Trade or Repair?
 

I am trying to decide whether to stay with our 2007 TCH with 116,000 miles or trade. Only repair has been the water pump replaced at 61000. I think the struts and brakes might be next?

I tend towards keeping the car and budgeting for repairs rather than trading.

Any opinions?

Re: Trade or Repair?
 

CR use to say:
Assuming you are otherwise happy with your current vehicle ...
Keep your car 10 years or until the cost of repairs begins to equal car payments for a replacement vehicle. Whichever comes first.

Re: Trade or Repair?
 

I don't think anyone knows what a 10 year old Camry Hybrid will be like. Few if any have 150,000+ mile batteries so there's no real world experience that we can fall back on.
A Camry gas engine can easily get to 15 years and 200,000 miles, but do we really know how batteries will hold up? That's the only thing that scares me.
I'm aware that there are 200,000 mile Priuses out there, but the cars are different, so no one can say with any certainty that the Camry will have perform similarly.
We're all beta testers!
Just my two cents (from someone who kept an Avalon for 16 years and 205,000 miles)

Re: Trade or Repair?
 

The cost of replacing batteries is getting close to what it would cost someone to get an auto tranny rebuilt. Never a happy time if you have to spend the cash, but it is not as big an issue as it may have been 5-10 years ago.