The run down for my 2005 Chevrolet Impala base 3400: The car was purchased in January 2008 with 65,000 miles on it. I paid $5,400 TTL and is now at 150,000 miles on the same engine, transmission, cat converter, ect. I have done the shocks, brake pads, and basic maintenance such as new AC Delco spark plugs, wires, radiator hoses, oil changes, transmission service (pan drop and filter change), coolant change, replaced the water pump, and I did a head gasket (my fault, I let the car get hot when I was in college). This car is a very comfortable, reliable and all around grate value vehicle. It is my daily driver and I intend to keep it a while longer. It still drives great and I take in on my 'road trips' where I go see my family 250 miles away traveling on I-35 going 80ish mph here in Texas (speed of traffic). The ride is great, the seats are comfortable, the car is easy to work on, the car is comprised of 'old' technology making it cheap and a large comunity out there which has already encountered most of the problems you will find - see impala forums or other sites which use you engine - in my case the 60*V6 3400 3.4. I will say the interior plastic feels cheap. The center console does squeak a bit if you use it to get yourself into the car. I have since cracked (small) the dash panel (which is also the radio bezel - it's all one piece) from taking it out so many times and not being careful - I changed the instrument cluster, and added a nice aftermarket radio as well as installing my old radio to program key fobs. Which leads me to another point: You can buy aftermarket (cheap) key fobs and program them to your vehicle via the stock radio. I did this to program key fobs to my other w-body (04 Grand Prix GT) which was nice and saves me money. Also keys can be programed to the car very easily - I just buy cheap ebay keys with chevy logos and go to home depot and have them cut - yes they can cut them even though there is a chip inside. The fuel take has access via the trunk if you ever need to replace the fuel pump (I have not) so that's a plus - where I am going is that they did engineer this car the be worked on rather easily. Cost and my 2c: Ok so here's the run down: Car $5400 TTL Ins for 8 Years $500/year = $4000 Repairs to the car $3000 Tires in this time frame: $1000 I'm sure I'm missing a few small things here or there but look at the bigger picture: Total over the 8 years $13,400 so 13400/8 = $1,675/year (but again this includes everything) Now I got rear ended and they hit the frame so it totaled the car but I bought it back and I got $3,600 for it back (this is was in summer of 2014) So total for me*** is $9,800 for the 8 years. You could this of this as you as well (as if you sold it - they valued it at 4600 and -1000 buy back) So 9800/8 = $1,225/year :) great 'investment' I still have the car and it's running strong. If you don't like the interior, swap in stuff from a 2000-2005 monte carlo. I plan on adding a few things from one soon - I already took an instrument cluster from a monte carlo which had RPM. MPG: I get what EPA says I should. 2016 Easter weekend, I got 32.xxxxx driving on the crumby I-35 traveling around 70-80mph (all highway and miles from trip divided by fuel into tank - I also always fill up and the same fuel station and fuel pump) Seats: Cloth. Don't knock it! They still look great save for the drivers which doesn't 'look' bad but when your not sitting in it, you can see part of the lower cushion's cloth doesn't lay flat against the cushion.
