Car totaled by hail. Keep or relinquish?

You should take it to a Paintless Dent Removal (PDR) shop and see what they would charge. Ask for the non-insurance price.

I once had a hail damaged car that was totaled because the cost to fix at a conventional body shop was well over $7k. PDR guy did it in 3 days for $2k.

 

You're likely on the cusp of head gasket failure, maybe best to fold.

Unless the EGR system is fully cleaned, at least every 50k, head gaskets tend to fail, around 150k typically.

 

With $7,000 you can buy a new car "payment" or...keep driving your current as-is "beater" for $7,000 minus the buy-back. The GEN III's are not bad cars, but they just require maintenance...something a lot of Prius owners think "should-not-be". Either option, you "will be" buying a new or replacement car...now or in a year or two. Consider this...will you have $7,000 to put down on a replacement later? That's the decision you have to make. I can't speak your to financials, age or current status in life, but you did state you can't fix cars.

Best wishes whatever you decide.

 

The $7000 is irrelevant, OP gets it either way. Only question is if the car is worth $1400 as-is. Since you can't buy much for $1400, I say yes.

None of us really know what the average mileage for HG failure is. We don't even know why it happens.

 

If all you have is a few dents, why would it degrees the value? Does it still run and drive the same?
And it's dependable? WHY would you get rid of it? Why have another car payment? And higher insurance rates?
If you're really worried about the dents, take it to a body shop, they can likely pop them out.
And you have $5600! Minus whatever it costs to pop those dents out.

And you can save that money toward the head gasket kit!

 

Concur.
The 'totaled' car is worth $1400 just in parts.
The tyres and rims probably didn't get damaged by the hail and my guess is that the battery is still as good as it was before the storm.
If nothing else, the op can put a "for sale" sign on it as-is, where is and get $2000 in a flash since the car is able to move under its own power.

That's a $600 profit for the price of a Sharpie and a hunk of cardboard.
No brainer, actually.

Don't really concur with that.
The G3 head gasket failures are due in about equal parts to design failures in Aichi, Japan and the fact that many people who drive Priuses follow a 'closed hood' maintenance philosophy - which is expressly encouraged by the dealers.

If your car is "dealer serviced" this is NOT the same thing as being 'properly maintained' UNLESS of course you take the car to the dealership every 30 days or 1,000 miles in Freedom units.
About 1600 clicks elsewhere.
Deets are in the Warranty and Maintenance Guide that came with the car and (unusually, for Toyota) are available for free as a download.

Head Gaskets are like fuses.
If they were like circuit breakers then you would not have to replace them.
They're designed to fail in order to protect something more costly - like the bottom end or heads.
UNFORTUNATELY it doesn't really work out that way in the real world where mechanics can charge hundreds of dollars per hour of labour and you can barely see the engine when you open the car's hood.

Long oil change intervals = dirtier oil.
Low friction rings = more oil blow-by = a smaller volume of even dirtier oil - not detectable until the "change owner" light starts to flicker.
Low sump volume = more of the same.

Add in an EGR cooler and you can just about predict that you will hear the famous "Prius Death Rattle" before 160,000 miles.

I had 2 2010 Company Priuses that each went beyond 220,000 miles JUST BY changing the OCI to 5,000 miles instead of 10K.
One got taken out in an accident before 250k and the other one was destroyed by an ID10T tech who never checked the oil level......at 260K.

 

I only went 301,000 before the head gasket failed.... What do I know???

City drivers seem to have head gasket failure sooner than highway drivers....
At least according to what drivers have stated mileage wise when they failed, on prius chat.
Under 175,000 for mostly city drivers, and well over 225,000 for highway drivers.
So you can predict when a head gasket could fail, at least roughly.

 

I would take the car in a heart beat, if you were closer....

 

Assuming no glass damage, how many dents? I’ve had all my cars in for paintless dent/ding removal. The result is great and for a reasonable number of them, not that costly. I had a Lexus with over a thousand hail dings. All fixed for $1500 and can’t tell. So if it’s just a couple dozen, maybe see what it would cost. If you like the car and $700 or so fixes it, why not?

 

You knew the EGR needed cleaning.

 

I feel like a picture of the dents would add a lot of value to this thread

 

I think anybody that gets 300k on one of these engines is doing preventative measures that are demonstrated to work.