Another idiotic decision

Hello fellow drivers,

My car is a 2004 Lexus LS 430 with approximately 150k+ miles. No major repairs throughout ownership. Excluding wear and tear such as brakes, tyres and suspension, minor ones are the door actuators, oil leak (engine gasket) and cruise control. Now, I am hit with a $6000 bill for the transmission. Anyone with the ability of making logical judgement would sell the car in the blink of an eye but my heart often overrides the brain.

A few months ago, the car was sluggish occasionally going in reverse but once it was given enough time to warm up, it reversed without any problems. Fast forward to last week, instead of difficulty in reverse, the car was sluggish to accelerate. Again, the car drove fine after a few minutes. Two days ago, the car did not move upon start up unless the engine hit 2000 rpm, which is ridiculous. My experience is that the car only hits 2000 rpm or above when travelling 60 mph+.

Although as ignorant as I am, I do not need a dealer to tell me the transmission is failing. What it is beyond comprehension is that at this astronomical repair cost, the dealer would only put a re-manufactured one to my car. If the donor car has more or less the same mileage as my car, if not more, it is just a matter of time for the donor transmission to fail. Perhaps I may be better off to roll the dice, buy a used transmission from eBay and pray a transmission shop will do the job right at a fraction of the cost. The pain of losing my love is still excruciating and certainly I do not want to experience anything similar again (over the years, I have developed bonding of some kind with this car). Selling it is the last thing I hope for.

Are Toyotas made to last? I will leave this to your judgment. My answer to that would be 'depends'. Honestly with the age of this car, it is understandable that something starts to fail. As with my other newer LS, a failing suspension at 26k miles is ridiculous. This is why my jaw drops each time reading stories of Prius / Camry / Corolla that never breaks at unbelievably high miles. Why is not the case for Lexus?

Thank you for taking the time to read.