Hell, he had just broken it in.
My 1997 Saturn passed the 280k mark sometime in the last couple of weeks. I'm almost afraid to fix too much on it, since it seems like I barely get one up to the "I don't care at all about the remaining minor issues" point and then either the engine seizes, the transmission shells out, or it gets totaled. I know the subframe is tweaked a bit, but some careful driveway alignment adjustments have it tracking straight and the front tires wearing a lot slower than the rear ones. (Rear desperately needs a suspension overhaul to straighten out the camber, but new tires are $43 each at the fastest/dirtiest/friendliest local shop, and they always seem to have at least a pair in stock, so it's hard to get as motivated as when I had the Blazer with aftermarket wheels and tires that were $140 each for the store brands.) It pulls a bit on hard braking, (no ABS) but some of that may be from the warped rotor effectively "pulsing" that wheel.
I'd like to fix the air conditioner, but that's $400 or so in parts I hate to spend just to see my mileage go from 36-38.6MPG (depending on how recently I've done a piston soak and throttle/intake cleanup - the 38.6 will hold for about 1000-1500 miles after the cleaning and then start dropping off until it's around 36 again) to somewhere in the low 30s at best all summer long. Same for the sunroof mounts; prop it open with a bottle for some air, or take the screws out and put the glass in the trunk for wide open, rather than buying a $200 set of machined metal rails to replace the rotted plastic ones. It's not that hard to take an extra change of clothes and some wet wipes along when I'm going to be driving for a couple hours and need to be presentable at the end of the trip.
