Gen 2 2008 Prius - next stage of life?

I haven't been a regular visitor to this site over the past 9 years with my Gen2 2008 Prius, something that I regret. I would have loved to have been more involved, but life gets busy and there aren't enough hours in the day for everything. But I will say that every time I have come to the site I've learned valuable information and have been impressed by the mass of knowledge here.

I'm hoping to ask for advice regarding the next stage of life for my 2008 Gen2 Prius. I bought it used in 2010 with 58k miles. Over the last 9 years it has been a wonderful car for me with relatively light maintenance. I've had the inverter pump replaced under warranty, a few other regular maintenance and repair odds and ends. The car is just shy of 222k miles now. It still gets 47-51mpg. I was about to DIY replace the brakes, but that's as easy as considered done. The front wheel bearings were recently replaced thanks to a nasty pothole. And then, sadly, the hybrid battery failed. I was seriously bummed, as I had hoped to get another 2-3yrs before moving to a new car. Unfortunately the failure caught me by surprise and at a time when I didn't have the capacity to research options as I should have. My mechanic estimated the dealer would charge $4-5k with installation. A friend put me in touch with someone who does refurbished batteries, but while they were lovely, as someone working in reliability and FA I couldn't justify the cost vs risk ($1500 with 5k mile warranty). I wish I had gotten onto the forum and read about options such as the new battery sold by 2k1Toaster / newpriusbatteries.com. I would have given very serious consideration to that option. But I was overloaded and instead, I went ahead and made the jump to all EV, purchasing a Chevy Bolt.

I am left considering what might be the best course of action for the next stage of life for my 2008 Prius. I hate the thought of it just going for scrap due to this one failed (abet critical) part. Part of the reason I went with a Prius in the first place was a desire to promote sustainability. I would love for the car to have some more useful purpose left for it. And so, I was hoping some members here, being much more versed in all things Prius than I am, might be able to give some realistic guidance.

Does it make sense to purchase a new battery such as from 2k1Toaster, pay someone in the Ca Bay Area to install it, and then sell the car? (The physical aspects of swapping out the battery ourselves sounds straightforward. However I am unsure about the safety aspect since we don't have experience with the hybrid battery.) I'm not looking to make a real profit; just to not lose money, have it be worth the time and to see the car serve a better use for a while longer.

The Chevy dealer (of course) said that in terms of trade-in it was only worth the scrap metal value. I opted not to do that because it felt like a waste. He did suggest donating the car to a local community college's auto program, to help students learn. I can see some service and use in that, though I guess I'd hope for that to be further in the future after some further driving use.

Option 3 I've considered is to sell the car to the local Pick N Pull yard. If it weren't reasonable for the car to be driven farther, I'd like to at least see the parts recycled. Again, some sense of sustainability. But again, I'd love to see this come further in the future if reasonable.

I've also thought about maintaining it as a second car for the purpose of long road trips in areas where EV charging might be iffy as yet, but I suspect the cost of maintaining insurance on two cars wouldn't be worth it for me as a single driver.

One other issue with the car: there is an intermittent, temporary failure which I think may be the combination meter. Every so often I get the classic symptoms - dashboard lights don't come on, only partial info on the center screen, mileage doesn't track, etc. It has thus far always been temporary though. Sometime later, after driving, stopping and powering off, then later starting up again, everything is back to normal. Other than this, the only real issues are cosmetic. The cloth interior is worn. There are a few areas where the protective layer on the paint has peeled. I need to glue a part on the hatch latch area that snapped such that it comes loose easily.

What advice would you all give me? What makes realistic sense? Is 220k too many miles to be worth a next stage of life use? Does the possible combination meter issue make it not worth it? I had (foolishly) hoped to drive it a lot longer, but perhaps others might consider it too used?

Thank you!

 

Thanks for the feedback, Bisco. Chatting with people at work, they've typically been surprised at the amount of mileage on the car, saying it has had a good life and implying that's an end of life amount of driving. I had always thought it should be able to go a lot longer and am glad to hear that is what would be thought here as well. Heh, if things hadn't been so stressful when the battery died I might have gotten on here and traveled a different path. I'm of course happy to have reduced my carbon footprint long term with the EV, but at the same time I will miss my Prius. I'd love to see it go to a new home where someone can get another 100-200k miles use from it.

Where would you recommend listing it?

 

I've been debating the 2nd car question, definitely. As the only driver, and being unable to drive 2 cars at once, the question would be whether I need a gas car as a road trip car or backup. I don't do a huge amount of road trips; it would be just as cost effective to rent a car for those instances vs paying year round insurance and other costs I think. I do have sentimental attachment to the Prius, but I have to balance that logically against the costs to get it running again on top of new car d/p and loan payments. Logically, it makes more sense to sell it.

I was considering craigslist, and had forgotten that there would be a section here. I'll give it a try here. Thanks!

 

That's good to know!

 

I can see where you might think that, and I can't say there is none of that on the side... I might have chosen differently if I had realized that I could fix it for $2k rather than $5k or more. But for the most part, I just honestly had no good gauge as to whether the Prius was salable or not; whether it would be considered useful or not. Feedback from the Chevy dealer was that it was only good for scrap or auto-mechanic school donation, but I knew that was a bit biased. I checked Craigslist and saw one with similar mileage for sale but had no way of knowing whether it sold or not. So my main goal has been to get feedback for a reasonable expectation. I've been heartened to see that others also feel it should have more life and usage left for it. Since things have worked out such that it won't be by me, I hope to see someone else find as much use from the car as I have.

 

Thanks for the feedback on battery replacement costs! When I did a search online for a new Toyota OEM battery, I was finding around $3k (such as here) and my mechanic thought installation would be around $1k. It wasn't something his shop did, and I am now thinking that his estimate was probably out of date, not well informed or he might have been thinking specifically dealer labor.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a hybrid mechanic who can swap batteries in the Ca South Bay Area? I will start calling around, but if anyone has a favorite that would be a great place to start.

Looking ahead, I'll need to get some non-raining daylight hours where the car is being storedto take some photos, and then I'll go ahead and post on the for sale area.

Thanks!