Lets talk cars/trucks... debt consolidation

NYSpeed Automotive NYSpeed Off Topic
1

I currently drive an 07 335i… its going to be out of warranty in April 2013… I’m terrified over owning it out of warranty (not really, but I don’t like unexpected costs and I’d like to own a newer car) I still owe a decent chunk on the car, but at 1.9% financing… its not too big of a deal. The issue is, 530 a month payments although aren’t a stress, the more I think about them, the more they annoy me. With business expenses, office rent, mortgage, insurance, 2 bikes, and probably soon to be a boat, I’d like to eliminate the payment. And pick up something that has a low ownership cost and high reliability/resale factor.

I have a line on a friends 06 Tacoma Access Cab, it has 30k miles, v6, 4wd, sr5, and trd package… its gold :yuck: but I think I could get a decent deal on it.

I also like the idea of a newer tahoe, but I drive about 20k miles a year, so the 4k+ in fuel cost really offsets the perk of a slightly lower payment.

I dont really need a big truck, but I dont want to own a truck, a car, 2 bikes, a boat, and a house… and have to carry insurance on all of them.

The boat is going to most likely be an 18-23 ft flats/bay boat.

Older/experienced people chime in… In a perfect world I’d be able to find an identical 2011 335i for 30k, and I’d jump into a new one. Bottom line I love my car, the way it drives, looks, etc but I dont want an older bmw.

Thoughts, recommendations, ideas. I’m going to use this for a sound board of reason.

go, go, go

---------- Post added at 09:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:01 PM ----------

I wasnt going to post this, but I realize a lot of people here went from renting to ownership. I also see a bunch of people buying/selling boats. Also see people with old S10’s/pathfinders in their driveways… I value these people’s opinions. Preemptive thanks.

Being a single guy with over 3k in monthly fixed expenses… it makes me sick to think about it, even though I’ve been paying it for ~2 years. (I’m not bitching, life’s good, but seeing people travel and have less stress, I often wonder if I need all the overhead)

2

I got rid of my fun car when I got the boat. I enjoy the low cost of ownership of the cars we have now. If you need to tow the boat, then your options are pretty limited if you want just one car.

I couldn’t imagine having a 500+ car payment. I’m in the 300s with our Pilot and even that feels high.

Not sure if that’s helpful at all…

3

How much longer is the financing for?

4

2 yearsish… I think, I could pay it off now if need be, but the cost of money is so cheap, I don’t see a point to lower my cash reserves until I figure out what I’ll owe in taxes at the end of the year.

---------- Post added at 09:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:57 PM ----------

Tom, when I bought the car, I had a free office, I was renting a house @ 500 a month (the house was my families, and they ended up doubling the rent and then some after a year and change of living for so cheap) and my overhead was virtually nothing. I also had no life. (but some things never change :-p)

5

Well you aren’t going to get money any cheaper that 1.9 so maybe you should concentrate on a different expense? Of course I assume the other costs are much longer term?

Once I got married my wife and I just paid of everything as fast as possible…it sucks to cut big checks and have nothing to really show for it but it is nice to not have any fixed expense beyond a mortgage

6

Yea… my house is locked in at 3.6…

And if i finance another car I can get 1.49 from the same place. The issue is it’d be nice to sell the car and pick up a 20k car or less with warranty and low maintenance costs. Being able to tow would be nice, and a bigger SUV would be nice to have for trips or when friends are in town. I’d love to have a new Tahoe, but the more i think of how useful it would be … it only equates to about 5% of its annual use. LOL

I wish prius’s werent so gay. :lol:

7

How much money will you be ahead if you were to sell your car now? Don’t forget that a private party purchase (rather than trade in) means you are going to lose around 2k in taxes.

I LOVE the new subaru crosstech. Not sure what the towing capacity is but with the CVT it is like 27/35 MGP. Definitely not BMW quality but…

8

Not sure… just checked ebay for similar cars… and id be ahead like 8k conservatively. I think I’d get screwed on trade-in, but the tax advantage is huge, so is convenience.

I just measured my garage… a tahoe hybrid would fit :-p

---------- Post added at 12:49 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:46 AM ----------

I do love my car right now, don’t get me wrong. I just think life would be less stressful if I cut 700-1000 out of my monthly expenses.

It sure would be nice to have a prius and a truck all paid for. sigh.

---------- Post added at 01:08 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:49 AM ----------

The more I think about a prius, it could save a TON of money. I’d probably want to go on more road trips too.

