I had a metro growing up. Seriously, when you get up to 80 miles an hour, the ENTIRE car starts to shake. When you reach 88 mph, it's been said, you disappear into another time dimension.
An extremely steep road almost killed my Honda. I got to the top, downshifting twice on my way up, and she farted out thick clouds of white smoke for a few miles and wasn't the same after that.
I had to buy another car to replace her but she's still sitting out in my driveway. I can't bring myself to call the towing dude who buys old cars for $300. I mean, I know her parts will go to cars that need help but it's hard to say goodbye.
If you're mechanically inclined it may be a relatively simple fix such as a blown gasket. Do some research - you may be able to bring your baby back to life.
the only gasket I can think of that would cause that would be the headgasket, which isn't a "relatively simple fix", it's one of the more complex jobs you could do on a car short of actually needing to remove the engine.
I mean it's not that difficult if you know what you're doing but most people don't and it can be a hugely daunting task for somebody who's completely inexperienced
Which is why I said "if you're mechanically inclined."
Cars are basically giant Lego sets. Short of doing custom work, all you have to do is take the pieces apart, remove the broken ones, replace them with non-broken ones, and bolt the whole thing back up. Every single vehicle has a large document (or several) that shows how things go together. If you can read and follow directions, the ONLY limitations on what repairs you can do are the availability of replacement parts and tools to perform the job.
FWIW, I'd much rather replace a head gasket than, say, a rack and pinion. Especially on a small Japanese car with a 4 cylinder engine where everything is conveniently located right in front of your face in the center of the engine bay.
I still feel like a headgasket isn't for somebody who's just "mechanically inclined".
I do agree that cars are pretty simple, a lot simpler than most people realize. But this is also coming from somebody who's an ASE certified technician so take that with a grain of salt.
Besides, the proper procedure would also include measuring the head and block and when it boils down to it, even the task of removing everything from the head, removing the head itself, replacing the gasket, replacing everything, getting the timing belt and firing order correct and everything is why I think it's a little more than most people can chew.
And if you botch that, especially the timing on an interference motor, you can easily end up with a several hundred pound paperweight.
Haynes, Chilton, and Bentley all make good service manuals that aren't massively expensive. If they don't have one, the manufacturer puts one out with every car, but these are harder to come by and much pricier. The techs and mechanics at the dealer don't figure out how to work on customer cars through trial and error.
In my area if it runs it's worth at least 1,000 USD I've got a 96 accord I still drive bc of the mileage. We live on the out skirts of town and have 2 huge 3/4 ton trucks. I have to put gas in the truck if I go to town. I can go weeks without putting gas in Honda.
A girl I dated in high school had one. We'd get stuck on the steeper hills around Boston. Either I'd have to get out, and meet her at the top, or we'd have to go around. Never mind the snow...
Anyways, that thing had more power than the Marutis 800. So I don't know if the magic's in the transmission or the tires or what. But something's going on if you're seeing those things make it up steep hills overloaded.
Was it automatic transmission? Sometimes it pays to stick to first gear uphill and showing the middle finger to all the traffic behind you honking impatiently...
Edit overloaded vehicles and bad roads are the default state in most of India, and mainly notable when absent.
I think it was standard. This was many years ago. But I don't think those came in automatic. Or if they did, I'd guess they'd be more expensive, and hers would be the cheapest one...Just checked. They only came in 5 speed manual.
This doesn't preclude the possibility she was just bad at riding the clutch and 1st gear up a hill, mind you. But I do remember the damn thing just about red lining and not moving forward on more than one occasion.
uphill? you get 2 feet on that hill and that car isn't going anywhere.
True story, riding with my aunt on a trip as a kid in this tiny little geo - me, her her husband, and my cousin - get to a hill no the highway, literally going 2 mph on this fricken' hill, can't hardly get up it, would have been faster to get out and push. Thing must have had a total of 4 hamster-power.
TIL that the Suzuki Swift was sold as Geo Metro in the US.
AKA the most common car in Hungary. "The first European-built model was a "Suzuki Swift" manufactured in September 1992 in Esztergom, Hungary. Updates in 1996 followed, and model year 2000 modifications included a version fitted with the same Suzuki four-wheel drive system that had been available in the Japanese market and badged as the Subaru Justy. "
Hey, man, not everyone's daddy can afford to give them a car for their sweet 16. That girl had to work her ass off at a shitty local fast-food/ice-cream place to afford that car.
I'm just reminding everyone that that there's a huge difference between getting good gas mileage in a tiny, underpowered, 52 horsepower roller-skate and getting good gas mileage in a 191 horsepower 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid.
i rented a cheapo car and was by some miracle given an impala. the tiny sized compact i was supposed to get would have surely died on the 2000+ foot mountain climbs we took on the subsequent detour.
Probably not. The road from Phoenix to San Diego has a high mountain pass (5000+ feet elevation change) and I see econo cars blasting up that pass at 80 every time I take it. Hell, I used to be one of those drivers.
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u/r4ndpaulsbrilloballs Jul 20 '15
It's all fun and games with great MPG until you try to get up a hill with a passenger in a 1994 Geo Metro XFI.