upside down car notes

[Evangelist]

I was had” I have a 2004 Dodge Intrepid valued at $6000, and a remaining car note of $17,000.
I’ve had many repairs over the past 4 months .
I must get a different car that is reliable.
My credit that another story .
What do you think?

[(former)FormerSanDiegan]

Call your congress-person and ask for them to pass a bill to relieve your problem.

[anxvariety]

Did you get into a car accident without insurance? How can there be such a large gap in what it’s worth and what you owe?

What are you looking to do? Maybe you can submit your car to pimp my ride.

[forsale_2007]

Not to rain on your parade…But this is exactly why I never understood buying a new car on a loan for a make/model that has the worst resale value, questionable reliability, and especially if you don’t plan on driving it into the ground (keep it for 10-15 years).

1)If you plan on keeping your car for a long time, then you should probably buy something that is fairly reliable (toyota or honda). And to save money, you should probably buy something slightly used.

2)If you plan on switching cars 2-4 years and/or insist on a brand that has crappy resale/reliability, you probably should take a lease with a low drive off cost. Buy the time your warranty is out, the lease is over, and you move on and you don’t deal with the huge depreciation.

In the worst case, you take out a loan on a car with crappy resale value and crappy reliability. On one hand, keeping it beyond the warranty => you pay for a lot of repairs. Meanwhile, in order to get out of the car, you have to pay the remaining balance, which is probably considerably much higher than the car’s value. So you’re like damned if you keep the car (repairs) and damned if you don’t (repay the loan).

1) The other options is you keep your car, suck it up, and learn how to fix it yourself.

2) Go talk to a honda/toyota dealer, they might get you into a lease/loan of a honda/toyota and help you get out of your current car, at the cost of asking you bend over on new terms of the second car. Again, you’re probably going to get screwed on the second car loan, but at least you won’t have to deal with the reliability issues of the car.

[forsale_2007]

Did you get into a car accident without insurance? How can there be such a large gap in what it's worth and what you owe?

What are you looking to do? Maybe you can submit your car to pimp my ride.

 

 

That's easy to answer….(1) IT's a DODGE…(2) crappy loan terms

The economics of used cars are interesting. The problem with all those incentives that Dodge is piling onto new cars is that it's creating a huge issue with the value of used cars. Also, dodge has crappy resale value, because a good portion of the cars are part of fleet sales to rental companies (which in itself drives the car's value down). Also, dodge has pretty crappy reliability, which factors into resale. Also, the intrepid is a discontinued model (adding additional downward pricing pressure).

 

 

 

[AK]

Is it still under warranty? How many miles on it?

What are the problems … is it the engine sludge thing that affected other Intrepids?

Just out of curiosity, is Daimler Chrysler Financial the noteholder?

[Cow_tipping]

Oooooo … me me me … (making a hand raising and jumping up and down motion)
I have a deal for you, do I have a deal for you …
I have this house I bought in 4-Clos… I mean S ranch.
Its a beautiful shiny never lived in 1800+ sqft with all granite and travertine everywhere. Its on the market much below appraisal of 1.8 million. 1.6 million OBO, and buy that house or Take over payments and I’ll buy your car for cash … yea … Cool.
Sarcasm. Just one more of the many services I offer.

Sorry man, I hate cars and this is why, I buy 20 year old motorcycles and put them on the road after maintaining them and they have been good to me. My 10 year old Truck had the freaking tail pipe fall off monday.
Cool.
Cow_tipping.

[PerryChase]

If you credit is really bad already, why not go out and buy a reliable car (Honda or Toyota) then let the bank take back your Dodge?

Nothing illegal or unethical about that. Repossession is part of the loan contract and you’d just be abiding by the terms of the loan agreement.

If enough people did what I suggested, the banks would stop making stupid no down-payment loans to depreciating assets. The underwriting would improve.

