If you have a 1.8L engine in this manual VW, and it is causing you no issues, I think getting a new car, even a hybrid would be foolish as I suspect that you will incur greater maintenance costs with the prius... certainly greater POTENTIAL maintenance costs. The Prius has an 8 year warranty on the hybrid system (so you only have 1 year left on a 2k5 model) then replacing the batteries would cost you near $2500-3500 as I do not know if you can replace them yourself or if it requires dealer tools.
What are these potential repairs that foresee with your VW? Quick searching does not show much: water pump, mass airflow sensor ... strut mounts. If you replaced all of these, you could do so for $1000 - $1500 USD i suspect, at which point you should have many thousands of miles of worry free operation.
Maybe you can further explain your apprehension about upcoming repairs.
Apprehension on this issue is based on the very real possibility that this car will soon require 3-4K in repairs, depending on mileage and condition. I buckled to the pressure and bought a Passat for my son. The car is the same year with the exact same drivetrain. Our mechanic is a personal friend, and a world class wrench. Said mechanic made it very clear that I was making a mistake that I would later deeply regret. Two years later, he has been spot on. I have been wrenching on cars for 33 years now, and did a lot of repairs to this epic piece of shit. It is simply the most over-engineered, underbuilt, disgrace I have even seen. I bought the thing for $6000. It was in great shape and still looks excellent. However, it has required $4k in repairs so far, and there is no end in sight. Until you own a VW that is at the age where all the typical failure points begin to rear their ugly heads, it's really hard to wrap your head around how truely awful these cars are. Unless you are a skilled, higher level "shade tree mechanic" with a good set of tools, a desire to spend a ton of time on enthusiast's websites, and are willing to tackle all repairs yourself, these cars will chew a hole in your wallet like a pit bull on crack.
the list of failure points on this car is endless. A few highlights might help to clarify my experiences though.
#1 timing belt. No biggy, lots of cars have them, however many manufacturers got rid of them previously, or never used them in the first place. On the Passat the ENTIRE FRONT END of the car is pulled forward, (or to make it easier, removed)to change the belt. By the time you do the water pump, replace the proprietary coolant at $12/liter and get the car back together, you have a long weekend shot, or a bill well north of a grand, from a mechanic.
#2 Dual mass flywheel. This is almost stunning, the stupidity of this design is nearly incomprehensible. A dual mass flywheel is a poorly built piece of shit made of stamped sheet steel, and filled with rotating "dampers", to make the car feel a wee bit smoother on idle. One of these days the OP's flywheel with disinegrate and start sounding like there is a can of nuts and bolts flying about the clutch housing. If you go to a dealer, or a less than savvy independent garage, the parts to remedy this mess are going to run well over a grand, and another grand or so in labor. ( the factory flywheel is only available from VW and is $777) I used an aftermarket kit to install normal parts and saved about $1.5K on that mess.
#3 coil packs. VW used coil on plug ignition units on this engine. They are defective and fail continuiously. They were supposed to warranty them to 100K, per a settlement with the feds. The issue as most owners can attest, is that VW has the worst dealer network on the planet. Our passat was covered under warranty. The dealer said that, according to the VIN# the coil packs were "checked". Now they are all failure prone trash, that VW agreed to replace, but then refused do so, as they were "checked". Imagine my shock to discover that I was being lied to, and screwed by VW? Who knew?
I could go on with issues # 4-10, or even 20, but you get the point. Currently the car needs another coil pack, it's third cat. converter, a few ball joints and a front engine mount. I'll drop another $500-600 into it over the next few weeks then sell it privately. I tried to trade it in recently, but dealers aren't dumb. The lowest online trade value I could find was in the high $3K range. Dealers offered $1700-$2500 for it. One big used car place near me won't even accept VWs as trade ins, as they got tired of losing their shirts on repairs costs during their six month/six thousand mile warranty period.
Back to the OP's original question. If somebody offered my $7K for that car, I would jump at it. If it runs well, and doesn't have a check engine light glowing on the dash, it's doing better that 75% of the other VWs of that era, so bail while you can. Seriously, get out before it's too late. Good luck
