The truth is if your comitted your car will last as long as you want, unless rust is there. So today I have 348000 miles running great would drive it 3000 miles with out hesatation. and fix it in the drive way than out on the road. As it needs to be reliable I dont need to brake down 2500 miles away from home BTW never had to be towed home or brake down, it easyer to find problems through prevenitve maint. Then at about 305000 miles it started missing randomly needed new distrubtor drive gear so I changed the coil and ignition controll module and fuel pump out of reliabilty since these parts wont last forever. 285000 miles this is considerd normal matenince. After all that the smog guy said it was running cleaner than most new cars. Then 285000 miles it failed smog needed new valve guides so had the cylinder heads rebuilt and went from useing 1 quart of oil every 500 miles to useing 1/2 quart every 3000 miles, also had to replace catletic converters, EGR valve, mass air flow sensor, air intake temp sensor, and computer temp coolant sensor.

For awile the car was just like new long cross country trips without trouble also the car gets about 110 miles a day 5 days a week commute. After replacement of water pump, radiator, hoses, heater core, T-stat, front end rebuild including rack and pinion and power sterring pump, brakes rotors flexlines and calipers, alternator and a paint job. I would consider these repairs normal considering the neglect and age. I got my V6 bird early in 2008 for free, you could say it needed some repairs with 180000 miles and previous neglect.

94 thunderbird engine