Catalytic converter ended up wrecking the piston rings which resulted in excessive oil burning and eventually replacement of the engine. VERY expensive to fix unless you could find a junker and work from there.
Working on my third alternator as the diodes on the other two burned out.
The Geo Metro is a love/hate relationship to the very end.
While there is absolutely no power to the vehicle because of the lovely 55HP 3 cylinder engine, owners of the vehicle (including me) were not looking for a sports car. The excessively nice advantages to owning a Metro are as follows:
- cheapest tires on the market ($25)
- amazing fuel economy (45+ MPG)
- cheap to fill a tank of gas ($27 at 90 cents per litre)
- it's more of a Lego car than Honda (Sprint, Metro, Swift, Firefly parts interchangeable) so finding parts is a breeze
- for people that like mobile audio, the car itself is a sub box. I hit 130db with one 10" sub woofer. Plus the rear cargo area can fit a dual 10" sub woofer box quite nicely.
Downsides to the vehicle are pretty apparent.
- There is NO safety when it comes to the Metro; I wouldn't be surprised if a motorcycle could cut through the car.
- It can hold 4 people, but expect the car to bottom out on the smallest bumps if attempting to carry that cargo capacity.
- There is little to no sound dampening for outside noises so expect to hear the motor and everything else outside pretty well.
- Like all older Japanese imports, these things tend to rust if there's even a small pain chip.
All in all, if you can tolerate a tiny car with no performance in the attempt to laugh at those with gas guzzlers, especially with the prices the way they have been, this is the car for you.
The fact that your alternator diodes burned up a couple times might very well be related to the fact that you installed a 10" sub woofer and presumably an amp also in a car not really wired for car audio.
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