Faults:

Normal maintenance - timing belt, brake pads, tires, struts, battery, etc. All lasted at least as long as the manual stated.

Radiator - crack in the plastic top at 200,000 miles.

Power steering hose leaking, 190,000 miles.

Rack and pinion leaking, 190,000 miles.

Most of the interior bulbs had to be replaced over time; some were real pains to replace.

Passenger seat belt buckle just failed at 300,000 miles.

Motor mounts - when they go bad, the car will vibrate at idle, it will even make the door locks rattle.

Seat belt retractors - have always been weak, retract slowly or not at all. Probably my biggest complaint.

White paint is peeling off some areas like the edge of the trunk. This seems to be common for lots of white cars from the 90's. I see white Fords, Chevys and Hondas, all with the peeling problem. I don't know about other colors.

All 4 speakers turned to dust a few years back, replaced with cheap after market speakers. For a stock radio, that's all you need.

General Comments:

Interior still looks great after all this time.

I see a lot of people saying the seats are uncomfortable, but I'm 6ft tall and found them fine for cross country trips; I've done it several times. The interior is a bit tight, but not too bad.

Not a lot of power, but that's part of getting good MPG.

Interior noise level is pretty high at highway speeds. Get the 1.8L engine, not the 1.6, because the 1.8 has a little more power, and more importantly, the auto transmission is a 4 speed overdrive. The 1.6 has a 3 speed with no overdrive; which can be very tiring on a long trip, plus it hurts MPG on the highway.

I get 30-33 MPG, measured many times whenever I fill the tank. I don't baby it. Best ever was 38 MPG on a back-country road day trip of 300 miles with speed mostly under 65. That was just recently, too; the engine is still working like a new one!

This car was built back when the Japanese car makers were building their reliability reputation. Subaru, Toyota, and Honda were all truly superior up until about 1998. Since then, they have been living off that reputation, but the newer cars don't really justify it.

Faults:

Haven't owned it long enough to have anything *new* to go wrong.

General Comments:

I just bought this car from someone that did 100% of nothing to fix the car; they just drove it. I drove it home, and was amazed it had just as good of git as my 2.2L 1992 Camry LE. Looking over this car compared to other similar cars, it is in great shape, besides some problems that should have been fixed long ago.

Here are the problems I bought the car with, and am fixing:

- All 3 instrument bulbs were blown out; just standard 194 bulbs with a blue/green rubber cover to color them. The cost of repair was free, did it myself; 6 screws and about 10 minutes with bulbs I had on hand from past cars.

- Rear strut blown out. Cost of repair will be around $200 parts for both sides of quick install mounts (complete assembly). Fronts are still good (for now LOL).

- Brakes are bad, front only works and pulls to the right. The drum brakes are likely not adjusted up, but since the drums are rusted pretty bad and there is a bit of a pulse in the brakes, I chose to replace them all around. Front pads were $36 each, rear pads were $24 each, rotors were around $30 each, drums were $24 each, and the hardware kit was under $5. Total cost was about $233 for parts.

It also needs front tires and an alignment, but that is normal, besides the fact it was in a fender bender in the past, and no one did anything to fix it...

Once everything is fixed, I expect this car to be problem free for 50k miles or more, since all major issues have been covered. Purchase price: $700, cost of repair ~$500 in parts, self installed. The car should be valued around $1500-2000 when finished.