Just sharing my personal experience. I had a Toyota Camry just over 200,000 miles I thought everything was going smooth. I kept up on oil changes, recently purchased new tires, car was running well. Then it started to make a strange rattle, I couldn't pin it and under the hood inspection it appeared the belt tensioner was a bit loose so i changed that out. Rattle was still there. I took it to the shop and they tell me it was the timing chain tensioner. Quoted me about $2000 to get it replaced which was right about blue book value for the car. I struggled with it for a little while but determined that I wasn't going to find a new car that worked as well as this for 2k and it it lasted me another year i would be happy.
They open it up to do the work and I get a call, they tell me it looks like a glitter bomb went off inside my engine block. Something was wearing and they told me they wouldn't do the work as they wouldn't expect that engine to last another 1000 miles even with a new chain. New engine would run about $3000 and they could only find already high mileage 175000+ miles replacements.
So I had to say goodbye to a car that treated me well and I was really hoping to keep it a little while longer.