2008 Prius 135k miles totaled :( scrap or accept payout?

$7000 for that car is pretty generous. As a buyer I wouldn't pay anymore than $2000-$3000 for a Hybrid.

 

hybrids are great when they’re new and gently used. At the end of its life, they’re not only more difficult to fix but they’re also more expensive to fix. Unless you have the very niched knowledge to get these cars to acceptable working conditions, they’re not worth the headache

you don’t have to go as old as 90s to find a reliable car for a good price. I would aim for something mid 2000s. It doesn’t always have to be Japanese to be reliable.

 

That's a miracle situation. Take the $5500 from insurance then take up your friend's $7100 offer? A sweet $12,600 for a 16yo wreck?

 

haha yeah that’s genius

 

Then take the government's $4000 and buy a Gen 4 Prime.

 

Something is very wrong there, the car is only maybe worth that much if it has never been wrecked. It makes no sense at all for a company to pay that much, invest more in parts and labor, and then "flip it" for the same, or more likely, a lower price.

 

That's a 2008 with how many miles even pulled out and pristine condition the high mileage and whatnot dictates all the business end of it but that's just how crazy the market is now and then some of these cars in regular people's price range is right now like the Hyundai sonata and you know crappy or cars than that are really crappy today they don't hold up worth the crap If you see these things man 50,000 miles engines are blowing up and on and on and on your warranty is worthless because the paper it was written on is from another place etc and so on It's real headache If you've got to depend on your car to get to work and you're depending on that well that's a big issue at least it would be to me. So I've always had to try and have vehicles that would stand up to the test of time because I'm going to buy them old and then I'm going to keep driving them way past any kind of popularity or any of that nonsense I have nobody to keep up with at all I can do what I want and not think anything about it think screw them that's all you know I've never had a car payment in my life and not looking to start.

 

Your insurance is offering you a good payout I would just take it and go find another generation to for $2,000 and do the necessary things to bring it up to where it needs to be or where your blue car was or whatever I've done it a bunch of times sometimes you can find these things with leather interiors for $500 just because but then again I have the luxury of owning five or four of these things depends on what time of year it is so I don't have to rush out and do anything foolish they fall into my lap If you're out a car now and can't get anywhere well it's on isn't it You got to do something fast because you're depending on rides and whatever I got four cars two scooters a hovercraft you know We don't have any transportation problems so one of them goes down no problem push it over to the side till I have time to get to it I got six other vehicles to contend with that'll take me anywhere I want to go

 

I would take the 5k and sell it to your friend for 1k and take that money to get something more reliable. 6k for that thing is the absolute best case scenario because I would'n't have paid more than $500 for the car.

 

Just last week someone posted a similarly crumpled 2008 and was happy to get between 1000 to 1500 dollars for it on craigslist. The big difference though is you've got collision coverage, which is obviously paying off big-time, but I think most of us would decline given a gen2's modest residual value.

Your friend can probably sell the cat and hybrid battery by Monday morning for 1500, so the rest of the car is gravy.