You’ve had ’em. We’ve had ’em. With the exception of the Sultan of Brunei, pretty much everybody’s had an old and ugly—but fuel efficient—beater rusting away in the driveway in his or her past. And with gas prices doing what they’ve been doing of late and the economy threatening to implode, those old POSs (“pieces of sh*t”) are starting to look as tempting as a cold Popsicle on a hot day at the county fair. Their prices have been on the rise, the poster child for the movement being a 1992 Geo Metro XFi—a car said to get more than 50 mpg—that recently sold on eBay for $7200, according to U.S. News & World Report . Perhaps now is a good time to mention that the car sold for roughly $7200 new .

Pity its new owners, because with cars as with Popsicles, relief doesn’t come without the possibility of sobering brain freeze. And unlike that of frozen juice, brain freeze of the old-Geo variety—or old-Daihatsu, or any old fuel-sipping econobox, for that matter—doesn’t go away on its own; nor does it go away cheaply. Thus, one should approach a jalopy such as the 16-year-old Geo in question more as forbidden fruit than as a four-wheeled piggy bank. Once you take the bite, your life is prone to a slew of problems you might not foresee or don’t remember about the distinct displeasures of owning a subcompact car from the prior millennium. Those displeasures include compromised performance, subpar (even for the vintage) quality, a horrendous safety record, and, of course, unpredictable maintenance costs that will make brain freeze seem as appealing as a foot massage.

Here’s why we think the new owners of that Geo Metro are down by way more than just $7200.

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