DRIVE A 3cyl. GEO METRO AND GET 68.5 Miles Per Gallon !!!!

[MMMtwinbrain]

I paid $1200 doe my Lovely Geo metro 10 years ago and I love this car. People always say aren't you worried because the car is sooooooo unsafe. I always reply well at least theres metal all around it unlike a motorcycle !!!! I do have a point dont I , now a motorcycle is a death trap !!!! The way you get the 68.5 Miles per galling is to pump the tires up to 50 lbs. of air and shut the key off and coast a lot mostly down hills.

[JAYSLOL]

Congrats getting that much mileage out of it, i would keep the tires at 40psi max personally.  What year is it?  Is it carbureted or fuel-injected?  If it's from the 90's and fuel injected you DO NOT need to turn the engine off while coasting, leave the engine running and car in gear (clutch engaged) while going down hills as the motor will use NO FUEL all on its own doing this and you will actually save a tiny bit of fuel (and wear) by not restarting your car at the bottom of hills.  Carbureted is a different story, the engine will use fuel as long as it is running, continue your current trick if thats the case. 

[Jack]

Congratulations on being able to stand driving a Geo Metro for 10 years! I know that they beat every other car in existence on frugality, but I care enough about appearance and performance that I wouldn't be able to resist spending more to get a CRX HF or Insight instead.

[YoungRetire]

Congratulations on being able to stand driving a Geo Metro for 10 years! I know that they beat every other car in existence on frugality, but I care enough about appearance and performance that I wouldn't be able to resist spending more to get a CRX HF or Insight instead.

I really like this Geo Metro idea. Dave Ramsey says that when you quit thinking about what everyone else thinks about you is when you really start to get ahead.

[Rural]

Congratulations on being able to stand driving a Geo Metro for 10 years! I know that they beat every other car in existence on frugality, but I care enough about appearance and performance that I wouldn't be able to resist spending more to get a CRX HF or Insight instead.

Not quite. Ford Festiva was about as good. Hard to find either one, though.


I still want an Elio.

[MilesTeg]

Nothing wrong with driving an ultra frugal car, but turning your engine off while in a moving car does not save gas, and illegal to boot. And extremely dangerous as the engine powers your steering.

[Rural]

Nothing wrong with driving an ultra frugal car, but turning your engine off while in a moving car does not save gas, and illegal to boot. And extremely dangerous as the engine powers your steering.

You're assuming power steering.

[MilesTeg]

You're assuming power steering.

Even without power steering, turning off your engine compromises the driving performance of your car. If you need power to maneuver, you have none. But I was mostly addressing the general concept, not a particular car. The hyper-miling game is fine until you start doing things that are illegal and endanger other drives, like turning off your engine while in motion, or merging into traffic at well below the prevailing rate of speed.

[ketchup]

I've got a '99 Metro.  Bought for $1000 in April 2014.  Does 45MPG in the summer, 40MPG in the winter.  City and highway are essentially the same MPG.  No special hypermiling apart from "not driving like an ass."  And my engine has borderline-minimum-acceptable compression, so it's truly far from ideal.  I'm sure it could get 55MPG from the factory.  EPA rating is hilariously low (34 city, 42 highway).

Apart from the clutch going out and the exhaust rusting to hell and needing some love, it's been a pretty great car!  No features, so not much to go wrong!

I love parking my old clunkers next to the shiny I-have-a-big-penis-mobiles in the lot at work.

[clarkfan1979]

What is the top speed? Does it rattle at all at certain higher speeds?

During the summer, I drive on a highway in which the speed limit is 75 mph.

[ketchup]

What is the top speed? Does it rattle at all at certain higher speeds?

During the summer, I drive on a highway in which the speed limit is 75 mph.

I don't know the top speed, but I know mine's gone above 90.

With new tires, I've been able to do 75 without any rattling.  It doesn't particularly enjoy going any faster than that.  The four-cylinder 1.3L Metro would probably be better at that kind of speed, but I've never driven one.

[alsoknownasDean]

Nothing wrong with driving an ultra frugal car, but turning your engine off while in a moving car does not save gas, and illegal to boot. And extremely dangerous as the engine powers your steering.

And brakes.

Nice stuff on the fuel economy. Lots of people tend to buy more car (and more engine) than they need. :)

I rented a 1.2L Nissan Micra a couple of years ago and it was absolutely fine at 100km/h. I managed to get under 5L/100km from it too.

I wish I got such good economy from my current car (with a 1.4L engine) :)

[DesireeD]

     Put me in the GEO club! Mine is a 3 cyl 1993 red geo convertible. Seats 2. Manual everything. I just pop out of gear and coast down hills. I usually put 7 gallons of gas in every other month, but I'm a super lazy clown driver!
    She is so super easy to do all the mechanical work myself on. As you can tell, I love my car an unreasonable amount and brag about her every chance I get!

[Syonyk]

I haven't owned a Metro, but I owned an early 90s Daihatsu Charade for a while and could pretty reliably get 45mpg in all conditions.  Which, I admit, did include a lot of engine off hypermiling on the back way between where I lived and where my grad student RA position was.  Lots of back roads with nobody on them, especially at grad student hours...

Coasting in gear doesn't use fuel, but it's less efficient than engine off/clutch in.  The pumping losses on the engine create engine braking you wouldn't otherwise have.

[JAYSLOL]

I haven't owned a Metro, but I owned an early 90s Daihatsu Charade for a while and could pretty reliably get 45mpg in all conditions.  Which, I admit, did include a lot of engine off hypermiling on the back way between where I lived and where my grad student RA position was.  Lots of back roads with nobody on them, especially at grad student hours...

Coasting in gear doesn't use fuel, but it's less efficient than engine off/clutch in.  The pumping losses on the engine create engine braking you wouldn't otherwise have.

It's only less efficient if you actually need to build up speed going down a hill, most of the time you need to just maintain speed in which case picking the right gear for the slope is the most efficient. 

[Syonyk]

It depends on what the environment is.

For a grad student, coming back from the research park at 2AM on a route I took every day, I could coast without the engine for a mile or two over widely varying speeds.  It became a game to see how little energy I could have left at stop signs, and I got pretty damned good at it. :)  I was annoyed if I came into a stop sign any faster than about 15mph, and usually it was closer to 10.

[HPstache]

I paid $1200 doe my Lovely Geo metro 10 years ago and I love this car. People always say aren't you worried because the car is sooooooo unsafe. I always reply well at least theres metal all around it unlike a motorcycle !!!! I do have a point dont I , now a motorcycle is a death trap !!!! The way you get the 68.5 Miles per galling is to pump the tires up to 50 lbs. of air and shut the key off and coast a lot mostly down hills.

Is it the XFI geo metro?  That model is supposed gets the best MPG of all metros...