(Not my exact car, but a virtual twin)
So after my 1988 LeBaron was no longer safe or reliable to drive and with a bit of cash to spend, it was time to look for another car. A friend of my partner owned a used car lot. I told him what I was looking for (high fuel economy, recently made, not too common). He delivered a 1999 dark green Suzuki Swift.
This generation of Swift was actually based on a Suzuki design but was manufactured at the CAMI joint GM-Suzuki plant in Ingersoll, Ontario. I’d had a little experience with their vehicles before (I’d had a Suzuki Sidekick as a drivers ed vehicle and my aunt gave me driving lessons in her four-door automatic Geo Metro), and I felt that they were well-screwed together and reliable.
It was also my first manual vehicle. While the learning curve for this was a bit steeper than i’d anticipated, within a couple months I was reasonably proficient at it.
Coming from an elderly and increasingly decrepit Chrysler LeBaron coupe, the Swift was pretty great. Although not as padded as the buckets in that vehicle, the Swift’s seats were pretty comfortable, The one I had used the 1.3 litre engine, which wasn’t any kind of fire bomb, but was adequate with the manual.
Despite the petite dimensions, my car was large enough inside to fit 4 actual adults . I remember once driving my younger brother to the movie theatre with his girlfriend; they both occupied the backseat while I felt like their chauffeur.
The Swift wasn’t perfect though. The interior was pretty well screwed together but that couldn’t hide the fact that the materials were decidedly budget-grade. It was also quite easily blown around on the highway if even a stiff breeze was blowing. Perhaps most surprisingly, the fuel economy was never quite as good as I expected it to be. Particularly on the highway, I doubt whether it ever got more than 28 mpg – a lot less than the Suzuki ads ever claimed. It also had an annoying quirk while filling up the gas tank – the pressure from inside the tank would constantly shut off the gas pump before the tank was even half full. This meant I either had to clue any gas jockeys into the problem or fill it up myself. I soon went to only self-serve places.
I’d like to say that me and the Swift had a long and happy time together, but it wasn’t to be. As the bulk of my driving since I’d gotten my license had been in the summer, my amount of winter driving experience was pretty limited. I’d never experienced the phenomenon of black ice before the frigid February day when I was driving to Ottawa. I saw a bunch of cars stopping or slowing up ahead, so I tapped my brakes, only to find that the entire road surface was a sheet of ice. I quickly lost control, and ploughed into the back of a fire truck that was assisting the other vehicles that had also hit the ditch, the median or each other.
It was totalled, the air bags blew and i hit at such a speed that the engine was driven into the passenger compartment. In hindsight, I was lucky that I wasn’t injured, although it took a few years before I felt comfortable driving in winter.
Fortunately, there was another car in my spouse’s stable that was free, and soon became my next ride. It was definitely more fun than the Swift, but also a bit more compromised as a daily driver.
I had the Geo Metro version of this car until last week. (I owned it for 9 years) Never had a lick of problems with it. It was slower than molasses (but I never had a speeding ticket) The A/C would actually slow down the car. Same gas tank problem and like you said fuel economy was really good but not really great (but it was less than $20 to fill the tank) That car just kept going. I will probably regret saying goodbye to it but all good things must come to an end.
Drove my wife’s Metro…dreadful would be charitable. Glacial acceleration (to the point of danger), highway noise levels bordering on pain, handling bad bordering on scary. Spectacular mileage, but does nothing else well. Bonus: the tumblehome design compromises cargo room, badly.
In comparison, a ten-year-older Festiva was orders of magnitude superior, even with 200,000 miles. She loved the “roller skate” , put over 150,000 miles on it, and nearly cried when it had to go. (Engine dropped a valve with 273,161 miles.) She barely put 6000 miles on the Metro before dumping it, though she got more than she had paid.
I rented a Geo Metro for about a week after my Voyager decided to eat its transmission. That occurred the day before Christmas 2001, and the Metro was the only car the rental agency had. It wasn’t too bad around town, but on the highway to the visit the relatives it was slow, noisy and blown around by passing semis. Still, it definitely beat walking.
