Just need confirmation that junking the car is the best option...

Stop going to dealers! We call them "stealerships" for a reason. Find a reputable independent mechanic and see what they have to say. If they determine the motor needs a rebuild selling it for parts might make sense. Sending it to the junk yard would be the step after that, if you cannot find a buyer.

All that being said, head gasket problems at 200k miles is probably less likely on this car than on many others.

Also as cars age, and these in particular, they make a lot more sense for people who can do at least some of the work themselves.

 

Time to start over with something younger.

Good luck!

 

The bad headgasket with coolant leaking into cylinders is only a problem with 2010-2015 Prius. Having a bad head gasket in a 2004-2009 is very rare and as most recent mechanic reported there's no coolant leaking into cylinders. And a hybrid car with 200K miles has a third or in some cases half the wear and tear of a regular car that's not a hyrbid.

If I were you I'd get new plugs and coils and keep driving it... The slight shutter you're concerned about is still intermittent and even the very best most well cared for Prius will shutter from time to time. It's the nature of the Atkinson engine design.

Just drive it till the engine fails and then swap out the engine with a used one. 2004-2009 are great cars and you'll miss how simple it was to deal with if you move on from it.

 

Any chance you have a friend or family member with a history of working on cars could work with you and us to help build trust and either get this car fixed for cheap or at least help you find your next car for a good price?

I mean you're doing a really good job at learning all this stuff and figuring it out and I'm optimistic for you having success, but it'd be more likely if you have more support to ensure you're always maximizing the value of the money you're spending.

 

How far are you from Pittsburgh? Butler County Hybrid is a decent shop and Tom the owner is a good guy, maybe go get his opinion on this. I've seen a couple G2's with head gasket issues, so probably cheaper to swap a JDM than fix that.

 

My '06 Prius has a bit more on the clock than that, has suffered the misfire on start up for probably 2 yrs now ..... keep saying I should look at the plugs .... until it settles a few hundred yards down the road .... and that fix goes to the back of the que, more important repairs required on other vehicles in the fleet. It has been a reliable low cost workhorse since the '08 Prius was retired with a lot lot more kms on the clock and developed a serious shudder under power .... put a new traction battery in it, but that didn't help, , needed front brake pads for the '06 Prius on a holiday week end, so the '08 has been off the road since ..... but I did shift the new battery to the '06 .... it could have been an inner CV joint problem ..... but with a choice of vehicles to keep on the road, that one became a parts donor .....

Drive it till it drops, keep up the oil, check the coolant level when the engine is cold, and drive value for milage back into the Gen2 ..... they really are a great vehicle

T1 Terry

 

A new new one or a new used one? Most new cars with gasoline engines these days are direct injection with CVT transmissions and it is a dubious proposition that those components are going to last many hundreds of thousands of miles. In addition they have ridiculous numbers of computers, which are usually specific for both the application and the vehicle. In short, the peak of "cars that last a long time and can be repaired at a reasonable cost" is somewhere in our rear view mirror, I'm estimating 10 to 15 years back.

The drive trains in EVs should be more reliable, other than the guaranteed pack failure at some point, which will almost certainly be a "junk it" level repair since they tend to run 50% (or similar large fraction) of the value of the car new. These have just as many computers as the other vehicles.