In 2018, I had went to a private dealership to buy my own car for the very first time. I had just turned 18, and I decided to finance a 2008 BMW 5 series with 170k miles for 7 grand. This was not smart at all, but I knew nothing about cars at the time and my dad egged me on to buy a BMW cause he wanted me to get something nice for myself and he claimed they were “reliable.” It was not. Everything broke down after only a year of owning it, from the oil filter housing leaking, to the coolant pump failing, had to replace a CV axle, and the power steering belt even went on me while driving in the city. Basically, I owed 3,000 by the time all these things started breaking at once. It was time I needed a new car, and the cost of repairs were exceeding that 3,000 I owed at that point. I needed to get rid of it.
Fast forward to August 2019, I traded the BMW in for a brand new Kia Forte, probably one of the worst mistakes of my life. I was 19 at the time, and starting my second year of community college. With my car braking down, I needed something else and I needed it quick. Nobody wanted to buy my BMW in the state it was in. That was until I heard of my local Kia dealership’s “push pull tow” event, where they were accepting trade ins in which they would pay up to $6,000. I went over and found out they would only take my car and eat it’s negative equity by suckering me into buying a newer car, so i picked the cheapest option which was the forte. I ended up financing it for $20,000. Everyone I knew had advised me not to give into my desperation, and I should have listened. I just needed to be able to get reliable transportation in time for my fall semester and the 10 year warranty just seemed promising to me. I just let the idea of a newer, more reliable car outweigh the idea of that I will be in debt for the next 5 years. The dealership also ripped me with 15% interest and my payment was $440 a month, but i was able to refinance it at a credit union for $340 a month at 3.75% interest.
I am wondering how I could get out of this. It’s not that I can’t make the payments, but I am just getting by with them while struggling with finding employment now due to Covid, and the thought of having this much debt at the young age of 20 is harrowing. My last year of community college is all online now so I don’t even need transportation, and I’m graduating this may and would like to try and move out, but I feel like my car payment will be a roadblock that will make it more difficult. My credit score is currently in the low 700 range, and would like to keep it that way. It’s been over a year since I’ve had it and I sincerely doubt the dealership would do much for me if I contacted them so I’m not sure that’s really an option. The only two things I can think of are the obvious which is privately sell it for it’s KBB value which is around $14,000-$15,000 and try to come up with the rest of the money, or to voluntarily surrender it and take the hit, which I could still owe some money on either way. Obviously I would not go with the latter, because I’d rather salvage my credit score, but it just stings because I may have to put moving out on the backburner if it means getting rid of this debt first. I’m looking to see if anyone has any advice to my situation, and next time around I am certainly buying a used Honda for $5,000 at most out of pocket, because I certainly learned my lesson about financing a car.
Make and Model: 2019 Kia Forte FE Mileage: 22,000 Payoff Amount: $20,027.66 Monthly payment: $338.54 Number of payments left: 64 APR: 3.75%
Submitted December 17, 2020 at 12:36AM by tjs400 https://ift.tt/2WkYbRZ
