We found an inexpensive 1990 Geo Metro. It's a 3 cylinder automatic and it should get good gas mileage. But we haven't driven it very much to check. We have driven to and from Xaibe several times, and we cruised to the village of Patchakan. We tried to go to the village of Chan Chin, but, although we were on the correct road, we couldn't find the village. We also drove to the Free Zone.
The car was inexpensive compared to other vehicles here, and it had some problem with the electrical system. Essentially it was draining the battery, overnight. I had Mr. Lopez the very nice mechanic who lives around the corner charge the battery up for me. That cost US $2.50 and battery chargers cost well over $100 here so it worked out for the best.
So I purchased a cheap digital multimeter and got on the internet. The first thing the internet told me to do was to disconnect one cable from the battery and setting the multimeter to current mode check to see how much current was flowing from the battery terminal to the disconnected cable, with the car turned off.
This was the problem, a lot of current was being consumed by the car while the key was turned off, thus draining the battery. The internet said that I should locate the fuse for the offending circuit, so with one of my sons reading the meter, I lay upside down with my head underneath the steering wheel and pulled fuses one by one until the current consumption went away. Then I just didn't put the fuse back in for that circuit.
The problem seems to be the little door ajar indicators are old and draw current all the time no matter if the doors are open or closed. One or more of them is probably shorted to the metal of the vehicle. So eventually I will just pull them out and wrap the wires with tape or something. Then I can put the fuse back in and we can use the radio again. And have certain other somewhat essential lights and such.
It's a nice red color, so everyone can notice us.
One Thousand milliliters of pure performance power.
Very attractive feature, I hate to scrape frost off the rear window.
Yup, all in all, it's a chica magnet.
So we have wheels now, but gasoline is so expensive that if only one person or two people are going somewhere it is still cheaper to take the bus. I need to loosen and then re-tighten all the lug nuts so that if a tire is ever punctured, we can easily change the tire on the road. So often lug nuts have been put on with some machine that requires a thousand pounds of torque to get them off again.
And the roads here are ... Well I don't want to say bad about them, but one guy I know got two punctures in a week, though that was a bit worse luck than the average.
I never noticed the road condition when it's the other guys suspension taking the beating. On the road to Chan Chin the fastest we could go without rattling the car to pieces was about 5mph. When we got to the main road, I was able to open up throttle. The little car, on a flat good road, can go faster than I was willing to push it. But on back roads, the washboard type, guys on bicycles were passing me.
They have speed bumps here. Serious speed bumps. You will slow down to cross them or you will stop some yards after them and catch a bus or cab to fetch a mechanic to put your suspension back together. But these are intentional and they are marked by a sign.
On the back roads, there are a lot of what I refer to is car pits. Not potholes, but holes you have to go around or else you might not get back out of them. Sort of like a tiger trap only for little cars.
I know that in Northern Mexico they can do something special with shock absorbers and such. I am wondering how much it would cost to trick out my Metro in such a fashion....
And I need to fix the circuit that would drain the battery if it's fuse was present.
Gasoline is something like $11BZ for normal gasoline and $8BZ for black market gasoline. We of course would never purchase smuggled gasoline, preferring of course to pay the $3 premium. $2BZ=$1US so that's $5.50 a gallon.
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