My fiance has a 94 Corsica. Had 90k miles when we started dating four years ago. It dripped oil out of the pressure sensor at about a quart a week! Fortunately this taught her how to check and add oil, and though I did fix the leak, I'm sure that leak kept it alive as she never changed the oil otherwise. When I tore down the engine to replace LIM/head gaskets, all of the lifter hydraulic plunger cavities were full of sludge. I have no idea how they weren't all collapsed. That car has 160k and the engine runs like a bat out of hell. Too bad everything around it is completely falling apart.
Good friend of mine wanted me to teach him how to change oil, check and change brake pads, etc. During that oil change lesson he revealed that he never checked the dipstick because he thought the oil pressure guage in his S-10 was an oil level indicator.
Forgot to add, same buddy had a 5-speed '91 Explorer Sport that was sent in to a local shop to have oil and ATF changed in the M5OD. They never tightened the drain plug, it fell out on the drive home only several miles away, but by then the transmission was gone. To their credit they replaced it, but come on?
My cousin, who was/is always good about keeping his vehicles maintained, was unfortunately in the throes of meth addiction several years ago - he's now clean and living successfully, but at the time he was getting ready to go into treatment, he had driven his old F-150 so long on the same change of oil that the starter was having difficulty turning the engine over. We changed the oil and it was like we put in a new starter. That 302 had well over 300k miles too. He ended up blowing the man trans on the freeway.
I also have to add that when I knew NOTHING about vehicles and bought my first Bronco II at 17, I screwed up big time. I bought the BII from my uncle who had taken really good care of it, aside from smoking in it. They had garaged it when they bought an Escape, and it had sat in there for several years. I came over and started it up without even checking or changing the oil, the oil and filter were trash, and I most likely had no oil pressure and wiped out the 2.9's cam bearings. The performance got progressively worse over the 40 mile drive home, and when we brought it to a mechanic later they found that several lobes on the cam were totally gone. My uncle swears up and down that the engine ran perfect before he stopped driving it, and I have no reason to doubt him, so all I know is that I blew it by not changing the fluids on a truck that sat for several years before starting it. I'll never do that again if I buy a used vehicle that's sat for any amount of time.
I have to add that Excel is awesome for keeping track of vehicle maintenance and keeping tabs of repair costs, but some of you may not want to even know what the totals add up to.
