In this study, we present a way to choose route selection metric while discovering a new route in ad hoc mobile networks. We have used link expiration time and busy rate to calculate the route cost. The route cost is compared to a threshold value to decide whether the traffic of the route is high or low. If it is high then the system chooses busy rate as a route selection metric to avoid traffic congestion and if it is low the link expiration time is used to select the longlasting route. We have examined the characteristics of the routing protocol by computer simulation and found that it over performs the conventional protocols.