1987 Rover - Austin Metro L review from UK and Ireland

Not including normal wear and tear, gearbox needed replaced costing £400 (3rd motion bearing apparently "famous" for packing in), alternator and starter motor needed replaced, exhaust downpipe broke twice (apparently a faulty batch), rear subframe mountings needed replaced, tracking constantly needed adjusting as did the hydro-elastic suspension, hyro-elastic pod needed replaced, clutch cable snapped and replaced twice, front suspension knuckles seized (unseized themselves after a few months of spine shattering driving), front valance constantly needed rust treatment, handbrake never quite worked properly, erm.... I think that's it.. Oh, and any Metro key could open and start mine! And once the full beam even jammed on.......

This was my first car, supposedly a cheap runabout. Decent tires cost £50 each because of their strange size. This car was so unreliable I used to park it at the top of a hill each night in case I had to bump start it in the morning. I fought an increasingly desperate battle to keep rust at bay, jet-washing under the wheel arches was a trusted weapon. Performance was okay for a 1.0L, approx 95mph if you were brave. Cheap parts could be obtained easily at most breaker's yards, which, frankly, was just as well. One of the few pleasures I had with this car was ripping off such luxury items as a glovebox and a parcelshelf from higher spec models at the breaker's yard. Another was finally convincing someone to buy it from me.