Definitely sounds like coolant. It drips into the cylinders when parked, and puffs out on initial start. Tune-up will not fix that.
I hadn't heard of ignition coils being replaced as part of routine tune-ups. But they are easy to replace. You can get then on amazon and do it yourself.
Back in the bad old days, a tune up could consist of replacing the spark plugs, breaker points, and condenser, and adjusting the timing. Sometimes you would replace the distributor cap and rotor, and possibly the wires as well. Imports quite often needed a periodic valve adjustment as well. Nowadays you typically replace the plugs, and wires if so equipped at 80,000 - 100,000 miles. If someone said they wanted a tune up on a modern car, I'm not sure what that would consist of.
I never got an oil light or any other warnings. but I heard the tapping and the oil filter was loose. really loose.
I used to work on classic cars and the sound was reminiscent of not enough oil getting up into the valves.
When I added the oil, the tapping stopped.
I have to drive across town to pick my son up from school and will have a better idea of how the car is behaving. Few miles on the Highway and a few miles in stop n go.
Most likely, that is what you were hearing, the top end usually gets oil starved first. Hopefully all you were hearing was that the hydraulic adjusters were low on oil pressure, and you had the equivalent of unadjusted valves. Since the engine was warm and had oil previously, you should be in good shape. Also, the white smoke was most likely from the overfilled crankcase. If your crankshaft was dipping down into the oil in the pan, odds are some of the oil was being forced through the crankcase ventilation system, hence the smoke and rough running. Excessive engine oil can cause poor ignition at low speeds and detonation at high loads. Again, odds are your engine is fine and hasn't suffered any long term damage.
I hope so. 115k miles and close to paid off.
If I can go 5 years w/ no payment, that would be ideal.
I need to take better care of it though.
The mechanic said he had 2 cars in this month that had over 400k miles on them. He said to do that, you have to maintain them impeccably. He said there is no reason I shouldn't be able to get mine to 200k if I treat it right.
You should be able to get another five years out of that vehicle without any serious repairs. From my personal experience and that of my friends and neighbors, you can get a relatively trouble free 10 years or so, and after that, a few more years with reasonable maintenance and repair costs.
I had a first generation Focus that I recently sold after 12 years, and previous to that, and Aerostar van for 10 and a half. Neither required a major repair. What I found was that for the first 7 or 8 years, the only things either car needed were very minor, like a window regulator or the thermostat housing, and nothing very often other than wear items. After that, the car starts needing a few more, and more expensive things, like an alternator, fuel pump, or radiator.
I have been doing most of my own work, particularly on maintenance and wear items. On repairs, depends what it was and when it happened. I had a set of coil packs start misbehaving on a Sunday evening. Since I wasn't going to get to that until the next weekend, and driving the car with a significant misfire could destroy the catalytic converter, I got someone to do it Monday morning. On the other hand, I lost an alternator one Thursday afternoon in the summer, so I limped home, and charged the battery Friday morning so I could get to work and back, then replaced it myself on a Saturday. When the alternator on my wife's Odyssey failed, I let Honda do that, a V6 minivan is no fun to work on.
I don't how your garage is set up, but mine is not at all conducive to working on a car. It's small, so small that my tools are in the basement. I can't open the car doors fully in the garage, it's not wide enough. Also, on the current generation of cars, so much is done from the underside that they're a real pain if you don't have a lift. I have to say I'm reaching my lifetime tolerance for staring at the bottom of a car that's six inches in front of my face, because that's as high as I can get the car.
I will also have to say that the older a car gets, the more of a PITA it is to work on. If you ever drive where there's salt, things start rusting together, and even if you don't, they get stuck anyway. All the soft parts (rubber, plastic, etc) start getting brittle and begin to crack. Coolant hoses get stiff and hard to get on and off, A/C hoses become porous and let the refrigerant leak out, the A/C and heat start working less well, the car starts developing squeaks and rattles... well, you get the picture. Assuming this is your daily driver, and you need it on a daily basis, working on it becomes a problem because the older it is, the more likely it is that something related will break while you're working on it. I was replacing the clutch master cylinder on the Focus, when the piece on the clutch pedal that drives the master cylinder came off in my hand. If I had the time and the shop space, I could have pulled the pedal box out and rewelded it, but I have neither, so off it went to the shop. Didn't save anything on that job.
I have two other issues with trying to keep an older car going. First off, most of us are pretty reasonable parts changers, but are lousy diagnosticians. That comes from experience, which we don't get much of. The second one is that the replacement parts situation these days is just sorry. It used to be you could get aftermarket replacement parts that were of a decent quality, at maybe a 40 percent discount from what the dealer got for that item. I've found that if the part isn't factory, or isn't from a brand name you can trust, you don't want it. The no name parts don't fit and they don't last.
I bought a new car last year, I plan on keeping it for about 10 years. My wife gets a new one every eight, I don't want her having any issues on the road.
I'm not sure what additional maintenance you'd want to do to keep your car going a long time. If you haven't already done so, have your transmission fluid, brake fluid, power steering fluid (if so equipped),and coolant replaced. Regular oil changes at the manufacturer's recommended interval is important as well. I change my fuel filter every 3 years and the air filter about every 25,000 miles, at least on the gasoline only car, I plan to go longer on the PHEV since the engine doesn't run as much. Also, get any fluid leaks taken care of promptly. Hot oil will erode cooling and A/C hoses, and timing and accessory belts, and I can't think hot coolant will do anything nice either.
What I found on the Focus was that it was the soft parts that were failing, not the mechanical stuff. At 130,000 miles, the only signs of wear I had on the drivetrain was a bit of valve clatter at startup on cold mornings, which took care of itself after a few seconds. The transmission shifted as new, the engine pulled strong, and was going about 3500 miles per quart of oil. However, some of the plastic pieces started breaking around year 12, and that's when I decided I wasn't saving enough to justify keeping it. That's the last part of the picture to driving an older car, it all depends on your tolerance for automotive entropy. If you want everything working as it came from the factory, I'm thinking you'll want a new one after 10 years, more of less. If you can tolerate things slowly falling apart, you can probably save some money (though not a lot) by keeping the old ride a little longer.
