Major car dilemma -- need advice urgently!

kissenger said:
If I can get it fixed for <£1000 I will probably just pay up and keep it. I really don't like the idea of buying a car on credit, especially at that rate of interest.
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The alternative to getting your £2,500 old Prius fixed shouldn't be a £10k+ finance agreement for a newer one.

Get some sleep, approach it all with a clearer head in the morning, and don't give the dealer any more of your time or money because they're having you on.
 
Absolutely get an indy to look at it. Main dealers aren't always that good at diagnosing problems and can quite frequently request that parts be changed unnecessarily.
When I had my Range Rover a main dealer reckoned it needed a new steering rack and box at a cost of nearly £2000. An indy diagnosed it as a shot bearing on one of the track rods which cost £50 to fix. Always get a second opinion on major repairs and NEVER buy a new car until you are absolutely sure that the car you have is uneconomical to repair.

You will probably get more than £1000 for it on eBay as a non-running spares or repair as I imaging the batteries alone are worth that.
 
To note i got nearly £2000 for a Cat C crashed Prius (front end damage, non runner, bought back as salvage from an insurance company) with no log book on ebay. This is pretty much the "scrap" value of these cars due to the battery packs etc.

kissenger - to be honest at £2500 for a whole complete car you are fairly lucky that the car will physically move under its own power to be honest, so dont feel too scammed by the seller :p
 
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p1RATE said:
Also if the prius they have offered is 10k and they are offering 1k off for your current car, 225 sound wrong for a 5 year deal. A loan at 5% would be about 170 a month for 9k.
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I'm wondering if they quoted him the flat rate % not the APR, seems to be a common trick in the car market
 
The Prius is really easy to work on according to the Toyota tech I know who worked on mine. You can replace the whole battery pack yourself in less than a few hours. The CVT gearbox comes out pretty easily and is extremely reliable.
The inverter water pump and system rarely fails and was recalled. So you make sure yours was done as well at that mileage. Take it to any indy and they should now be able to sort them out as they are well known.
 
I really can't believe what I am reading here! The simple answer is no, get out of that toyota garage and get some genuine indie garage to fix the car!
 
Any garage which gives you an hour to make up your mind on a £10k finance agreement when you didn't even want a new car is not worth dealing with IMO. Fair enough if you were actively looking and they did you a good deal, but considering you were just after a repair, the moment they pulled out the "today only" BS I would have left...
 
Haggisman said:
The moment they pulled out the "today only" BS I would have left...
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I didn't actually say it, but tbh as soon as I heard that I thought, 'absolute cowboys'. Maybe if they were offering £1000 for my Prius plus selling the 60 reg Prius for around £9000 on a 0% deal I might have bit, but I'm glad I walked away. Thanks for the advice guys. It's easy to get stressed out and then get carried away in a situation like that and end up with something you don't need.

I dropped my car off this morning at an indy that quite a few of my family members use. He's worked on my mum's Celica before so hopefully he knows a bit about Toyotas and my car's in safe hands. Having had a little chat to him sounds like most likely outcome is going to be putting a salvaged transmission in there and a new hose for the 2nd leak.

Tbh I would like to keep the car because I do like it (well, everything except the heating -- it's rubbish) and I've really tidied it up since getting. Thoroughly valeted it myself, replaced the tyres, changed all of the oil, coolant, etc.
 
kissenger said:
I appreciate your comment but they didn't just pluck the figure out of the air. The broke down in detail the costs in detail as they showed me around the underside, including probably 8 hours to take apart the transmission and the cost of the components that would need to be replaced, which are far from cheap in that part of a Prius. They also showed me various parts on the underside of the car that were badly damaged.

I should also have mentioned that the car has a lot of miles on it: 210k. I realise now that it was probably used as a taxi at some point and has been treated pretty badly throughout its life. I strongly believe the mechanics were not BS'ing me. On the other hand, the sales people clearly are motivated by making a sale on the best possible terms they can and want to get it done today. I'm not stupid. I'm just saying that I am in an very difficult situation because it is not just BS that the car might be worth next to nothing if it stops working completely in a few days.
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You spent £2.5k on a car with over 200,000 miles on the clock? :eek:
 
I recall being baffled when you were thinking of buying a Prius when you said a Prius was good value.

Well yes - if you get a car with over 200k on it it's going to be relatively cheap.

Toyota hybrids are seriously pricey for what you get though. £2500 could have got you a much newer petrol Astra, Vectra, Focus, Mondeo etc etc with under 80k on it with FSH and some evidence of being looked after.

If you wanted to stay with Toyota you could have gone for something like this: http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classif...to=3000&make=toyota&price-from=2500&logcode=p
instead of 'Prius tax' nonsense like this:
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classif...-size-cars=1-4l_to_1-6l&model=prius&logcode=p
 
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Jez said:
That is basically scrap value for a Prius, so he got a good deal for a running one. He would barely lose money on it even if he sold it as spares or repairs car.
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That's all very well until you start throwing money at it to try to keep it moving. The trick is knowing whether and when to let it go for scrap value.
 
They are a not exactly a money pit. They are essentially bullet proof and even a new battery pack can be had for less 500 quid these days. I do however agree he did not need to buy one with 200k when I even linked him to several T spirits with lower miles and better condition. Anyone he bought he also should have immediately got it in for a hybrid healthcheck at 30 quid and they would have advised of any recalls needed.
 
Dave85 said:
Anyone he bought he also should have immediately got it in for a hybrid healthcheck at 30 quid and they would have advised of any recalls needed.
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It was mentioned in one of the other threads that he tried to get a Hybrid Heathcheck, but they're restricted to car under 100k.
 
Looks like he got it done as not doing it over 100k is nonsense. It's up to 10 years regardless of mileage and then can continue if started.

"Then they took the car in to look at. HHC came back all clear" So at least he knows that part is fine I assume they would have checked and told him about the recalls at that point as well but you might want to check here if not done already https://www.toyota.co.uk/caring-for-your-toyota/owners/recall-checker.json kissinger :)
 
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