Leaking power-steering, too expensive to fix.
Burns a lot of oil, engine rebuild too expensive to consider.
Rear brakes stuck, due to faulty regulator, too expensive to even consider.
Clutch failed at 180000km.
Rust, rust and more rust, the body just fades away.
Wheel bearings whine, unable to replace due to enormous cost.
Although I got a lemon, I must say it is reliable. The main problem is, that when the car gets about 8 years old, every two or three failing components cost a total of the cars current value, so you can't fix it, just wait and see how long it will last. I believe this is different in Japan for example, but here in former USSR it is really impossible to deal with this car when it starts loosing pieces, the money numbers just aren't realistic.
Your Leaking Power Steering is due to a worn out Rubber Hose. The car burns Oil Because you do not change the Oil on schedule or did not think about replacing the PCV Valve. It is like this, keep up with the Standard Simple Maintenance and drive it with Mechanical Sympathy as the Miles increase and you will not have all of these issues happen at one time. Too many folks think that they can buy an old Econo box and just beat on it. My own 1996 Corrolla now has 216k Miles. All I have done is replace both Driveshafts and a Steering Rack. The rest was just routine maintenance. I bought the Car for cash at 103k Miles. So it does not owe me one Cent yet I know I will get another 100 Plus thousand miles. It is all to do with how you Drive and how you service the Vehicle. This is not Rocket Science.
Don't be too hard on the guy from Estonia. He apparently doesn't have the luxury of walking into Advance Auto Parts and buying a wheel bearing, one of thousands in stock, for a '97 Corolla for $23.95. Maybe he could at least repack the bearings with grease, and that might extend their life, and it wouldn't cost anything, but the time to take the wheels off. True, maybe a hose is leaking from the power steering pump, and that could be replaced cheaply with just a piece of high-pressure hose and a couple of clamps. But if it's the seal, then again, apparently it isn't so easy to just shell out a couple hundred bucks to buy a new pump. Yes, the only real choice is to absolutely baby this car to coax it into lasting as long as possible. It would be a shame to lose the use of a car because of some ancillary failure like a frozen brake pad.
Just bought one. Some problems with rust, some problems with burning to much oil, but that's because of the previous owners fault. On this week I'll change some parts in engine and everything is gonna be alright. Costs of repair is not so low as VW, but you have to pay for pleasure :)
I agree.
I agree; Corolla forever.
Does anyone know what the capacity of this car's oil tank size is? thank you.
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