of pounds of weight to the car, I added a bunch of sound insulation, and surprisingly, the car runs a lot quieter. I am sure the insulation underneath, and the carpeting on top helps a lot.

I think I will put a (somewhat arbitrary) value of $3000 for the car to see if anyone wants to make an offer. I will post it on Craigslist today and I will let it go to the highest offer this coming Wednesday as I have my eye on another car, and my wife won't let me buy the new one until I sell the old one (she mentioned something about the house looking like a used car lot). Something I didn't disclose earlier as it didn't make a difference to me when I bought it (because it drives so well), is it has a salvage title. When I bought it the right fender was new and the hood was a little crunched on the right side. There is no evidence that the accident caused any permanent damage as the car drives like a dream. Everything is tight and no slop anywhere. The old tires were worn evenly when I replaced them, and with my experience of driving it, there are no issues at all. I am assuming that the person who got in the accident, took it to a body shop and the insurance company noted that the car was only worth $1000 and the repair was probably worth that too, so they totaled it. That is the only thing that makes sense.

Here is the craigslist ad: https://reno.craigslist.org/cto/4355272715.html

That looks like a sweet setup. I don't know if that engine bay looks good or bad for the condition, but for the right buyer it seems like a steal.

The car has been sitting outside for the last 3 months, and I haven't done anything to try to clean it up- except for cleaning the interior. As soon as the weather clears, maybe I will hose down the engine compartment so it shows better. I have never washed the engine compartment before, so it probably has 92,000 miles worth of grime on it.

I saw you have it on the other forum too. That will help get more eyes on your ad. I think the asking price is fine, the car looks to be in pretty good shape.

Maybe I am too naive but how do you no know it's an xfi? The only xfi I have seen in person didn't have AC, or a passenger mirror. Obviously I'm not accusing you of anything just trying know how to tell?

good question, to tell you the truth, it was sold to me as an XFI eight or so years ago, before anyone was really interested in ecomodding. How DO you tell? I can take more pictures it is helps. The VIN is on the craigslist ad.

The cam is the most important feature and way to tell. I purchased a cam out of a real and marked XFI at a pick n pull. Got it home and measured the lobe height. Not an XFI cam. It was disappointing but I have an extra one I could have turned if I get that motivated.

How does anyone tell? The hatchback says XFI on it. I took more pics of the engine compartment. Is the trans different? I've got photos of numbers, and I cleaned the engine compartment up a bit. CV boots look great.

The guy I bought it from was a hispanic family guy, and he definitely didn't buy it to ecomodd it.

I also took a picture of the front end damage (supposedly why they totaled the car). There is no way there is frame damage. I think they just didn't think it was worth paying someone at a body shop to repair.

Just go to the photobucket site and I will upload the photos momentarily.

AH HA! the vin number of this car is 2CIMS2460R6734144, and according to this site: How to Identify a Geo Metro XFi | MetroXFi.com , the MS means it is an XFI, so we are golden.

The AC and passenger mirror were most likely added on after. My 95 had an aftermarket AC system in it.

If you were desperate I'd give you $1500 :) Good luck with the sale. Should fetch at least $2500 in my opinion.

Well, you are the highest so far. I will let you know on Wednesday. I'm not desperate, I just want to make a little money to help pay for the new car.

Right on. :) let me know if I win.

Wow, an xfi with ac, passenger mirror, salvage title and a fuel gauge that registers full? :eek:

Got an offer for $2400 last night. Still waiting until Wednesday to see how it plays out.

Are there any other photos I should post? I want to be sure that everyone gets a good look at the good and bad. In the other forum, it was suggested that I put the passenger seat in, so I guess I will do that today and take more photos.

I think $2,400 is a good number! The passenger seat takes what, 10 minutes to put back in? Just make it clear that the seat can be included in the sale.

Put the rear seat in while you're at it ;)

I don't have the rear seat, as it was trashed.

I pulled the front seat out from storage and will install and take follow up photos

OK, back again. I pulled the metro into the garage and went over it with a fine tooth comb, and took a bunch more photos from all sorts of directions. I think I've taken pictures of everything now- the new photos will be uploaded to the photobucket website in another 20 or so minutes.

About the Salvage title- I have no idea why it was a salvage- I can find no evidence of anything more than a small fender bender. I jacked up and crawled under the car, and soon realized that there is no frame! At least the kind of frame I am used to seeing on my pickup trucks. This frame is integrated into the body. Never the less, I crawled all over the place and took a bunch of photos. THERE IS NO FRAME DAMAGE. From everything I can see, the car had a minor fender bender, and for whatever reason, the insurance company must have totalled it. I have no idea why. There is no evidence of any damage other than a small crinkle right by the light mounting. I took a bunch of photos of the site of impact so you can see for yourself there isn't any damage.

I dug out the passenger seat and put it in the car.

Digging around in the glove box I found the original booklets that came with the car, too.

About the "rust", ok, I concede that there is a little rust, but nothing that some steel wool can't take care of. There is no permanent rust damage to any panels at all.

Check out the new photos on the photobucket page: 1994 Geo Metro Photos by sinsky1 | Photobucket

Don't stress too much about the salvage title. I only gave you a hard time because you didn't initially disclose it. This really matters to some people and can affect the asking price. In this case it sounds inconsequential and your analysis is probably correct.