Fountain Pens

Pilots are usually great out of the box. I'd say your experience with this metro is not usual.

I don't like metropolitans because of the grips... But Pilots overall tend to write well without nib adjustments.

Where did you buy it, and what kind of ink are you using? Metropolitans are really reliable, so it's be very surprised to see a dud unless it wasn't a real Metropolitan or the ink was India ink or iron gall ink. There are Lamy Safari fakes and other similar pens sold on Amazon. I've had better luck buying at pen shows and from trusted retailers.

My first thought is probably a did. My metro wrote very smooth out of the box and that seems to be the general experience of them as well

Sounds like a dud. What surprises me was that reseating the nib made the pen work for a while, and then the pen stopped working suddenly.

A few troubleshooting questions: Have you tried a different ink? How about a different cartridge?

put a sheet of paper/napkin/tissue on the top of the slit. Are you getting any ink? Or is it dry? If it's wet, it might be something preventing the ink getting to the tip of the nib In this case, I usually try a different ink or gently adjust the tines in the case the tines are too far apart. If it's dry, I reckon it's more to do with how the nib is sitting on the feed. The best you probably can do is try to reseat the nib/feed.

This one will be messy. With the pen stored nib down with in the cartridge, wait like 20 minutes. Now pop off the nib and dab at the feed with paper/napkin/tissue. Is the feed saturated with ink? If it's saturated, once again it's probably something to do with how the nib is sitting on the feed. Reseat it and hope for the best. If it's dry, I really don't know what to suggest besides binning the pen. A Metro isn't worth enough money to buy a Kakuno just to transfer the feed over.

Sounds like it to me, unfortunately. I’ve gotten like, a lot of them to give out and I’ve never had any do that. Wouldn’t surprise me if the mass produced nature led to some QC issues

Any chance you rotate your pen when you write? I do, and have never found a Metro that I enjoyed using. Other Pilot nibs are great--I have a Kakuno and an Elite that I love, but something about the way Metropolitan nibs are shaped is terrible for the way I write and it makes them snag on paper. Paper fibers clogging the nib will block your ink flow. I don't know if there's a Metropolitan with an oblique nib out there, but if there isn't, I highly recommend trying the Kakuno instead.

If you don't rotate your pen, try clearing out anything in nib. My first step is usually dipping it in a bit of water in case it's dried ink clogging things up, and if that doesn't help, have a look at it under a bright light with a loupe. If it's clogged, flossing between the tines with brass foil will pull out almost anything stuck in there.

I hate them. My wife has 3 or 4 of them for different colors and loves them.

It's possible you got a fake? There were a couple of reviews saying they went through a similar experience and the only tell was the packaging it came in.

I actually purchased a pilot metropolitan and it worked really well after a few mins of getting the ink to flow through it.

My only gripe is that it has an odd quirk with certain strokes but a lot of reviews mentioned this.