In this paper we present integral, differential and momentum transfer cross sections for elastic scattering of low-energy electrons by some metal-halogen molecular compounds, namely, BF3, BCl3, BBr3, BI3, AlF3, AlCl3, AlBr3, AlI3, GaF3, GaCl3, GaBr3, and GaI3. The pseudopotential based calculations were carried out with the Schwinger multichannel method at the static-exchange level of approximation. It is the purpose of this work to make a comparative study of the scattering processes involving aluminum and gallium trihalides with previous results for the boron ones [M. H. F. Bettega, Phys. Rev. A 61, 042703 (2000)]. We find through direct comparison of the elastic cross sections that, at low energies, the scattering processes are mainly dominated by the halogen atoms. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.