Originally Posted By: Michael_P
I must be a sucker. My Ohio car which is a 2001 Protege had rust on the left rear quarter panel. This car has been treated with Krown every year since new but had this one spot of rust. I just put a front suspension on it, I welded in new quarters which I had galvanized prior to install, galvanized the welds then painted. This car has 230,000 miles on it. To find something similar would have cost more. I know how this car has been maintained. We did this to have a nice third car. As it turns out, we use this car more than the new one. I will say if you have rust gremlins popping up everywhere, its just a matter of time before it can get out of control. I spent $1300 doing it myself. I would say in three years I will have to weld in new strut towers. I will still keep it. I do all of the work on this car myself.
Mike - my advice/guidance is meant for the general car owner who wants high reliability, modern safety features, good running and driving car with minimal hassle and cost. Clearly some folks want to preserve a car and make it last very a very long time and have the time, energy and skills to do so. I think your keeping the Protege running for so many years and for well over 200k miles is admirable. We generally buy our cars as 2-3 year old used cars to avoid most of the depreciation and then keep the car for 10 years and then get rid of it (even if its running well). Just our own policy to not drive cars more than 12-13 yo. So we sell the old car used when it gets to its 12-13 yo birthday and buy a newer used car to replace it. This may not be the least cost method, but this has worked well for my family, we buy and enjoy very nice late model cars (usually Toyota, Lexus, Honda, Acura, Mazda) and tends to result in low maint costs and little to no repair costs at all on the cars we drive.