Celica Forums General Discussion General If you have to get rid of your car, but you still owe money...

How does that work? Say you lose your job and can't find a new one and end up unable to make the payments on your car.
(I mean owe a lot of $$$, like $25 grand or so).

So what would you do in that situation?

If you have gap insurance, wreck that hoe, or have someone steal it.

repo will taking it in the middle of the night, Id part out, and sell my car.(So you dont lose all the money you sent in mods.) then pay it off, or sell it and have the payments switched over into the buyers name

Well, if you don't take any action and default on the loan, and your car get repossessed, you would presumably be bad enough off to declare bankruptcy. You're then sort of a "ward of the insurance companies." You can actually get out of most of your debt at that point, but your credit rating is ruined for a minimum of seven years, and you lose most anything of any value at that point (like a house if you own one, cars, etc). Pretty much you can't get anything on credit after that, and if you do, the interest rates are very high.

What would I do? I'd try to sell my car pretty quickly and get whatever money I could, then decide if I wanted to try paying off the unpaid part of the car loan (i.e. the "gap") if there was one. Its better to not allow a car loan to become "upside down" (have a "gap") though. That means you owe more than what you could get if you sold the car. Its always better to make a high down payment if you can, and keep your loan "rightside up."

hhmm... GOT GET A NEW JOB!

English just owned your ass.

^ haha

You shoulda save some extra money in the bank for the "Rainy Days". Which is also today for you.

Murphy's Law, "When something could go wrong then it will go wrong."

You should know better to have some extra money in the bank for situations like these. Hope everything works our for you though.

I buy your car for 5K. lol

I'm looking for a job

And I have money in the bank that should last about 2 months, was just wondering for 'just-in-case'


Thanks for the input folks!

I'm glad my car is paid off

ditto

all in all, if you cant make the payments its a lose, lose situation. either way you gonna get punk'd with a 100 credit rating or have to file for the 11.

if I may ask how long have you been out of work? and do you own your own house? if you have a house you could try to take out a home eq and pay it off, hell if you havent yet do a complete refi and lower your house pmt and roll the car in too at the same time.

This may see a little extreme but there notthing worse then defaulting on a car note, except for maybe a mortgage

Nah, I'm only 17 Technically, the car's not even mine (not signed in my name, that is). But I drive it, and I pay for it, so in practice, it's mine

I'm not completely out of the job yet, but there has been a pretty big cutback, so I'm getting a little worried... I think with what I have in the bank and what IS coming in, I'll be able to swing it, if I'm careful

I only have to last 'til June, then I can get a 'real' job (as I'll be out of school and 18)... Then I should be OK to pay 'er off - I just have to scrape by 'til then! ... Or end up in a wreck and have her totaled But I wouldn't do that on purpose, as insurance would probably suck, and I'd probably get killed anyway


Soo anyway, thank you folks for the input, I'm sure it will all come in handy!

Also, what if you essentially 'gave your car back'? That'd be just like having it repo'd, wouldn't it? Lose what you've paid and credit goes to hell?

by giving your car back its a voluntary repossession and yes it will ruin your credit. There is no difference between the two