I spend about 200-300 a month in gas now. (with a prius that would be 60-100 realistically… when I drove my mom’s prius a few months ago, it was unreal how cheap the car was; in all areas, fuel, insurance, tires, free maintenance) now take my car payment from 530 down to 250 a month OR maybe even zero if i just pay it off… suddenly trips to miami and back cost less than 20 bucks. I just felt like such a pussy getting out of a little white prius. I hated the way it made me feel. But damn was it practical, especially at 0 percent financing.

Side note, if the boat is small enough ~17 ft or so, I have a lift thats not being used for probably another year thats right on the intercoastal. Not to mention, tons of friends with big trucks if that were to fail.

I’m totally just analyzing situations now… :ha:[COLOR=“Silver”]

9

http://www.ford.com/cars/fusion/trim/hybrid/

47mpg. Looks like an Aston Martin. Under 30k dollars. Winning.

10

you’re right to be nervous about owning the 335 out of warranty so it works nicely with a change of vehicle / lowering of overhead. especially if you can lower your interest on the next one.

i think the key here is to agree with yourself that you’ll get back into a cool car in a couple years but that right now it makes good sense to make a sacrifice for a bit to make your life simpler and less expensive.

a $500+ car payment would make me puke on a daily basis. i had ~$600 for two cars but paid one off just to get rid of that.

11

:word: :tup:

12

If you’re going to own a boat that isn’t stored in the water you really need something that can tow it. Having to rely on friends for your towing is going to get old really fast and you’re just going to end up not using the boat.

You keep coming back to this Tahoe which is way overkill for towing a small bay boat. If you want the room of a Tahoe with better gas mileage, or without spending a fortune on the Tahoe hybrid, look at non-truck based SUVs like the Honda Pilot, Mazda CX-9 or Subaru Tribeca. All of them are available with 3 rows, will be more fun to drive than the pig of a Tahoe and get better gas mileage.

13

This thread makes me envious. So many people that have reasonable car payments. I think that I need to get rid of my cars and go cheap. I have a $500 and a $280 payment. I am suspecting that they will go down eventually as every time I buy a car i put more and more down on them, but I just keep getting more and more expensive vehicles.

14

You shouldn’t feel bad there are lots of people on here with $500+ car payments living at home

Wife and I decided(a couple years ago) to ride out our cars for a few more years till we swing paying cash for a new car or enough down that small/short term payment.

I would imagine most people my self included get screwed financing their first car since they have little to no credit and can end up upside down pretty quick which rolls into next car until you get your self financially stable enough to pay it off quickly.

Buy gold tacoma + a shit load of plastidip :tup:

15

If you own a home and have credit cards, then your credit is probably better than you think (assuming you pay on time and haven’t had any past mishaps). In that case, you should be able to qualify for financing specials like .9%/1.9% when advertised, which, with a decent down payment would be hard to get upside down on. When my wife bought her first car out of college with only a minor amount of credit card usage she got a 4% loan.

16

I was referring to the situation a lot of people get into financing a car around 18-19

Currently

My credit is fine but looking at buying a 30-40k car your payment is still going to be high.

Example I was looking at WRXs 30k 3k trade + 10k cash 3.8% 36month is $503 even at 1.9 its still 489.

However jumping on google there were a number of forums where people posted their wrx payment range and that isn’t horrible.

It would be interesting to see what Beck or someone who deals with auto finance has to say about average car payments.

17

Read this. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005XCZE6K/ref=r_soa_w_d It’s quick and easy. You can cruise through it in a week’s worth of crapping. Or a couple of evenings surrounded by your stuff.

Sounds like you’re at that point where more stuff isn’t adding more value to your life. I’d ditch the BMW and get something nice enough that you enjoy it but not so nice that you need to make it a part of your identity to get your money’s worth.

18

Can we please merge with first world problems thread…

Haha no but really, all I have to offer is, I would continue to borrow as much as you can swing right now. I think we get spoiled into forgetting that this debt helps us obtain things that in the past were otherwise unobtainable. I think you grow used to these luxuries and if you hopped into something more typical, youd miss the Bimmer in no time. This is mostly prefaced by the fact that I think in 10, 20, or 30 years, when interest rates are around 8% again well all look back and ask “why we dint take as much free money as we could, now I literally cant afford “car x” because of the interest.”

Idk how much water that holds, but its something to think about.

19

What about a VW Touareg 6cyl TDI? Fine one used certified. Nice looking, good fuel milage, still quality interior and could pull a boat that size.

20

No relevant info to add here, but reading this I feel pretty good about the first car I financed at age 22, with what might as well be no credit for 2.9%