Common Problems with the
1981–1983 Austin Metro

Classic & Sports Car's Metro buying guide is blunt: rust is the killer, and the rear subframe and especially its mounting points are common areas that can be costly to strip and repair properly. British Classic Cars names sills, floors, subframe mounts, tailgates and screen surrounds as the weak structure of the Austin-era car, while Wikipedia records that many Metros were scrapped - particularly the pre-1990 Austin models - as a result of the bodyshell's vulnerability to rust. The Practical Classics restoration feature shows what that looks like in real UK use: on one Metro City, the seatbelt mounts were almost coming off in the owner's hand, and sills, rear panel, front wings and a very large piece of rear quarter were cut away, the offside much worse than the nearside. The subframe bolts to the floor via sheet-metal pockets that corrode from the inside, so a car that looks clean above may have lost its rear structure entirely. Buy the dry, garaged survivor, not the respray.

The Metro used the Allegro's Hydragas system — displacers combining a nitrogen gas charge with hydraulic fluid — and the gas leaks away over decades whether the car is driven or not. The Hydragas and Hydrolastic Service specialists explain that a new charge was expected to last at most 15 years, there was no factory provision to top it up, most surviving units now sit so low on gas that ride quality is severely compromised and the chance of unit failure rises; pumping the car back to height makes the ride even harsher and shortens the displacers' remaining life, and second-hand or NOS units almost always disappoint because they too have lost gas. The fix is a specialist regas (the Telford firm offers it with a mobile UK fitment service) and C&SC agrees: Hydragas can lose pressure but is easily pumped, pipes can be repaired, but new units are unobtainable. Budget regassing both axles if the car sits low, knocks over bumps or has been driven deflated for years.

The A-Plus 998 and 1275 engines fitted to every Austin-badged Metro were built to run on leaded petrol, and the buyer guides warn about the consequences of modern fuel: C&SC notes that until mid-1989 A+ engines ran on leaded fuel and that after around 10,000 miles on unleaded the valve seats erode if the car is driven much over 3,000rpm, and Wikipedia's Metro history records the same problem, adding that when lead replacement petrol disappeared from UK pumps in 1997 many owners simply scrapped their cars rather than convert. The accepted cure is fitting hardened exhaust valve-seat inserts to the head — C&SC puts it at around £250 and many cars have had it done — or running lead substitute on the cheap ones. It matters most to any ex-motorway run, high-mileage A-Plus survivor; town cars with soft throttle settings are far less at risk.

Every Austin-badged Metro used the Mini-derived sump-mounted four-speed, and Wikipedia’s Metro history records that the hydraulic clutch was ‘often berated as the cause of the Metro’s particularly harsh gearchange’, with the fix — a self-adjusting cable mechanism — only arriving with the 1990 redesign, so every 1980-87 car inherits it. The same history notes the BMC box was never developed to take a fifth gear, leaving the Metro loud and revvy against five-speed Fiesta, 205 and Nova rivals by the mid-1980s. Classic & Sports Car adds that the widely spaced four-speed ratios soldiered on to 1990 and that more frequent oil changes than the specified 12,000 miles help when an engine is worn, since gearbox and engine share the sump. A stiff, crunching lever is normal-ish; a hissing or clashing box is a real rebuild bill.