My husband and I have a 2006 Toyota Corolla that we bought used in 2009. It currently has 152,000 miles on it (when we bought it, it had 80,000). We just found out the transmission is shot and will need to be replaced. The brakes will also need to be replaced soon. So the question is, should we pay to get these things fixed and then hopefully be able to drive it another 50,000 miles or should we buy our next used car now? The transmission will cost about $2,900. Blue Book value for the car if it were in "good" condition is $4,736.
If you need other information about us, it is our only car. We bike to work 90% of the time, but we use the car heavily on the weekends to ski, raft, rock climb, etc. If we bought another car, we would probably spend about $9,000-10,000. Not sure what car we would replace it with. We are considering something with 4 wheel drive or something a little larger so that we can sleep it in when we camp, but getting good gas mileage is a critical factor.