I burn (has to be burning it, there's no droppings) about a quart every 2 weeks, figuring I about 1500 miles per 2 weeks. No big blue clouds or anything. It's in for tires today. I've debated about rebuilding it or picking up a motor from protege garage with like 60,000 miles.
as far as rattles and such, it's fine given the bad roads we have. I have alot of rust but only one that isn't expected. The main rust that bothers me is around the windshield. The PO must have had it changed and when they ran the knife around the windshield to cut the sealant, they scraped the metal but never put primer down to protect it. Now I have rust at the top corners and all along the top of the windshield.
I'm at 169,xxx. Also a manual trans with the original clutch. I don't have any oil burning issues yet, unless I use full synthetic which results in about a half quart every change. It seems the dino-oil lasts a little longer between my 5k changes. Usually I get around 28MPG, but have seen 26 lately. No real issues with the car other than a random CEL code P1569... something with the VCTS solenoid I believe, the light never stays on more than 2 or 3 start cycles so I haven't bothered looking into it. The best part about it, I have zero rust! I'm sure living in Florida doesn't hurt the situation any. I'm not in the 200k club yet though!
Knock on wood, I think I'm still on the original clutch too. At least i havent' replaced it and I got it with about 79,000 on it. I have replaced a valve cover gasket. I also had the code basically saying that Cat #1 was bad so that's now gutted. Been like that for a while. Maybe 2 years. I actually gained a little mileage with it. I'm in the 26-30 mpg range. You have to figure I put about 130 miles per day on and I'm doing 70+ for about half of that. I see alot of 4000 rpms.
