When I purchased the car, I purchased it knowing it had problems. At 73200, the following needed attention:
Valve Cover Gasket leak
Check engine light on for Oxygen Sensor & Camshaft Position Sensor
Didn't have the original oil cap for the valve cover and was spilling oil
Needed an alignment
Needed a tune up.
It had a new clutch recently done before I bought it and tires (Bridgestone Potenza G009) were pretty new and great. I use them on my BMW 5 series.
After giving it a thorough tune up (air filter, oil filter, pcv valve, fuel filter, oil flush & change, coolant flush, throttle body cleaning, intake manifold cleaning and running through a bottle of fuel system cleaner, the car was running a lot better. After I replaced the oxygen sensor the engine code for that went away. The camshaft position sensor turned out to be a recall and a local GM dealership did the work in 1 day with 1 week notice and that code went away as well. The valve cover gasket looked like someone tried to replace it before but replaced it with the wrong one. Put on the right one and it is great so far. The car is now running superbly and I am getting about 38mpg.
The car is really a shock for an economy car. It has leather seats, power mirrors, power windows, power steering, AC, AM/FM/CD/Tape 140Watt stereo, two-tone (red/black) leather seats which are VERY comfortable. The car is built very well I thought for a car in this class.
If you find one in good condition - buy it! Parts are cheap and it's very easy to work on. If you do have to change the timing belt however - you're better off taking it to a shop unless you have an engine hoist/lift.
Also watch out for the thermostat housing breaking and allowing all your coolant to leak out -- weak point on those cars. I used to have an early '99 Lanos which had an aluminum housing. Later on they cheaped out and went to a plastic one which breaks a lot.
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