There's your problem. "had" = paid a mechanic = money money money.

At this point in time, unless you start with a pristine car and you know how to fix most things, the car is going to eat you.

Most of the things in your list are typical maintenance items and nothing that you can put onto Jonny K for blame. The compression issue has nothing to do with the air intake. Paying $8K for a rebuild = you are getting hosed badly.

The fuel lines in cars from the east do rust and the patch that you saw probably was cost effective. You can redo them in copper or steel if you want.

^^^^^^^^What Dave said. x infinity.