2006, 90k miles, transmission seems to be blown

Where are you and your Prius located? There are several independent repair facilities around the country that can install a salvaged Prius Tranny at a significantly lower cost.

JeffD

 

If it's covered under warranty, let the dealership fix it.
If not, first thing I would do is get the codes it read out from them and get a second opinion or some more help here.
If the car is at your house and you have those reasonable mechanical skills you might try spending $40 on 4 quarts of Toyota ATF WS and change the transaxle ATF. Pretty simple drain plug and refill at fill plug process. Lots of posts here on how to do it. Go from there.

 

Call Dave Taylor at http://www.taylorautomotve.com. He is in Sanford NC and runs a good independent Hybrid repair facility (I have been a customer in the past). More independents can be found at:

Preferred Independent Hybrid Car Repair and Service Shops - HybridCars.com

But I can only give a personal reference for a few of the businesses on their list (Three in CA -Avi's:Luscious:Art's, Autobeyours in IN, Mellor's in Fl, and of course Taylor's in NC). Several others are listed in PA.

JeffD

 

Not having all the details of the problem, I would hesitate to advise you either way about driving versus towing, but is this the same dealer that tried to rip you off a couple years ago? $100 tow and a couple days car rental might be worth it to give you a little time to get some more expert advice here vs. unnecessary $4800 repair. Many other Prius Chatters sharper than me on this issue and happy to help.
If you go the tow route make sure they have the front wheels off the ground.

 

Nursing a Prius on one of your windy mountain roads or Interstates is not on my "To Do" list. We really need to see the codes they pulled that drew them to their conclusions. My suspicion is that they are exaggerating the problem list to encourage a sale of your "worthless" 2006 and a purchase of a new one that is sitting on their lot. Would that Toyota dealer in State College be Joel Confer? He's got 8 2013's & 5 2014's that I'm sure he'd like to move in the next 11 days.

I'm not saying anything for or against the dealer. I'm posting this just to show how easy it is to get info.

You're pretty close to the end of the warranty. What's the original purchase date?

 

If they jump right to total transaxle replacement when you were able to drive it there, I would be skeptical. There have been people who got some help here that have saved thousands of dollars in unnecessary repair bills. That may not be the case here, but it's probably worth giving the big Prius Chat heads a chance to help you. Important to get the DTCs and all subcodes they pulled from your car.

 

It is often the case that a failure in one subcircuit will cause error codes to be logged from other components. It is difficult to tease these apart and get cause and effect properly assigned on the first try. Many dealers end up swapping in new parts until the error codes go away. I doubt that the inverter and the transaxle could fail at the same time. Both are very rare failures to begin with. If it is the case that the transaxle is bad, a used unit can be had, and replaced by a competent mechanic. There are detailed pictures available on this site. Much cheaper than your quote.

 

Many of them have been through a training course associated with that web site:
"Our growing list of preferred shops is made up of technicians who have been through Craig’s workshops."
But some have been added due to their great reputation (e.g. the ones that I highlighted above). You would have to judge any of the others yourself or ask specifically on this discussion group if anyone has experience with a particular independent facility.

JeffD

 

If that refers to the MFD putting up a screen telling you that the car can't get out of park, then this would indicate a classic low 12V symptom. The parking pawl will not release if the 12V is on its last legs.

 

Although you don't have the three-digit subcodes, it seems reasonable that the transaxle has failed.

 

That is not a good sign, as far as that tech is concerned. There are numerous ways for both P0A78 and P0A90 to be triggered, so getting the specific INF codes are pretty crucial to be really sure of the diagnosis. It is hard to separate inverter problems from transaxle problems. Both are rare in a car of your mileage. But given your symptoms I agree that it looks like the transaxle is suspect.