2006 Prius 128K miles should I put tires, struts and brakes or trade it?

Are your struts and shocks leaking?

 

Why are tires, shocks, and brakes $2K? And why are you replacing the shocks and brakes? Tires, OK. But any car needs tires.

Look up the taxi threads. 400K, 500K, and 600K and more put on these Prii and they still work fine.

 

You must drive like a banshee if your Prius needs brakes after 128K miles. Seems somewhat early for strut replacement as well.

My 05 Prius has 222K miles with the original brakes and struts. The tires have been wearing evenly. Ride is the same as it was nearly four years ago when I bought it with 134K miles.

This is my experience. Your mileage may vary.

 

That is always a difficult decision to make. Have you already done the water pump, and air conditioning compressor? Tires are a normal maintenance item. A new set will last you about 50k to 60k or more. Brakes depending on what you need to do, may not cost that much. Turn the rotors and drums and replace the pads and shoes. Maybe a couple of hundred unless you do it yourself. The struts are another subject in that they are time consuming. I read where someone was purchasing a strut with the coil already attached which significantly reduces the work. Another way to think about it is $2000 will not even pay the tax and license fee for a new or relatively new car. Every year after the first 5 significantly reduces your average yearly costs. Besides the new Prius will not come out till mid year 2015. That would be a good car to get and hold on to. At 55 mpg it would be a cheap drive. We still have our 2006 with only 106,000 miles and it is now our dog car for taking our Great Pyrenees out on walks.

 

My 0.02? Deal it; mileage is low enough that you can get good money for it privately.

While there is evidence that these cars are extremely reliable, the costs for wear items is sickening especially if you have to rely on the dealership.

Take a look at the last say 100 posts on the Gen II maintenance forum; how would you feel if you just sunk $2k into shocks/struts/brakes and then the traction battery lets go? Accumulator dies? Skid control ECU acts up? A/C pukes? Each one will make you another $2k poorer.

With the maintenance items required, you should be able to get $6k easily for your car. Take the $2k you would have spent (total $8k), put that down on a brand new Prius C (I think they're $20k) and finance $12k @ 0% for 36 months. Pay it out, drive payment free for another 6 years, rinse and repeat.

Just my 0.02.

Faz

 

Faz, you sound like a car salesman. so you're telling him to get a new car when all he needs right now (most likely) are new tires.

 

178K miles on the 2004 which is the daily driver and running fine. I've changed the front struts once and the rear shocks twice. The front brake pads have been replaced and the engine coolant pump had a very slight amount of weeping at the weep port so I replaced it. A few sets of tires on the car, currently am using Bridgestone Ecopia EP422 which have been the best of the bunch.

If your car is running generally well, I think it is reasonable to do the work that you listed. However you may be able to do better than $2K in repair bills if you shop around.

Do you feel that your car's ride has deteriorated substantially? If yes then it would be reasonable to replace the struts/shocks.

 

Nah, engineer by trade. But been servicing my own cars since I was 18 years old...when cars still had carburetors. Even had one with a choke that you had to pull before starting it.

Over these years, I've observed a pattern....cars usually last with reasonable repair bills for about 200k km (approx 125k miles). Anything past that will start digging into the useful lifespan of major components (transmission, rack and pinion, etc).

Now, this normally wouldn't faze me....but these cars are 1) seriously complex, 2) have expensive parts, and 3) not many options other than the dealership to work on them. Most indy's will not touch it.

Therefore, you can a) become an enthusiast and try to get 200k miles out of it, or b) buy a new one. For me, less headaches the better....and since you can get a good buck for the Gen II's and the interest rate for the new ones is so low, why not? Let an enthusiast get a deal on a Gen II...do the work...$7k for a new to them car. The OP will get a new car that will be trouble free for 10 years....win win.

Faz