Repair or replace?

[Anonymous]

2018 Toyota Sienna AWD
paid for
123,000 miles. Has a few dings but overall in good shape, except…

Stupid 8 speed transmission is dying. They don’t repair these—parts are not available. Best repair option is a remanufactured transmission from Toyota. At least $8K for parts and labor. We’ve taken it to Toyota and to an independent local shop that specializes in transmissions.

We had planned to drive this vehicle another 100,000 miles, and possibly hand it down to one of our teenagers. I don’t know if I’ll trust it to last even if we put the money into it.

Not sure what other vehicle we would buy—we definitely need AWD where we live but I don’t know if we need another 7 passenger vehicle, although it’s nice to be able to drive 14 year old DD and all her friends when they want to go to the movies. And we have a 70 lb dog. Probably a Subaru but it seems like those can be hot or miss on longevity as well.

Also not sure what the trade-in value will be at this point. I’m so pissed that we’ve been loyal Toyota owners for 20 years and I’m having to make this decision.

So what’s the best option here? Does anyone still make cars that reliably last 200K miles anymore?

[Anonymous]

You can’t find a used 2018 sienna for $8k, not even close. So, if it is otherwise fine, just fix the transmission and drive it for another 200k miles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can’t find a used 2018 sienna for $8k, not even close. So, if it is otherwise fine, just fix the transmission and drive it for another 200k miles.

This transmission quit well before 200K.