Another One Bites the Dust. Cylinder 3 zero compression. Scraping 265K car. Run it anyway until death?

[GreenMagicMan]

As titled.

We got an XC70 2004 5 cyl not quite two years ago and put about 40,000 + miles on it. Purchased for $1300 all in with auction fees.
Car owes us nothing. I myself did a front bearing on it and rear brakes, and replaced a leaking fuel filter.
That's it. Was a good runner. Primary owner was / is very attached to it.

This car came with 5 keys and a mountain of receipts. So many in fact I made a complete .XLS spreadsheet of all the dealer NON routine and NON preventative maintenance from the original owners. $21,000 in costs at two local dealers over it's life. That's a lot in my book (but whatever).

So the question... run it on 4 cylinders until death do us part?
Why not. Local scrappers will give us between $400 - $700 for the carcass and we have long range AAA paid up.
It's now planned for a family member to drive it out of state tomorrow for 4 days about 110 miles each way.

I say, why not? Thinking just unplug the fuel injector to save fuel and not turn the cat into a red hot mess (sister in law was there/did that). We just got it back from local mechanic and drove it on highway. It's a bit stumbly and shaky with medium throttle up hill. Has no problem on the flats.
It runs in fact just like my Acura TSX did that had single failed coil. Ran that car about 600 miles before I figured out the problem and quickly replaced the coil.

Anyone with thoughts?

[dikidera]

Will perform poorly with an increased fuel consumption over what it already uses. It's time to let it become your new pan or fork.

[cn90]

My 1998 S70 burned exhaust valve at 180K miles.
I unplugged the connector feeding injector #3 and drove
like that for a while.
When the Auto Trans failed at 185K miles, I sold it to the junk yard for $500.

[abscate]

Unplug the injector and the mileage won’t suffer much. It will run ok over 2500 rpm but it will have a perpetual check engine code for misfire. I would run it. I do have a good NA cylinder head in Albany NY

[erikv11]

Unplug the injector and the mileage won’t suffer much. It will run ok over 2500 rpm but it will have a perpetual check engine code for misfire. I would run it. I do have a good NA cylinder head in Albany NY

but the deadhead is an LPT?

[abscate]

Unplug the injector and the mileage won’t suffer much. It will run ok over 2500 rpm but it will have a perpetual check engine code for misfire. I would run it. I do have a good NA cylinder head in Albany NY

but the deadhead is an LPT?

Do a valve job and replace exhausts with the sodium filled or the alloy ones and have at it.

Hmmm, another cylinder 3 failure. Confirmation bias at work….

[dikidera]

Unplug the injector and the mileage won’t suffer much. It will run ok over 2500 rpm but it will have a perpetual check engine code for misfire. I would run it. I do have a good NA cylinder head in Albany NY

It should increase. As now you need to press the throttle more to get to a similar power level as before.

[vtl]

Do a valve job and replace exhausts with the sodium filled or the alloy ones and have at it.

Volvo valves are the best. Get a used one.

[vtl]

They all fail between ~220-250ish kmiles. Unless the valve cover was opened and valve lash adjusted.

[GreenMagicMan]

So is Cylinder 3 failure the most common / first one to go?
Thanks for all the replies!