What do I do when my car is only worth about 8,000.00 and I owe 18,000.00?

Question

Yes I was young and dumb and bought 2002 Chevy Tahoe Z71, it has 110,000 miles on it. It is a gas hog! I want to get out from under it without having a large car payment and owing too much on the next one. Does anyone have and suggestions?

Answer 1

Not much you can do with it if you're 10,000 upside down in it. Just keep paying on it and consider this an expensive education.

Answer 2

You have to pay that money back.  The money you borrowed is somebody else's money.  They didn't ask you about your gas mileage.  It's not their responsibiility.  You simply have to pay the money back.

Now - whether you keep driving it, or not, is your business.  You'll have to pay all the $18,000 off whether you keep it or not.  When you borrow other people's money, that's what happens. You get to pay it back, with interest.

You don't "get out from under" borrowing.  You pay.  Then, you have to change your behavior, or else you'll just hose yourself over and over.

Answer 3

There is no legal way out. You're just gonna have to suck it up and pay for it. You might trade it on a new truck or suv that has plenty of markup and a large rebate. The only problem is that you are still going to have a massive payment. There's really no way out without coming up with a large chunk of cash out of your own pocket.

Answer 4

Sorry. That far upside down is not going to go away. Your best bet is to pay as much each month ( if you can) and get the interest paid off. See if you can get a 500 dollar car for daily driving for cheap gas.

Answer 5

Honestly, you have 2 options.

1) find a brand new car with such strong rebates that they can bury that $10K.  Frankly, the odds of that are slim to none, and slim just left town.

That much negative just does not disappear.  Even if you could roll it over to the next car,  you would not hae a lower payment.  In fact, it would be higher.

But, be glad that is the case - because you woul dbury yourself so deeply in the next car that  you would never get above water.

2) tighten the belt, suck it up, and find ways to save.  When you concentrate on saving money at every opportunity, you will find there are many ways.  No more starbucks, 7-11 stops, pizza night every week, carpool, reduce cell phone plan/minutes.  In you try hard, you can find ways to trim the budget.  Then pay this thing off, and drive it til it absolutely dies

Take it as a learning experience, albeit an expensive one.

Answer 6

You can either try to pay extra every month on it and try to lower the payment then try to sell it, or you could bite the bullet and get GAP insurance on a new car that will last a very long time...

Answer 7

  Sure get yourself a suit of armor a good crash helmet and go off on a deserted road and crash the sucker!  That way you can collect the insurance I hope you had sense enough to get and hopefully if you aren't killed, or maimed for life you can use the money for another one

or you could chalk it up to one of life's many learning experiences and sell it for what you can get!!

Answer 8

I guess they finally got enough vehicles down in Mexico. What a shame, they helped out a lot of kids in America that paid way to much for a car or truck.

Answer 9

Wow, you took the wrong road there.  You got the longest possible loan, didn't you?  They made you think that that lower payment would somehow save you money.  The longer term is what gets you - you pay more in the end.

Don't start a new loan.  You'll be paying for your new car PLUS paying for your old car, and only have one car.  That ain't right.

Pay extra with each payment and get that sucker paid off.  In the meantime, hypermile it - drive it in such a way that it gets better mileage.  Google "hypermile" and see what comes up, lots of people are getting surprising mileage on their rides and all it takes is a few small changes in driving habits.

Take the bus.  Look at your mileage and figure out how much it's costing you in $ to drive, vs. how much it costs each day to ride.  If the bus is cheaper, do that and just keep the Tahoe in reserve for weekends.

Answer 10

That's called being upside down on a loan, and unless you can sell it to an individual for way more than it's worth (which I don't recommend even if you can get away with it because it's not right...), you might be stuck with it.

Many car dealers will offer to pay off your loan if you buy a new car, but don't go for this offer until you read every bit of fine print and are 100% sure you understand the terms. Know the value of the car you are negotiating for and do the math! There's no free lunch. Somebody is going to pay the loan, and chances are it will be you, one way or another.

The best advice I can give you is to take good care of your truck and drive it as long as you possibly can. With proper maintenance and good driving habits, a vehicle can easily reach 200,000 miles. Depending on how much you drive this will give you 8-10 more years, so once you pay off the loan you can drive it for free for a few years and make back the lost money.

I like to get as much value from a car as I can before I absolutely have to get a new one. You can save a lot of money this way. My wife, on the other hand, wants a new car every two or three years, so there goes all the money I save. LOL

One last idea...check the interest rate on your current loan. If it's too high, see if you can refinance for a lower rate. It will save you a lot.