My 1997 Malibu 133,000 miles was bought new by my dad, I did all the maintenance on it and I bought him from him in early '01. The early model Malibus were known to be one of the more problematic cars, but mine hasn't been too bad at least not until recently. I only had to put an alternator on it, and strut mounts until recently. But in the last year and a half I had to do more repairs, mostly front suspension work-lower intake gasket, water pump, front stuts, outer tie rods, a leaky steering rack that had an improperly done recall, and front springs. It really hasn't been too bad since most of all that came after year 12 and -118k miles and it runs and drives good. It seems to be common that once you start getting much over the 10 year mark and past the low 100k miles more repairs start popping up, at least for vehicle exposed to cold, salt, rough roads and lots of city driving and short trips.