Faults:

I love my Bessie Lou. She's a good car, but she has given me heartache for the last couple of years. My car is ten going on eleven years old.

In 2004 the A/C stopped working. And it hasn't worked since.

In early 2007 I had to replace my transmission and clutch. It literally just killed at a red light one day.

In 2008 I had to replace the catalytic converter.

Right now it's idling really hard and I'm trying to figure out why. I am going to check on my spark plugs to see if it's that. (I've never replaced them since buying the car :( OOPS!) And I've had to replace my exhaust pipe twice. They rusted through and fall off.

Other than those major repairs, the paint has done well with not peeling like I've seen on other Metros, but it's dull. I can't bring any more life into the paint. I do have a couple rust spots on it, but only on the corner of the doors.

The interior carpet on the drivers side has completely come up and it won't stay down.

The dashboard lights for the AC/heat don't always come on. I sometimes have to move a couple of buttons hard and they come back on. I don't notice it so much in the summer because I don't use the A/C and it's bright outside.

General Comments:

Even with the problems I've had with the car, I would recommend this car to people. My mom bought the car in 1999 and I inherited it a couple years back. She's a good car. I've driven her all around Maryland and DC. I have gone to many jobs and school with this car. She's seen some road.

I think I am going to have to retire her soon, since I think the engine is getting a bit old and it's not handling as well as it used to.

Faults:

The A/C has needed work.

The catalytic converter has needed to be replaced.

The inner tie rod ends have been replaced.

One spark plug was bad. I replaced all of them.

General Comments:

I bought the car when gas was $4.00 a gallon and I couldn't take it anymore. I was driving an Infiniti Q45, which only takes premium gas. I was blowing through $150.00 a week on gas. I did a little research and settled on the Metro LSi model because it has seating for four if I needed it, and it had passenger and driver side airbags. I didn't want to compromise safety for economy. The earlier models get crazy high mileage, but just have seat belts, and with the size of this car I wanted to be safer.

Most of the parts for this car can be found at a salvage shop or junkyard for very cheap. I had to replace the air compressor and the square piece that fits under the dash. That cost me about 300 dollars and they still couldn't find the leak in the A/C. The leak is so small now that the AC will work for six months without refilling. So I just fill it up when it starts to warm up down here in Georgia.

I had to replace the catalytic converter since it was clogged, and also the offending spark plug that may have fouled it up. But after that my little baby has been running fine. Very dependable, and after the new spark plugs, peppy enough for city traffic.

I love this car. I now fill up for about 13 bucks. I'm saving so much money every month. In the morning it puts out a small cloud of white smoke. I read it's because oil seeps past cylinder seals over night. But it's not a big deal and it still runs fine.

The two best things I've done for it were done at Walmart. I did a fuel injection cleaning for $20.00, which really helped the vibration at idle. Now the car is so quiet at stops.

Also I did a headlight cleaning, which cost between 20-40 dollars also at Walmart. Sounds like a lot, but my lights are like brand new. Before I couldn't even tell the difference if the brights were on; now there is a clear difference. Down here in south Georgia we have a lot of deer so I also installed some $20.00 fog lights from Autozone. Now I feel safe enough to drive at night.

On the highway I try to keep it at 70 just to be safe. It also helps with the mileage. Also if it's really windy the car shifts a little bit, but you get used to it.

The brakes are good. Also make sure you keep your tires inflated otherwise it's hard to turn the steering since there is no power steering. If they are inflated properly it's no problem. If you over inflate them it's really easy to turn, but "you're not supposed to do that technically".

I researched this model for weeks and heard all kind of claims about 40 and even 50 mpg. Perhaps some people just got lucky, but this car has been looked at by good mechanics and is in good running order and this car gets 35 mpg in the winter with no A/C. In the summer its gets between 30-33 mpg. I bought the car for $2,600 last year and have probably spent 500 fixing it, not including oil changes. But she runs really nice now and I hope to drive her for another 150,000 miles