The Swift/Metro is one of the more recent cockroaches of the road. They simply refuse to die, no matter how poorly they’re treated. Certainly elemental, the appearance isn’t bad, either, with a kind of endearing little car look, at least if you got the 3-door. The Metro 4-door sedan is rather ungainly.
One of my favorite commercials was from McDonalds where a Metro was referred to as a ‘Speck’. Ironic, since there’s now the Spark, which I refer to as the Spork. Another favorite anecdote is how, during the big run-up in gas prices during Hurricane Katrina, suddenly, those little COTR Metros were suddenly rather valuable.
Whatever you want to call it, the Swift/Metro was at least honest about its mission. Although they were cheaply made (and cheaply sold), they wouldn’t come apart, either. And, for all their cheapness, they weren’t really an uncomfortable penalty box that most tiny cars end up being. They were a good example of WYSIWYG. FWIW, the vaporware Elio 3-wheel commuter car is supposed to have a Geo Metro-based engine.
Not quite true about the Elio engine. While the prototypes have used the Metro engine, the production Elio is supposed to have a 3 cylinder engine designed specifically for it.
Black ice doesn’t give you much of a chance. Oh, that helpless feeling when you effortlessly glide knowing you will hit something. Good thing you got out of the accident without injuries.
I test drove a Geo Metro with the 3-banger once thinking it could be an option for my wife. I think it was less than half a mile and I turned around. I don’t mind small cars at all but you ought to be able to keep up with traffic. The 1300cc 4 banger should have sufficed.
The styling was never appealing to me. I liked the Ford Festiva (Mazda 121) much better. The boxy Festiva had at least some presence on the road compared to the aerodynamic depository Metro/Swift.
I had an elderly customer who owned the GEO version of this car. She only drove it to the grocery store and church. After a few years an electrical problem developed, the battery would go-flat every night, it was never solved. The solution was to keep it on trickle charge, that solved the problem. I had to move it once to do some work in the garage, drove it around the block…..GRIM! ( she even ordered it RADIO DELETE 🙂
Having never driven or ridden in a Metro or Swift personally all I can offer is that I saw one here in Dallas with temporary tags last summer. That left an impression on several levels.
I do have experience with black ice though. I was out in Idaho near Boise but in the desert where it never, ever rains or snows. For those who haven’t ever gone for a ride on black ice, it really is totally invisible. Apparently dew in the air (or mist from the giant crops sprinklers they use out there) is enough to form an very thin layer of ice on the road. It’s so thin though that it doesn’t even shine, let alone turn white. In my case there wasn’t any visible mist or fog, and certainly no snow on the ground; nothing to give a warning.
I was very lucky in that I encountered it in town and at very low speed. I only slid into a curb, and got away with minor damage to the car- a story for another time – but I wasn’t so fortunate myself. I literally had no idea why the car slid- until I opened the door stepped out and fell hard on my ass on the invisible ice.
It could have been freezing fog. Very nasty to encounter.
28 MPG highway was crazy low for this car, with a 1.3 engine and around 1700 lb weight. Sort of defeats the purpose. A co worker had a 3 cylinder Geo Metro during the insane high gas prices, and told me it got 45-50 MPG. Her and her husband carpooled and had about a 100 mile round trip drive. I do remember old beater Metros selling for insane prices during this period.
Knew a girl who had a Suzuki Esteem automatic, and that car was still running well at 200k miles and was pretty much problem free. The sheet metal was so thin the trunk lid had dents from fingers slamming the lid shut.
My CTS manages about 28 on the highway if I don’t have a head wind.
Bridges can freeze up before the highway does, which can be bad.
One of the best small cars made. Period. A shame Suzuki automobiles didn’t make it here in the States.
I had the 95 Metro version for many years and absolutely loved it. Inexpensive cars often get a bad rap and the Metro/Swifts didnt deserve it. Yes, it was cheap but very well designed and build quality was good. I flogged the hell out of it for 150,000 miles. Mine was the 3 banger / stick and it always gave me trouble-free driving at 43+mpg for the price of a 10 yr old beater
Black Ice Matters!
Ex-GF had a Festiva. I was impressed with the space and fuel efficiency, and the build quality among other things. If I had to choose between having a Festy or a Metro… oh the humanity! I want one of each.
