Help with car loan Please! (loans, debt, payments, sell)

[hollywood13185]

Hi everyone, I need some good advice on what to do with the stupid situation Ive gotten myself into. I had a truck I was very upside down on, traded it in for a cheaper car going from $20k to $13k, alot better, and after a year now only owe $9500 on my 2000 Lincoln LS paying $375 a month. The problem Im having now is this car is a lemon, I have to fix problem after problem constantly its a money pit. Trade in value is only 4k. What should I do. Its eating away at my wallet!

[8 SNAKE]

What "problems" have you had with your LS?

[sean98125]

You spent $13,000 on an 7 year old car? Man, they saw you coming. You could have bought a perfectly reliable 3 year old Civic for that kind of money.

Sell the Lincoln through Craigslist or your paper. Don't trade it in. Pay off the difference in the loan. Buy yourself a $1000 or $2000 beater, cash, and drive it until it falls apart. Then buy another one, slightly nicer, with the money you're saving from not having car payments or full coverage on your insurance. Keep trading up cars - the nice thing with a $2000 car is that you can probably sell it for $2000 a year down the road.

Or you can get a second job to pay down the loan on the fancy car. There are going to be a lot of jobs in retail and shipping opening up in the next month for the winter holiday shopping season.

[trailtramp]

Agree with sean...get rid of that lousy lincoln and get something very cheap, work yourself back up over a few years, (it will go by FAST) to a reliable used vehicle.

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by sean98125

You spent $13,000 on an 7 year old car?

Yeah, but he looks cool stylin' around in it and that's all that's important.

[hollywood13185]

Mircea its not about looking cool. I was upside down on my colorado, I owed 20k. No one would give me more than 12k for it. Finally I came across a place that would give me 14500 for the truck and a 97 tahoe with 80k miles on it for 7k, once financed through my bank I had 13k financed at 7% total. A year later I owed only 10k and sold the tahoe for 6500, and bought the Lincoln for 4500 being it had a much higher book value than the tahoe. All I was doing was trying to better my situation, Im not some punk kid that has a Lincoln because they think its cool. Ask before you make comments and judge, Im not on here to be bashed.

[hollywood13185]

I didnt spend 13k on a car I had 6k left over from the colorado I had. I had a total financed of 13k.

[Karla with a K]

hollywood
There is another option, you mentioned that you were having issues with the repair costs but not making the payment.

Right now many of the dealers are offering huge rebates. I have seen many in the $4000 to $5000 range. This would come close to covering your negative equity.
If at all possible I would bring the difference as a down payment so you will not be adding any extra negative equity to the new vehicle
You have been paying $375 now for a year which would be the payment on a $19k new vehicle
You could probably find a lower priced vehicle and lower your payment, with folks not buying the dealers are making some pretty great deals.
The plus side is you would have a warranty to cover any repair issues.

[hollywood13185]

Thank you very much for your advise Karla.

[sheenie2000]

Buy an old honda civic or toyota corolla for 2 grand. I sold my 96 corolla for 2K that had about 120K miles on it. And it worked great. I rarely had an issue w/ it other than fixing a couple things that cost at most 200 bucks. My brother has an acura integra w/ 220K miles on it. Still running great as well. I'd buy one of these types of cars until you can pay off ur loans and save up for a down payment on a new car.

Or start taking public transportation for awhile until you can get rid of the debts. You'll be saving 375+gas+car insurance every month. You'll be out of ur debt in no time and be much less stressed out.