So I've owned my 1998 Mirage for 9 years. I have over 227,000 miles on her, and she's never been in the shop for repairs.

For the last couple years, she would start missing on one cylinder, and I would replace her whole ignition system(plugs, wires, cap, and rotor) and the problem would go away. This time, I changed the plugs(she likes to foul plugs), and the miss continued. I have about half the power the engine once had, and the engine feels like it's going to shake itself right out the bottom of the car.

She's always lost oil around the head.

What I'm assuming is I either have a blown head gasket, stuck valve, blown piston ring, or worse. I'm going to be pulling the head and taking a look soon, but I wanted to post and find out what others think it could be.

I'm no expert on these cars, even though I've driven this one for 9 years, because she's NEVER really had a problem.

Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated.

Do a compression test first.