I still have my 1999 that I commented on in an earlier post in Oct 2003, the Esteem has been an amazing car, I changed the timing belt a while back which was a long project that took hours but technically was not all that difficult and required zero special tools.
I have fallen in love with mine too, my wife wants to get rid of it at some point due to high mileage but I would rather replace parts and have the engine and tranny overhauled than get rid of it.
Air filters down here in the US are not much better at $20 to $27 (US).
I think that part of the reasons that there have been so few posting in this thread is that the Esteem has been such a reliable car that there is nothing to complain about.
On the other hand an '84 Nissan Sentra that I am working on for someone has turned into absolute hell it was such a badly designed car, I'm not saying that Nissan makes bad cars, just this one in particular.