Repair or junk it ?

[toyotasd]

Hello, I have 89 camry all-trac 3s-fe w/ 260,000 miles on it. It was diagnosised as losing compression in one of cylinder a while ago. I kept driving it for about a year and now oil is coming out from dipstick tube and burns oil on the manifold(?). I had friend of mine tight nuts on valve cover gasket too tight (supposed to be 17 but I think it was tighted to 32). does this issue reflect my problem with compression loss or oil leakage from the dipstick tube? I know it is not equipped with pcv valve. valve cover is one of component to controll pcv system. everyone is telling me to junk my favorite car because it is going to cost too much. Is this true?

[carsrus]

It sounds like one cylinders dead and causing massive blowby. The way to fix this more than likely is to rebuild the engine or drop in a used one, both will cost a lot and unless you can do the work yourself, not worth fixing.

[JayP71]

Just did an engine rebuild with my '90 wagon. I sent a head off to a machine shop to be rebuilt, and did the rest myself. Still cost me a little over a thousand when everything was done.
I thought seriously about sending the little wind up car to pull a part. Ultimately the cost of the repairs would be about three car payments. Any car I could have bought for the same money wouldn't be any better, so I fixed it.

[Tom 2000]

If the rest of the car is in good shape, I would just rebuild or swap in a good used engine.

[AlmightyCamry777]

At 260,000 miles hopefully you've gotten your moneys worth out of the car. Like everyone is saying it needs major bottom end engine work. You could attempt an in-car overhaul and simply change the rings, but at this mileage there's no telling what condition the pistons, bearings and cylinders are going to be in. It might be worth dropping a used engine in, especially if the transmission seems like it has a lot of miles left in it.

I hate to be talking about gloom and doom but at this mileage the front end, cv driveaxles, and power steering are pretty much used up now too so they'll be calling for attention next. Probably you have repaired one or more of these systems in the past so you now have to make the hard decision on how many miles this car may have left in it vs. what it is going to cost you to keep fixing it. If you have more time then money, then it is possible to low-buck many repairs and keep it running almost indefinitely (and this forum has a lot of information to help if you choose to keep it).