My New Convertible Top for My Geo Metro

After almost a year of planning, I got the top put on, is is "Buckskin" in color, and a very nice canvas top.
No more leaks, and it is much more quiet inside while riding, and nice to see out the back window, as the old tops window had crazed some.

Road Trip Geo Metro Convertible Round Trip Ohio to Florida, and Back

Some would say this is impossible.

A few years ago, I would have wanted to do this with my scooter, or motorcycle. That would have been impossible because of the weather, so my 1992 Geo Metro Convertible is really my 4-wheeled scooter.

I used the trip planner on gasbuddy.com to plan the trip, as there you enter your make, year and model car and they show the gas stations along the way that have the best prices matched to the range of your car.

I have a 10.6 gal tank so they showed 3 stops along the way, and that saved me like $8.00.

I got approx 36 MPG pretty good seeing I was cruising at 70 mph most of the way, not in the mountains where I could only muster 57 mph on the long upgrades.

I had my little 12 v beverage cooler, the XM radio, and my GPS, and headed off.

My big plan was to go halfway, 575 miles, and sleep in the car a few hours, and finish up the next day.

The contorting needed to sleep in this car is not something to try if you are a big guy like me. I managed 3 hours the 1st time I tried, but could not sleep much at the rest stop due to my mind racing, and too many noises, not that there were that many. So I travel on down the road another 100 miles and tried again, this time I passed right out at the truck stop, 2 hours this time.

On the way back I did the motel for $42 as it seems the $6 Motel 6 rooms are no longer available.

I was comfortable driving, and did not see any other Geo Metros on the trip, of any kind, but I did see 5 Smart Cars, all in Florida.

It was great having my Tom Tom GPS, I programmed the 3 gas station stops in as 'legs' of the trip, like I did when I would fly the Cessna 172 for gas stops, instead of putting the entire trip in the GPS. That broke it up into sort of equal distances that were easier on me.

I had the GPS set to make a should if I exceeded 74 MPH and this happened a lot especially going down hills, so that was nice to keep an eye on my speed, it also was set to exceeding the speed limit, that did not go off quite as much. The take a break feature was good that every 2 hours it reminds you to take a break, so I did.

It was fun driving around Florida with the top down in March, but as soon as I got back to Ohio is snowed 8 inches, yikes.

The car now has 144,000 miles and only used 1/2 quart for the 2500 miles traveled.

So it was OK to take this trip. I was by myself and it would have been difficult with 2 people, as I had all my junk on the other seat like drinks, maps, snacks etc.. and the hills would have been harder with the weight of another person in the car.

That's it, please comment if you are a Metro Vert person, Marty