At what point do you trade a Prius for something else?

Assuming cylinders are worn meaning $2,000 short block plus time. Battery is on last leg. The State now requires California compliant catalytic converters, which also needs replacing on this car.

But I can't seem to find a 2nd Gen Prius to replace this one for under $10,000, at least with lower miles (100k or less).

Just keep fixing the old Prius?
Get something else (I don't want a car payment)?
Or just start walking everywhere?

Any thoughts?

 

Maybe $1,000 in the past year. 215k miles.

Ya, that's kind of what I'm thinking too. Here's a worse case scenario not including time:
$2,000 engine
$2,000 catalytic converter
+ $2,000 OEM battery
$6,000

But an older, lower mileage Prius might have a worse case scenario of:
$10,000 used car
- $1,000 sell current car
+ $2,000 OEM battery
$11,000

 

I'm white, and I think I can relate. I wasn't a rich boy. My parents suffered finacially when I was a young kid. For a long time we didn't have a car, and there was no public transportation besides the school bus. The house (19th century log cabin) was so cold frost formed on the wall by my face in our (four children's) bedroom. It was also very hot in the summer with no air conditioner. It also didn't have plumbing for a while so we used an outhouse and had to fetch water several blocks away. Heat was all chopped firewood, including the cook stove. We allways had a vegetible gardin and the forest service would provide at times give us a poached deer that we had to cut up ourselves. I remember having to share only one Top Ramen package with my siblings. Things got better for our parents and we got richer as time went on, but never to the level of a typical white American family. I also married someone from a poorer country who was making the equivalent of $15 per week at that time.

But hey! We're debt free (still paying for the Avalon but could pay it off today with savings), live modestly (our bedroom is 6' x 6' 6" for an example) and some of our worst worries are how best to fix up our second car.

 

We're thinking more and more of at least trying to sell the Prius and living with just one car... We can live with just one car, I know we can. It is ironically about $35 per month more expensive to own just one car than two because the multi car discount here is more than the cost to insure another car. But with Prius prices going for some $7,000 or more (I got some $1,000 total tied up in this car) I figure I can make a profit from selling it. Still, we're not sure if we really want to go that route.

Pros and cons.

 

Yes, it does have a dead catalytic converter. My state recently made California cats mandatory too. So it's California Compliant or bust, OR I can just keep driving it with a dead cat as there are no emissions inpections here (you'd think they'd make emissions inspections mandatory before making California compliant catalytic converters mandatory). The engine has an oil burning problem too, mainly at higher cruising speeds (75mph uses more than at 65 it seems).

The question I have is if I change the catalytic conveter for an OEM converter, how much can I sell the dead one that's on the car for?

 

They don't unless they move to the eastern slope where inpections are required.