Its only money, what else were you planning on doing with it? Buyin a couple of extra days to add to the end of your life?

Seriously, if you dig the new car and can live with the new payment, negotiate a good deal, roll as little negative equity into the newer car as possible and take your own advice, do a shorter term (36 as you mentioned) and enjoy the car.

You have to pay the full balance of the old car either way, if you can get 5.9 or better I'd at least try and see how much they can close the gap.

On the other hand, if you have to roll 5k into the new car and take out a new 60mos. note and owe 42k on a 32K car, I'd think twice on that.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by douge
Its only money, what else were you planning on doing with it? Buyin a couple of extra days to add to the end of your life?

 

Why don't you just lease?

When I bought my first new car 4 years ago, I couldn't have been more against the idea of leasing a car, but I have since changed my mind. Now, it depends on a few different things. I believe leasing is the better choice vs financing a car over a long period (like 60 months). I know how you feel with a 60 month, 5.9% finance because that's exactly what I did with my '99 Miata. Great interest rate at the time and it kept my payments within my budget, but the damn car has depreciated faster than I could pay it off. It's worth about $13-14k right now and I still owe $6000. If I sold it right now for $13k, I'd get my down payment back + $1k. Not too bad. When I financed the Miata, I thought that I'd be keeping this car "forever". Yeah right. Pipe dream there. We all get sick of cars and want a new one. Usually every 3-4 years. As soon as I sell my Miata, I'm leasing an '04 S2k. With $2000 down on a 48mo lease/15k miles a year, I can get it for $365 a month with a selling price of $31,800 and a residual of $18,650. If I wanted to finance the car over 48 months at 3.9% interest at the same monthly payment, I'd need to put down $18k!

Now, of course after a 48 month lease, you're not going to own the car, but like I said before, most of us get sick of a car and want a new one after 3-4 years. The only way you win buying a car is to walk in with a check for $35k a say, "Here, I want that one. I'll pick it up tomorrow.". Other than that, it just doesn't pay to finance over long periods of time unless you're insistent upon owning the car for a long, long time.

Kris

 

good man, Chris S.

that is what i am thinking of doing with my 92 miata.

for 16k, plus dlralt.com i can have 1.10 g handling and 287 rwh in my car.

not bad, eh?

just wanted to add, than dlralt.com is flying miata, and we all know what they can do. i wish they would add the s2k to their passions.....

 

I went yesterday and they offered me $15,000 for my car. My payoff was $19,200, so I was $4,200 in the hole. If I would have rolled over the payments on the MY04 and got all the options I wanted, then I would have been financing $39,000. I refuse to pay $39,000 for an S2000 so I told them never mind. I have $3000 to put up, but I would still owe $36,000 on the car. So I guess that I will be keeing my MY00 for the long haul. I still love it to death, but damn those MY04's are dead sexy!

 

PilotKD,

I'm in the computer leasing business, so I understand leasing pretty well. We don't lease to consumers b/c we found it just doesn't work for their needs.

IMO, leasing is overused by people to get into a more expensive car than they could otherwise afford, and those who think about the cost in terms of monthly payments instead of total cost of financing. Don

 

Sounds like buying 2 new bumper covers and 4 new wheels would be cheeper than loosing $3k on a perfectly good car. If all you're looking for is the sexy.

 

There it is.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by dt49396
Sounds like buying 2 new bumper covers and 4 new wheels would be cheeper than loosing $3k on a perfectly good car.

 

Just think how those who paid MSRP + another $3K-$5K for the first '00's feel!