Spend $10k to upgrade to a Gen III from Gen II?

I think it's worth it

 

$10k ? No. Your car only has 37k miles on it. Overcome the urge to upgrade.

What if the 4th gen Prius, which will be revealed in a year or so blows the 3rd gen away? You could save the money to upgrade to a 2016 4th gen Prius.

 

A 2007 with only 37000 miles? I love my 2010, but it would be hard for me to trade such a low mileage Prius!

 

Add up the whole cost of car ownership, it's pretty shocking.

Let's say you bought the car for $23k total. And you get $16k back trade in or sale. $7k gone

I'm guessing you drove it about 25k miles. That's 28 cent PER MILE, each and every mile.

Add in 11 c for insurance registration, 8 for gas, 2 or 3 for maintenance, Prius is costing about

50 cents / mile driven. That 10 miles trips across town and back, $5. Consider this before shelling out $10k more a Gen III with solar.

 

That sounds very expensive...

 

$10k seems like a lot of money but people are making that choice everyday buying a 2013 Prius three for $25k. I'm assuming you can sell your Prius for $12k. Which means people are paying $13k more for a Gen3. So the price for a CPO is pretty good.

The problem is that in 2 years, the 2015 model Prius will come out. I'd wait.

 

welcome! i understand your desire. i was getting the urge to sell my 08 with 35,000 and buy a 2011. then i heard the pip was coming in '12 and i held out for another year. i would suggest you visit another dealer or two, (i do it by email) get their best price and then go in for a trade in value. don't take one dealers word for anything. all the best!

 

Depreciation (purchase - resale) of a car is usually the biggest expense of owning. Safe to say mine would sell for about $15k (down from $25k purchase) when 5 yrs old or 60k miles. 17 c / mile right there. Cars easily cost 40 c /mile and up to own and operate. Fancier cars, big SUVs, luxury cars can cost twice that.

Maybe do some small mods to keep things interesting?

 

37k, keep it until the 4th gen comes out. With that amount of miles in that amount of years you should look into the 4th gen plug in and really improve the MPG.

 

If you have no debt and have enough money to pay cash for the difference and still have enough left over for any likely future needs, the right number is the difference in the 2nd hand value between the 2 cars .

If you have any debt now or paying to change will generate debt either now or in the future, the right number is $0.

 

How many miles are on the 2010?

 

enjoy college, life gets serious after you graduate and prius becomes one of the fun parts.

 

Send the $10k on a convertible and keep both cars.

Or sell yours yourself and buy the 2010 without trading it in. For some reason the numbers don't add up. How much is the 2010? You should still be able to get good money for your car having such low miles.

 

I always trade in here in Illinois you only pay the difference cost of new less trade = what you pay tax on. Some states you have to pay tax on all of it and that hurts

 

I've only done this twice, every other time, I've been able to sell my car for considerably more than the dealer trade in + what I would have saved in tax.