[Raybyrnes]

Sounds to me that you are that upside down because you probably rolled a bad loan from a previous sale into you new loan note. I wouldn’t jump to any conclusion that you were had. Additioanlly if you have stinky credit on a depreciqating asset the dealer is already pricing in the fact that they are probably going to have to get that car back from you. CXonsider your current payments rent.

[anxvariety]

Go see Cal, go see Cal, go see Cal!! 4000 cash back I just heard it on the radio..

[recordsclerk]

What was the original purchase price? Was it $17,000? Is the $6,000 value a trade in value. Dealers will give less for trade-in value then if you sell it yourself. Since you still owe more then the value, I don’t think the bank will allow you to sell it. It’s not the kind of car you bought, it’s how you bought it. Many people buy american depreciating vehicles and don’t get in this kind of situation.
My suggestions:
Get a part-time job at night.
Pay off your balance.
Fix your credit, or live like this for the rest of your life.
If the car breaks down, start taking the bus.
Next time don’t buy a car because they let you buy it, get a pre-approved loan from your bank so you can make a cash offer.
Don’t buy a car because of the monthly payment.
Buy a car because you can afford it.
Make sure the term of your loan is not longer then the expected life of the vehicle.

[Raybyrnes]

Hewres is a real suggestion. Take a look at prosper.com and see if there are any groups of individuals who might be will willing to refinnace your debt. It is a very unique and interesting concept. Best of luck. Hope that this helps.

[temeculaguy]

I am baffled, are they doing neg am loans on cars? Isn’t a 2004 still under warranty. How are you still down 17k three years into it? Do they do helocs on cars now? Is the 6k what a dealer told you was the the trade in value, because they always go below low blue book, maybe you can sell privately. I am still baffled, I bought a new honda in 03 and a new chrysler in 04 (same depreciation issues would apply) and put nothing down on both my cars, taking a five year loan on each. Sure they were probably upside down the first year or two but both are at least even now and getting close to being paid off. Actually I bet the 2003 oddysey is worth far more than the 4k I owe on it. Only the honda is out of warranty (who the hell cares they don’t break) and Dodge/Chrysler gave away 7 year warranties for free in 04. What are “repairs”, breaks and tires? Reliability aside, they all need those but replacing transmissions and engines on a 2004? That’s a warranty issue.

More info please, we can’t solve your illness without the symptoms. What did you pay for it and when? Did you roll a past upside down car into the current loan? Did you take a ten year loan or something? I just keep looking at the numbers and can’t see how three years later you owe 80% of the sticker price.

[capeman]

Yep, I was racing devaluation when I had a dodge truck a few years ago. That was when I gave up my loyalty to American auto companies and bought foreign. Toyota and Honda are the way to go and you can lease or put nothing down and be ahead of the payoff very quickly. It sucks that we have to pay to learn lessons like that. It also sucks that we need credit to buy a neccessity like that. Just think of what cars would cost if credit was not readily available in the economy, or the cost of houses for that matter.

[anxvariety]

That prosper route is a good reccomendation.. I responded to an ad not too long ago on Craigslist for a Marine who needed $1000 to cover some expenses one of which was his car that was repo’d. I referred him to Prosper and let him know that if that didn’t work to contact me again – but he sent me a quick thanks for the Prosper recommendation and a couple question about how to get setup and I haven’t heard from him since! So I think it worked for him..

On Toyota.. how much better can a company do? It seems like everything they do is a win for the company and customers maybe I’m drinking the koolaid..(TM is up like 30%+ in last year). They are firing on all cylinders.. Toyota is just killing it with everything they do, with their FJ(stealing road raged women from Hummer) and their Tundra(owns every other truck in it’s class), Camry(seen the new body style??) and Prius etc etc… Even facing a recession I am still tempted to get back into Toyota stock…

I had an 05 Tacoma that I recently sold.. I used it for 2 years, and sold it for around 15% less than I bought it for NEW… it ended up costing ~$250 a month including sales tax and license to use the truck for 2 years. I wasn’t so fortunate when I sold my Ford a few years earlier, especially because I wasn’t willing to withhold any information about some of it’s expensive or time-bomb quirks!

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