If the rest of the car is okay, definitely keep hold of it!
Whatever you replace it with, expect to drop $1k or more into the 'unexpected'.
An example is my son-in-law ... sold out his old VW Golf because he was told it needed 1k of work ... then bought a Cavalier which quickly needed replacement struts on all four corners! Also sold Grand-Am which needed minor wiring work, again about 1k, then bought a Malibu in which the AC packed up within a few months. Then sold the Malibu and bought an explorer that now stalls at low rpm, is hard to start, and the tranny bucks!
Lesson here is that the grass is not always greener, and it's better to dump a little money into a car you know well than roll the dice on a replacement!
