Quoting DR1665:
A vehicle is only as reliable as its owner.
Left alone, or mostly alone, you'd be surprised how tough these cars are. While some people spend days trying to figure out which head gasket or timing belt to choose, I've seen people throw the cheap-o composite head gasket on the car after it blows during a weekend of racing. They don't run off to a machine shop or set up a clinical clean room for the job. They do it in a dirt lot on a windy day. Will the engine last another 200,000 miles? Probably not, but it will last longer than the attention spans of most of the people bitching about reliability.
I don't profess to be by-the-book 100% of the time, but I am damn proud to daily drive a Galant VR4.
If you can't handle getting your hands dirty with maintenance or otherwise restoring an older car, then maybe you should stick with that Evo with the warranty. There are plenty of shops out there to install parts and tune for those who just like to look like real gear heads.
DO IT YOURSELF.
IF YOU CANT DO IT YOURSELF, LEARN.
IF YOU DON'T WANT TO LEARN, STFU AND GO AWAY.
And, in closing, boostedinaz had the most impressive sig ever seen on a car forum. Take these words to heart and your path will be righteous:
Why is there always time to do it over, but never enough time to do it right the first time?
Some cars are just bad, no matter what the owners do. The Galant is a good car, and good owners make it a great car. Ya, these cars are tough. I had a 91 Talon TSi FWD and it had almost 200K on it. I never took the BS out of it. It also had the original turbo on it. I drove the piss out of that car, took it over 100MPH at least once a month on this "one road" and generally didn't do a whole lot to it. On the other hand, the valve stem seals were shot, the turbo some how held full boost, but looked very sick, the radiator had a pin hole leak in it, and it needed some serious TLC to keep going. Just because a car can run without very little work doesn't mean it's healthy, or ready for a road trip, even if some how, it keeps working. It's good for a 15 mile round trip every day. So while the dusty field head gasket change might work, a clean head gasket change, with a machine shop checking the head, is going to be better. All of us have a different ideal of what reliable is, or even how to work on our cars. It's all good, but all of our cars are on a different levels to the owners wants, needs, and personal ideals of what is acceptable in terms of reliability, drive-ability, and how to work on them.