Friday, January 18, 2008

Corolla - The End

Its been a while since I updated about my car so here it goes.

I did eventually buy the K&N air filter like I was planning. It definitely gave the car a boost in performance and gas mileage. The gas mileage of the car has been very good. On most tanks of driving to work and home, I get usually about 32-34 mpg.

Since this was a used car at 77,000 miles there were several parts that needed replacing. The struts on the car were the original when I purchased it so I updated them all to KYB struts. They give the car a nice ride and great handling. I also replaced most other parts dealing with the suspension and steering like the sway bar and ball bearings. All these parts were just wearing old and needed replacing. I didn't run into any issues with any parts breaking or failing. The engine and transmission both ran smooth.

The one issue I ran into was that the car started to burn oil. After 3000 miles the car would be below the add oil mark on the dipstick. I had put in some engine restore from Wal-Mart into it. It is supposed to seal any scratches and restore compression. In lots of cases it also stops oil burning because most causes of oil consumption are from oil seeping through scratches.

Unfortunately I'll never know if the oil burning was resolved or not. I was traveling the day after a big snowstorm and ended up rear ending another car. Soon after that I was then rear ended by a truck. My car was declared as totaled. Sad but true.

It was a good car while it lasted. There were several features the car was lacking though that I would have liked, the main one being cruise control. So now that I'm in the market for a car I guess I can make sure that the next car has the things the old one was lacking.

For now though, I guess this car will be laid to rest.

Here you can find pictures of my car before and after the accident:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkVy1GVdvoJCwSpxPvRiyPg

Here you can see information regarding the cars mileage and maintenance:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Mercedes.Benz.SL65.AMG/2002ToyotaCorollaCE