Fianlly , after over 8 years owning the car that would not die, I sold my 93 corolla. I paid $1100 for it in 2005 and sold it for $800. The darn car would not die even at 329000 miles. I was going to sell it at 300000 , but it still got 35 MPG and only burned a quart of oil every 600-1000 miles.
I just put an axle in it , front brakes, ball joints, front tires, and a radiator in the last year. Mostly junkyard parts so maybe $100. The exhaust is getting loud again and the car was just looking worn out.
I bought its replacement last september, a 2002 Chevy Prizm LSI. Yes , i know its the oil burner from hell, but I couldn't resist . The car has 116000 , and needed a bunch of mostly minor repairs. The 23 year old that owned it lived in an apartment and drove it until the left caliper piston was jammed out of the cylinder. I did a full brake job in the apartment parking lot just to drive it home. Rotors , pads, fluid, and one caliper.
It needed tires and I found some almost new falken sincera-828's for $15 each + mounting. The oil filter would not come off. It took me a half hour with a big oil filter pliers to remove it. When i got the car it was a quart low , but the owner swore that he had not added any oil since the last quick lube change which was right at 3000 miles on the sticker.
Here are pictures of it.
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/3326534/1
Most of the rest was spark plugs , air filter, cleaning, fluids , repair the squirter bottle and a few more things.
I have a total of $1350 in the car. So far at 300 miles on it , it does not burn any oil.
I have a check engine light just come on , and it seems to be a bank 2 oxygen senson. No big deal.
It does have some valve noise on cold startup for about 30 seconds. I am going to do an induction and system cleaning with B-G products that i have here. We will see if it helps.
Here are pictures of both cars.
I can only hope that this car gets me a few miles.
.