I thought my car was on its way out at 245000 km. Has been making a huge racket in the engine for a while, seemed to be getting worse. Front breaks had worn out so I figured I'd let my mechanic take a look while I serviced the breaks. He batted around the engine and a piece of metal fell out; one of the covers had just rattled out all its fasteners. The car literally has no issues. A check engine light popped on for a while, we checked the code and expected it to be bad, maybe having to change the catalytic converter. Then the light just went away and hasn't been back since.
So far since I bought it in late 2016, I have changed the front break pads 4 times, rotors twice, the rear shoes twice, rear wheel cylinders once, the bearings once, and battery once. I had to change the front left caliper once but that was due to moving and not having a good mechanic here yet. I changed the spark plugs once in hopes that it would help fuel economy, but it doesn't seem to have. Engine oil at pretty high intervals, but it's starting to eat oil a little quicker now so I will likely do that more often moving forward.
Now it doesn't sip fuel quite as fantastically as when I bought it; it used to hover around 4.2-4.5 L/100km, and now its around 5.5-7 depending on weather. And it is burning through engine oil. However, it is running better at 240000 km with less maintenance than any car I, or anyone I know has had my whole life.
At this point, I drive less than 10k km per year... I don't think it's truly going to die for years.