forget Prius--get a Geo Metro instead!

The saga continues....

Arrrr.

 

I added a comment there too.

 

Now I know why so many Mexicans ride bicycles and eat mexican food!

 

Apologies to any former Metro owners, didn't mean to dump on your ride. As with any small efficient form of transportation I should have been more supportive. It just burns my biscuits every time some bonehead in a position of public influence writes "yeah, priuses are dumb. A hobby horse would be cheaper and save more gas."

Rob

 

I would rather see someone driving a Geo Metro than a Chevy Tahoe (especially if they are the sole occupant), but I would rather drive a Prius myself.

 

A few years ago I bought a Maroon 1993 Geo Metro with the all aluminum 3 cylinder engine for $1000. At the time I was driving a 2000 GMC Sierra and Gas was around $2 a gallon. I figured up the difference in fuel economy and calculated that if I drove the metro for 12,000 miles I would save the $1000 that it cost.

The car consitently got between 43 to 48 miles per gallon. Unlike a prius, it was more like driving a kid's go-cart than an actual car. In alot of ways though, that was kind of fun. It had a standard transmission thought I imagine I would not have liked to drive an automatic.

Metros are great if you are just tooting around town, not much fun on the highway, but if it was they would have called it a "Geo Highway." Cargo Capacity was quite good, but hauling passengers was not. I thought about taking the back seat out at one point because of this. Safety was horrible, only safety feature I know of was the seat belt. I would never consider driving my kid around in that car. The car weighed nothing, so the 55 horsepower engine was not that much of an issue with the standard trans. Also, the 12 inch tires were the cheapest to replace, and helped efficiency.

The clutch went out after I had driven about 17,000 miles so I got my payoff and then some while STILL selling it for $500. Funny thing is when gas was hitting $4 a gallon, I had someone that would have paid 2 grand for it.

Say what you will about safety and such, but it's kind of strange that they could make 45mpg cars like the metro and crx back in the late 80's/early 90's but they cant come close to that now without going hybrid. There's alot to love about a 1600 pound metro and if I had the tools to keep one running, I'd problably have kept mine around just to modify and tweak. I could have bought a fleet of Metros for what a new prius cost, but fortunately I found a killer deal on mine and dont have to worry about that.

 

We could do better than that today... if it were not for the safety and emissions regulations. Couple those with America's thirst for ever bigger and more powerful cars, and you can clearly see how making those cars today is next to impossible.

Seriously, it doesn't matter what we "say" about safety. The laws have changed. And we're all safer because of them IMO. These things make the cars heavier and more expensive.

The odd part is that we can still legally buy and ride motorcycles without a lick of safety features. Hmmm.

 

I see this point coming up (often as anti hybrid argument). Besides the obvious changes in weight due to more rigorous safety requirements, another reason that modern cars get worse mileage is due to the more stringent NOx emission standards. To meet the new standards, the A/F ratio must be closer to stoichiometric so that the 3 way catalytic converter can reduce the NOx. Previously, it was possible to run more lean and improve fuel economy (lean burn).

 

I am assuming this blog is about frugal living, and for someone who wants/needs to do that, a prius is really out of the question. After all, they have made a real metro in 15 years, and you have to be pretty cheap to go looking to buy a 15 year old car, so lets keep it in perspective. The article is really akin to comparing a prius to a motorcycle (or scooter) in that all the 2 cars have in common is high gas mileage.

Dont get upset at the author, the prius isnt about saving money, it's about emissions and efficiency. It just so happens that saves us prius owners money on fuel. If you love technology, engineering, the environment, comfort, safety, etc, buy a prius. Otherwise, for the uber-frugal it is actually penny-wise and pound-foolish to buy a prius to save money. Metros, bicycles, busses and walking are the way to go.

 

That's the "And Such" part

 

Bikes are heading that way too. ABS and Catalytic converters are beginning to appear on more and more models.

 

A little aside here:

As I said in my previous post, I loved my Geo Metro. When it was time to get a new car (those East Bay to South Bay commutes finally took their toll after 100,000+ miles) I knew I wanted another one. However, Geo was bought by GM, so it was a GM Metro. I took a test drive, and GM killed the Metro. The car used to have surprising pep, but now it had none. It felt sturdy for such a small car, now it felt like a cheap kid's toy. It was all around an awful car. I went to my Toyota dealer next door, bought an Echo (which I also loved), and decided, from first hand observation, that everything nasty everyone says about GM is true.

 

As moderator of another web site, we'd been pretty aggressive about zapping trolls. But lately we're letting trolls stick around' a little longer for the entertainment of our membership.

First, it gives the community of sense of unity. Right or wrong, it gives a sense of our team versus theirs.

Second, it gives a chance to reflect and polish our facts and data. Little does the troll realize that their visits tend to make the next troll's visit a little more sharper. Facts and data are your friend and cut to the quick.

Eventually, most trolls revert to "oh yea! ..." and go off the deep end. When that happens the "bang triangle" comes into play and they find somewhere else to play.

One of the Toyota SAE papers has a chart showing the only vehicles that come close to Prius efficiency are a few manual transmission vehicles. But this only occurs when the restrictive driving profile has no significant inertial losses.

It may be possible to craft a set of control laws and make an ordinary vehicle come close to hybrid mileage. If implement in an ordinary vehicle so the driver is always limited to these control laws, I say "GOOD DEAL!" But so far, such cars are not on the market.

So going back to our GEO Metro fan, if you like it, drive it and we'll both be happy. My personal experience with a rental GEO Metro driving from Birmingham to Huntsville was pretty sad. I would not wish it on anyone but if the choice was a GEO Metro versus a Chevette ... I would have to think about that one. But if we are looking at all used cars, I would rather have a VW microbus, which I had at one time. It had terrific capacity and reasonable mileage for an air-cooled engine. A modern engine could easily achieve 40 MPG.

Even now, I look at the Toyota Scion xB and mentally plan what it would take to transplant a Prius drive system into the xB shell. Better still would be a microbus body with a Prius drive system. All the space in the world with a city efficient drive system.

Bob Wilson

 

Well, the "And Such" is an important part of the reason. Its not strange or a conspiracy (as some might think, not you, but some others) that modern cars have a harder time meeting 45 mpg when a 90's car could. Its just physics - heavier cars and engines tuned for lower NOx. But NOx is the stuff that makes the air brown, and I would rather breathe air that I can see through.

 

Sorry, don't want a Geo Metro death trap.. False sense of economy....

Don't want a VW Bus death trap either....