I have a Metro. It’s not for drag racing. Who knew? But it’s leagues quicker than classic VWs; they’re adequate thus the Metro is more than adequate. I think it would get by on two cylinders quite nicely. I haven’t had it on a top speed run lately but it is enough to overtake highway traffic by a large margin and collect a healthy speeding ticket too. It has c.c. and will highway cruise all day without a sweat. I must have a weird one, huh. Maybe it is working properly?!? I think the litmus test for whether a vehicle has enough power or not is: do you find yourself at WOT a lot and wish there was more? In the Metro I don’t.
A sub-30mpg Metro, huh. There was either something wrong with it or it was very, very poorly driven. Can’t blame the car for the nut behind the wheel.
There was an older iteration of the Suzuki Swift called the GTI (I guess VW didn’t or couldn’t trademark it), and it was kind of a cool car in a frantic, buzzy sort of way. Tromp on the throttle pedal and wind it out, and it made for all sorts of harmless fun. Fast enough to get you moving, but not so much that it would overpower the rather basic small car platform. It also felt about twice as fast as it really was, which can be a good thing when you are younger and like to zoom around.
The Swift GTI was, indeed, cool but little known. IIRC, it came out a year later and was sort of like a 3-door hatch version of the 1988 Twin Cam NUMMI Nova. Given the low production numbers, finding either one in nice shape would be quite a find.
Was the previous generation Swift the basis for the Chevrolet Sprint? Or a different car entirely? We didn’t have Suzuki-badged cars here at that time (the Samurai came first, I think) but there was a rare turbo version of the Sprint, and I wonder if that might have been a badge-engineered Swift GTi?
My hedge for high gas prices is an ’84 diesel Rabbit. Not a powerhouse but sufficient. As fuel has been cheap the last several years, it sits in the garage. A ’00 TDI Beetle waits in the wings next to it for a more modern, powerful fuel miser.
In the meantime, I enjoy my huge V8 fuel hogs!
The design-team also did the 1991 Opel Astra F ?
My mom had a Metro, named Bunny (yes, we’re like that), which she bought new from the dealer in Ozark, MO, her nearest “big” town. Three cylinders, stick shift. Every summer she would drive roughly 600 miles to our place in Nashville, stay for a week, then another 300 or so to my sister’s place in Georgia. After a week there she’d come back to our place for a more relaxing week before driving back home. She did this for I think ten or twelve consecutive years until the mid-Nineties, when she slid on some gravel near her house and landed upside-down in a small ravine. She was extracted unharmed by some young bicyclists, but the car was totaled. Her husband demanded that she get something more substantial, so she got whatever the Chevy version of a Corolla was, which she hated, and that was the end of her summer journeys.
After her death a year after her husband’s, we all gathered at her place to clear stuff up and I did most of the driving, discovering almost immediately why she despised her new car. I had taken every opportunity to drive the Metro during her visits and found it lively enough and a lot of fun around town, whereas the Corolla clone was not only dull as dishwater but had no apparent sense of direction on any road. It was downright scary, especially with a carload of siblings and a cousin or two.
I don’t think the awfulness of that car is what made my memories of the Metro so fond, though – I just like little cars, especially spunky little cars, and spunky little three-cylinder cars are extra appealing. I was actually looking for a Metro when I scored a ’91 Subaru Justy instead, which I did not regret in spite of everything … but that’s a whole ‘nother story.
I had lots of wheel time with both a metro and a festiva thru an aunt and buddy who did not like to drive much. the festiva felt like my Cadillac compared to the metro.
the funny thing was my aunt had had a Pontiac Acadian(Canadian Chevette) before the festiva and it and the metro seemed like a match in in spirit. I referred to both of them as “coke cans with roll up windows” and refused to drive them on four lane highways. the festiva I would take anywhere. funnily enough, both the metro and Acadian/Chevette were absolutely bulletproof little cars whereas the festiva always seemed “tempermental” not a bad car, just there always was something that had to be done.
Years ago, my first generation Ford Econoline developed the same problem (clicking the gas pump off repeatedly) while fueling. I found the gas tank vent and cleaned the mud clogging it, which solved he problem.
Every Subaru I’ve ever had has the same problem with the gas tank. It takes forever to fill them up with 3 more gallons after the first click-off.