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I agree with that as a general rule of thumb to make decisions, but it is a bit complex in this particular case because of the following. [USER=1532]@asavage[/USER] Please correct me if I am mistaken in any of the points.

1. The heaters themselves have persistent issues. Even a new one doesn't appear to provide the reliability we expect
2. Cost of a new Rav4EV original heater assembly is absurd (20% of the value of the car), if at all available. I recall seeing a price of $2200 but I cant see it anymore when I lookup
3. Workaround using the Nissan Leaf requires irreversible changes to the HV wiring that I wish to avoid if at all possible. Also, the wiring changes would be quite time intensive for noobs like me and I am not sure if I will save any more time doing this. Also, IMO, a new Nissan Leaf heater is still not worth the cost of $1100 as it is not a drop in replacement.
4. A used leaf heater is at a price point that I may consider but there is no guarantee of reliability which makes this option worse than the external resistor hack in my opinion, after reading all the complaints about it.
5. Since we don't have any way to determine what component may have failed, component repair is infeasible.

Worst case: ECU completely fails and all temp control is broken, rendering the car unusable.

Bad case: ECU fails and RMI control is broken which causes no heating from the non-PTC heater.

Best case: External resistor hack works and if it holds for a few winter seasons, we would have a viable hacky option to consider.

A few questions

1. To quantify the cost/impact of the bad/worst case, does anyone know the cost and complexity involved in replacing the ECU? I don't know what to search for

2. Does anyone know if the Nissan heater PCB fits into the Rav4ev heater PCB?