Faults:

Seals were deteriorated at 65K miles.

General Comments:

This car has already proved to be an exceptional economy car. This vehicle is not for hauling many items, nor carrying many passengers, but for a commuter car, I am not sure there could be many better small cars. The handling and engine power leaves something to be desired, but the vehicle is very reliable and stands up to hard driving very well.

Faults:

Battery died inexplicably at 60000 miles while still under warranty.

Needed brake disks resurfaced at 65000 miles.

Paint started to flake off of trunk and roof at 60000 miles.

General Comments:

This has been a great little commuter car. I have driven it hard since I bought it and it has only had minor repairs and normal servicing. It has always been reliable and comfortable, even on long road trips. The small engine doesn't have much power, but I have taken it to the mountains on ski trips several times without problems.

The cost of the car has been the best feature. Parts for the car are extremely cheap and the 30-35 mpg is great.

Don't expect much else though. It doesn't handle as well as a small car should, and an overdrive gear is sorely needed. The cheap parts do have a downside - some plastic interior parts have broken and the paint is visibly deteriorating.

But as a no-frills economy car, the Metro is a great bargain. It has held up well, and overall, I have been very happy driving it.

Faults:

I have had repeated issues with the failure of the air conditioning. The first occurence of this was during my second year of ownership. At that point I had assumed a pin hole caused by an accident had allowed the coolant to escape, but my mechanic found no holes and recharged the coolant. I also had them check the compressor, but they found nothing wrong with that either. This occurred again the following year, again I had it recharged. And has now occurred again this season and I will be getting it recharged again.

Recently the fan for the climate control system has broken down. It will function on the highest setting, but does nothing on the lower four settings.

I have also worn down tires very rapidly. I am on my third set of tires on the vehicle.

General Comments:

I really enjoy my Metro and hate to replace it, but will need to soon because of starting a family.

It is a great car for someone who does not usually have passengers.

The cargo space is unbeatable.

Faults:

The air conditioning stopped working about a year after I bought the car. I paid a shop to check the system to avoid having to leave the car with the dealer for a long time. They re-charged the system, but couldn't find a leak. Another year later the air conditioning failed again and I took it to the dealer (the car had about 30,000 miles on it at the time). They replaced the compressor (under warranty) which would have cost me $500 if I had waited a little longer.

General Comments:

Even with regular rotation and balancing, I had to replace the tires at 36,000 miles. This wasn't really a problem though since top of the line tires for this car only cost about $30.

There are two options that were not available on this car that I would have really liked. One is cruise control (I take a lot of road trips) and the other is a rear window defogger or wiper. Other than those, the car is amazingly comfortable and handles very well even without power steering.

I was also amazed with the storage room in the hatch. The car almost seems like it's made out of rubber. I have yet to come up with a project that this car can't accommodate.

1999 was the last year that GM produced the Metro Hatchback, with the rest of the Metro family following in 2001. I'm not sure why GM decided to do this, since the (formerly) GEO models seemed to be far superior in comparison to their own vehicles.