Faults:

Distributor at 204000

Rear struts at 216000

Other than that nothing just maintenance.

General Comments:

This car is unbelievable, bullet-proof reliability. After 236000 still runs smooth and quiet. Can't even hear it idle. Gets 34-37 mpg and is comfortable even on cross country trips. Can cruise at 85 and feel like youre doing 40. It doesn't use any oil between changes, and only has a minor oil-leak from the pan gasket.

Faults:

I bought this car in Sept. 2006 with 214k kms on it. A lot on k's, but it was cheap. So far in 16000kms I've replaced 1 ball joint, 1 drive axle, rear wheel cylinders, valve cover gasket, O2 sensor and catalytic converter (I believe the bad O2 sensor was the cause of the bad cat).

It runs great now. After the O2 change my L/100k's went back up, I'm getting 7-8 L/100kms with 50/50 driving. That's about 600kms for 47 liters of gas. Pretty good for a 16 year old car with 230 on it.

Fit and finish is excellent.

General Comments:

My biggest complaints are the seats and lack of power. Seats can be swapped for the much more comfortable LX's.

I'm now a believer of Mazda's ZOOM ZOOM! This car handles quite well, especially considering it's age.

Faults:

Note salty beach conditions for entire car's lifetime.

Muffler deteriorated after 11 years.

Oil leaked at the end of the car's life.

Seats wore pretty badly by the end.

Battery fault leaked acid all over the engine, contributing much to deterioration.

General Comments:

This car was awesome. After 10+ years of hard, fast driving it still ran beautifully.

Many people learned to drive manual on this and the transmission and everything still ran beautifully.

The car was driven like it was a sports car by inexperienced drivers, and it handled much better than it should have. The car beat many others off the line and was surprisingly quick for its cost and usability.

I discovered the top speed to be 120 with windows up and 117 with them down.

After running through countless sets of tires the car eventually died from lack of use and my refusal to perform maintenance.

Faults:

Only maintenance (other than scheduled maintenance, e.g. oil changes, brakes, tires, air filter) was to replace both ball joints because rubber covers corroded off at 70,000 miles. New covers have been fine and not corroding.

General Comments:

This car is absolutely bullet-proof in reliability and quality. Look folks, I have 137,000 miles on it and no rust, no squeaks or rattles, no leaks anywhere, plus everything works except for one rear power window. It is as tight as the day I bought it, and I am lazy and only do scheduled maintenance. Oh, did I mention it has the original shocks and suspension??!! This is a Japanese BMW, only much more reliable and affordable. The engine never misses a beat... I could go on forever about this car. Buy any Protege and I guarantee it is the best value you can get in a used car. Unbelievable reliability, I have to repeat that.