What's wrong with my car

I'm 17 I don't know much about cars I just bought my first car it's a 1997 Honda Civic lx, it overheats and the first cylinder has little oil drops in it. Little drops of the oil shoots out of the hole where you check the oil from. And the car turns off when I take my foot off the gas. The whole car shakes while the car is on in park. The oil is very dark dark dark brown almost black. I only work part-time so I can't afford to buy a new car. Some people are telling me to fix the engine other people are telling me to just buy a whole new engine. I need advice from other mechanics so I can know which one is worth it.

Your car is misfiring likely due to a bad cylinder/s. Get a compression test done to confirm. The result of the test will tell you if the car needs an engine. It is better just to get a remanufactured engine.

Take it to a car mechanic and have them look at it

The problems your car has are:

1. It is 22 years old. Older than you. That is elderly for any car. It will have a lot of problems and it will only get worse. All the plastic and rubber parts are decomposing. They are outside all the time and are subject to to great extremes of temperature. Any of the parts that are subject to friction; the bearings, ball joints, tie rod ends, struts should have been replaced or should be replaced. This is not to mention the transmission which could go at any time at this age.

2. It is owned by someone who knows nothing about cars. Without the knowledge or mechanical ability to to perform repairs and maintenance, a car this age will probably last only a year more or less. Mark my words.

3. It was a cheap car to begin with. I regularly drive a 16 year old car but it was a $42,000 car when it was new and is built like a tank. It spent most of its life garaged in Nevada so there's no rust and I have already spent almost as much as I paid for it replacing parts. I do all my own work so there was no labor cost.

Forget about replacing the engine. No logical person replaces the engine on a 22 year old econo-car. Oil shoots out of the dipstick tube because it has WBBB (wicked bad blow by) meaning that the rings are shot. Buy the following things. An oil filter. Oil (5w30), Restore brand engine restorer oil treatment and Marvel Mystery oil. Add the latter to both the oil and gas. Follow the instructions on all of these products.

Replace the filters in addition to the oil filter; fuel (there are often more than one) and air.

Make sure that the tie rod ends, ball joints and tires are in adequate shape. If any one of those things fails, it could result in a catastrophic crash and kill you and / or others.

Do all this and you may get several years out of it if there are no major rust issues in the unibody / frame rails.

Also; rockauto.com sells good, cheap parts.

One more thing: The timing belt is very important in these cars. If it breaks, the engine is trashed. Have it checked by a mechanic who knows what he is doing. This is an internal belt - not the belt that drives the alternator and power steering pump. The timing belt drives the camshaft and sometimes the water pump.

The advice from "pizza" may be good BUT… It would be much better for you to find a mechanic, a mobile one if needed, that will diagnose the engine issues and tell you what is needed to repair it, if it's even worth repairing

personally, as someone who has been a "backyard" mechanic for many years, I would not do anything about adding oil, filter, etc etc as "pizza" suggests until you get the mechanics diagnosis

Give your car an oil change and a new filter, then see how it runs

The engine is indeed junk. There's no way I'd put an engine costing about $1500 in parts and labor into a $700 car.

Car issue help