RE: Shed of the Week: Rover Metro
Discussion
I owned a Metro Turbo back in the late 80’s - Mad, Bad and downright dangerous! Had turbolag the size of France. I think I enjoyed it but I had that nasty unsafe feeling everytime I booted it and I don’t remember it stopping well either, but that could have been just the car I had. Still it had plenty of turbo stickers on it....
My dad won a new one back in the day and he went to London with my mum to collect it from June Whitfield, my mum still has the newspaper clipping. I manged to right it off when i couldn't get the damn thing to brake in time and hit the side of a Saab on a roundabout.
Sometime later I bought myself Mk1 Turbo.. my God what a piece of s
t that was!
Sometime later I bought myself Mk1 Turbo.. my God what a piece of s
t that was!
r11co said:
Dave Hedgehog said:
just dont crash it 
Or any car designed in the '70's/early '80's, or any pre NCAP car for that matter. In fact ANY car at all as crashing isn't a good idea.
(I didn't think this would make it past half a dozen posts without that old canard getting mentioned).
Jim the Sunderer said:
Of course there's rust on the bonnet latch area.
The rust is on the striker reinforcement plate - purely cosmetic. You could take that off, rub it down and spray it to tidy it up in less than one hour.This choice was always going to trigger an irrational bout of negativity from people who would overlook bigger problems on different marques.
Edited by r11co on Friday 27th April 07:24
Remember every car can be criticised in some way, shape or form as nothing is perfect. No need to get so defensive. It’s not like you built Metros by yourself in a shed at the bottom of the garden!
I had a petrol blue 1.1l Metro on an M plate, identical to this one as my first car. My Mum had bought it as a 6 month old ex demonstrator, probably as they were replaced by Rover 100s.
I have lots of fond memories of that car, trips all over the UK and a few into Europe. The handling was pretty good, plenty of steering feel from the unassisted steering. It taught me a lot about carrying speed through corners, which I’m sure still serves me well driving my MR2 Roadster.
After 10 years in the family and 3 years as my car it had well over 100k miles and a lot of rust, so I replaced it with an MX-5. I couldn’t even give the Metro away, I had to pay £25 to get it towed away.
I have lots of fond memories of that car, trips all over the UK and a few into Europe. The handling was pretty good, plenty of steering feel from the unassisted steering. It taught me a lot about carrying speed through corners, which I’m sure still serves me well driving my MR2 Roadster.
After 10 years in the family and 3 years as my car it had well over 100k miles and a lot of rust, so I replaced it with an MX-5. I couldn’t even give the Metro away, I had to pay £25 to get it towed away.
Toyoda said:
Pain in the Harris? Is shed talking about Chris rather than Aristotle?
The car takes me back to my childhood. Simpler times and simpler cars. I'm sure someone would love it, but it's not exactly a PHer's car.
Yes, we've seen this week that the favourite PHer car is a bloated SUV cross-over type. (better visibility, and it's great for the dogs and mountain bikes...). What a bunch of crazy 'enthusiasts' we all are !The car takes me back to my childhood. Simpler times and simpler cars. I'm sure someone would love it, but it's not exactly a PHer's car.
canucklehead said:
OK, not everyone's cup of tea. But it is an antidote to today's overcomplex and overweight, over-touch-screened and over-passive-safety'ed dullmobiles.
Small, simple, light, nimble. All good.
I learned in a Metro as did most people my age as it was what BSM used and all the locals were ex BSM or BSM wannabes.Small, simple, light, nimble. All good.
Its not a great car, but its small, simple, light, will cost buttons to run and repair and is less than a new E-bike. So if its a short hop shops/ station car youre after, and you accept the crash worthiness is similar to that of a bicycle or walking, its a great buy.
Spend this money on a 5-10 year old car and youre buying something thats likely to have hard and expensive to diagnose electrical and emissions faults.
And if you keep it nice, I wont depreciate very much, if at all.
My first car was a MG Metro...A36 NWW if I remember correctly. Anyway, it was ste. Engine grenaded after 2 weeks of ownership so I went cap in hand to grandparents for a loan for a new engine, rear suspension collapsed, someone drove into it & buggered off, had a habit of destroying gearbox selector box mounts. Oh, it was slow & noisey. On the plus side it had red carpets & smelled of oranges.
te. Engine grenaded after 2 weeks of ownership so I went cap in hand to grandparents for a loan for a new engine, rear suspension collapsed, someone drove into it & buggered off, had a habit of destroying gearbox selector box mounts. Oh, it was slow & noisey. On the plus side it had red carpets & smelled of oranges. These were great superminis back in their day. I had a 1.4 8v GTa. Snapped the front wheel off, and as part of the repairs, the suspension geo was obviously all completely reset, which meant that the previously ‘lowered’ hydraulic suspension was pumped back up to its OEM ride height, and looked crap. It never looked the same again after that 
thecremeegg said:
Both mine and my girlfriends parents bought the original Austin Metros brand new. They were BOTH returned for full refunds due to the amount of issues.
That should be enough to convince anyone that they are WOEFUL cars!
The Rover facelift version really wasn't too bad. My wife bought a 3 year old one with about 30,000 miles on and sold it at 11 years old with 108,000 miles. I had to fix a few things over the years, but nothing too serious.That should be enough to convince anyone that they are WOEFUL cars!
I think part of the trick was getting a low spec one (hers was a Rio like this SOTW - even the same colour, but a 5 door). Her mum had a higher spec one and that had more to go wrong. The central locking became central unlocking - every door unlocked from the remote, but one by one the locks failed and you had to lock them all manually every time...
DrSteveBrule said:
Burgerbob said:
I remember a topgear program that dropped a 3 series (e30) on its roof upside down from a few feet. The roof just crumpled. It was either a saab or a volvo they compared it against, which didn't crumple.
I remember it; though wasn’t that when they compared GM’s acceptable level of safety which was the same level that SAAB considered unacceptable? The car dropped was a Vectra or some other GM saloon.Both Mondeo and Vectra got higher safety scores in their tests
J4CKO said:
SidewaysSi said:
I bet this is a damn sight more fun to drive than an UP or a similar modern thing.
Nah, its not really, even as a bit of a supporter of the Metro, an Up! is pretty good fun and much nicer to live with, things have moved on a lot.
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