Any of you own one of these? Jeep Patriot, Ford Escape, Honda Element?

My GF has a 2003 Honda Element. She bought it brand new. It has 210,000 miles on it now. Yes, there is a lot of room inside. Can carry a lot of stuff, and the seats lay flat and fold up to sides. It needs CV-joints, they make a weird grinding noise under mild or hard acceleration. When I pulled the valve cover to adjust the valves for the 200K mile valve adjustment, I noticed the exhaust camshaft went slightly flat...This being somewhat of an involved repair, and 400 dollars just for the replacement cam, and $120 for the factory service manual I would need or like to have as I do the repair, I decided to leave it...It runs fine, though...It's very weird that this happened...We are always on top of the oil changes and clean air filters....Good vehicle, but lacks the typical honda fuel economy. About 22-25 MPG at best if ya take it easy...