Worth repairing? Need opinions

sure, a lot of people do it, just use caution

a newer car is always wiser, depending on age and condition of existing, if you can afford it.

check your 12v too, that can wreak havoc with the meter.

 

If you or a friend or family member like learning how to do repair work, this website has all the info you need to make this repair for a tiny fraction of the amount that's been quoted to you by a professional mechanic. This is key to the future of your vehicle when it comes to affording other repairs as well.

As for just ignoring that problem, that seems problematic. Liability-wise, when Toyota issued the repair recall for this problem (it's expired now) they explicitly said don't drive your car and have it towed to the nearest dealer. And they carry much higher liability than you do, so yes you can drive it, but sooner or later you're gonna regret it. And if you told a cop you don't know how fast you were going because your car is broke, you might get an additional fine or charge or fix it ticket.

 

The repair itself is around 100 dollars.

Instrument Cluster repair? | PriusChat

If you can find someone who can take your dashboard apart for a reasonable amount it would not be so bad.

 

The devil you know is always better than the one you do not.

The REAL question is, can you find a "better" vehicle for the repair cost of the one you have? Generally that answer is NO. Many, many people use a costly repair bill or frequent smaller bills as justification for a "new(er)" vehicle, which is a fools game unless you are purchasing CPO cars from an OEM dealer.

If the HV battery is an OEM one, then it's a keeper. Given you report no HV pack issues in your 4 years, I am confident it is an OEM battery.

 

Cindy, This is what you need. He's a member here. Obviously, Texas is a big place. Not sure how close you are to him, but this would be the first place I would go, even if I had to drive all day.

Prius Speedometer Replacement

Austin to Dallas is about 3.5 hours. You could drive there, have them swap it, and be home in the same amount of time as if it were a normal work day.

 

That’s 225 installed, a lot less than 1000, that’s for sure. Plus gas of course but we all know what the Prius excels at.

 

Looks like 400 mile round trip. That’s around 10 gallons of gas. So add 10 gallons of gas at your price to the total.

 

a low 12v can make the cluster do funny things. i saw it on my daughters '08. but 99% of the time, it's the cluster itself. i just like to make sure it isn't the 12v before replacing the cluster, it's an easy check. auto parts stores do it for free.

 

While I understand your point, these challenges are so minuscule compared to $800 for a repair that you can likely do for $200 if you have a neighbor or friend who's willing to help. Just start asking around, you'll find somebody who enjoys learning this work and will help you with other repairs in the future. Perhaps you've seen someone in your neighborhood that's always working on cars. Knock on their door and see if they or someone they know wants work and get some references from 'em to check on...

Best part about having a mechanic in your neighborhood that's worked on your car before, is if there's ever a problem in the future you don't have to take your car very far to figure out what's wrong with it.

Besides, the problem isn't significant enough to buy another used Prius, because what if your avoidance of resolving it in a low cost way, leads to the next car having a more serious problem?

For example, sometimes people come to Priuschat a week after they bought a used Gen2 Prius, which ran great at first and then all the warning lights came on and they needed a new Hybrid Battery, transaxle or Engine replacement that will cost more than $2k to resolve and the professional mechanic will charge more than double that to fix it? Hope that helps with perspective on all this...

 

In this case the repair will be less than 300 dollars and she can spend the day in Dallas, going to museums, shopping, whatever. No need to ask anyone for help beyond
Prius Speedometer Replacement

 

Yay!!! Yet another example of how PriusChat makes Prius 10X better than most cars...

 

TMR-JWAP is the guy to thank. He posted the link.

 

Best plan Cindy.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Good decision.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

If you have the time, it's probably an excellent opportunity to get a overall conditions check on your vehicle.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.