Fuelly Forums - Hello from Southern California

Hello! Stumbled onto this website from a link on MetroMPG's site. In August, I picked up a 1991 Geo Metro 4-door for $200. The car had been a barbershop sign for a few years, had a perfectly hideous paint job (great for directing one to the barbershop, but very embarrassing do drive). It had also been vandalized a couple times...the hood appeared to have been pried open, and the top looked like someone had danced on it. Fortunately, a couple well-placed whacks popped the top back out. Since I purchased it I have replaced the hood, the front axles (CV joints were worn out), left front wheel bearing (sounded like an airplane when I drove!), rims and tires; the car had mis-matched 13 inch rims, so I went back to stock 12" rims which had really nice tires. However, those tires turned out to be really old, and started to bulge. I then found out how hard it is to find 12" tires these days! They used to be the loss-leaders in all the tire ads, but now very few places carry them. Also replaced the starter this weekend; the car had a very persnickety solenoid...this was why I was able to buy the car so cheap. When I was looking at the car, we couldn't get it to start, so I offered $150 (he was asking $350), he counter-offered $200 and I took it, figuring that even if I had to rebuild the engine (which I didn't) it'd be a deal. Just after we settled on the price, the car decided to start. I drove it this way for about 3 months until I could no longer start it. Since replacement solenoids are >$110, I opted for a junkyard starter.

I drive between Lancaster, CA and Tehachapi, CA five days a week, to my job for a company which builds wind turbines. About a 90-100 mile round trip, depending on route. Before I purchased this car, I was making this trip either in a 1984 Lincoln Town Car (about 17 mpg) or a 1983 Cadillac Eldorado (19-20 mpg). Since this car has the automatic transmission, it only gets about 35mpg, but that is still good enough to have pretty much paid for itself already!