Life of metro

Hello my faithful blog readers, which I am sad to announce does not include my wife. Throughout my life I have owned a couple of Geo/Chevy Metros. Mind you, this was not by choice, I inherited them, but it has been my experience that you don't look a free car in the mouth, or hood, or whatever. With my experience I have learned that the Metro has a very predicable life span, or more accurately, a death-cycle. The first thing to go out always seems to be windshield. I have no idea why, but I have never driven a Metro that has more than 60,000 miles on it without a replaced, or severely cracked windshield, and I don't mean a little rock chip. No, they crack all the way across the thing. I am pretty sure that I now have three separate windshields in my car that are held together through some sort of magic. The next thing to go is the transmission. It doesn't even matter if you have an automatic or manual transmission. The worst part is that it will go out without any warning. This happens around 100,000 miles. Notice I didn't say that it was exactly at 100,000 miles, that would be too much of a warning. Also, that probably won't be the first time you have had to replace the thing. Luckily, like everything in the Metro, the transmission is not too expensive to replace. At 120,000 miles the oil pan will begin to leak. This is particularly annoying because it not only cost money to have it replaced, it is annoying to do and will make a mess out of your drive way. The next thing to happen is that the windows will stop working. This happens at 130,000 miles and usually starts by knobs falling off. This is where my car is currently. I will continue, though it will only make me depressed knowing what I have to look forward to. Now, at this point the car is no longer worth fixing but have no fear, because most of the essential parts on the car have recently been replaced. No, the next thing to go is the doors, this happens at 150,000 miles, not that the doors fall off, they just stop opening. At this point, most sane people would just junk the car, but in my family we run our cars into the ground, literally. We were poor and buying a new car was like buying a house, something did every twenty years or so. The car will continue to run for another 50,000 miles if you treat her right and jerry-rig just about everything on it. After 160,000 miles the fans stop working. This happens in one of two ways, either, they never turn on or they don't shut off. By this time you have become so accustomed to the check engine light that it actually startles you when it turns off. And of course, that is the next thing to happen. It just stops working. You know that there is something wrong with the car cause you can hear the scatterings and caughings over the roar of the wind, that you hear if the windows are up or down. Which as I mentioned earlier, is more of a condition than something that you can change, ever. For the next 20,000 miles or so, the car will slowly die, until, finally, you go out one day and the thing doesn't start. Then you have to find a way to get rid of it because the towing charge will actually cost you more than the car is worth.
So there you go. For anyone that ever wanted to know what happens to a Metro. Hopefully, I can get rid of the thing before too much of that happens. Wish me luck.