JPaul wrote:
Sir Sam, I definitely appreciate the input. Don't worry, I've been looking at many, many, many, ("I'm getting sick of looking at cars" many!) options for a new car since my first post. At first I thought about getting an older car for cheap and fixing what ever was wrong with it, but soon decided I did not want to mess with it. So I started looking to see what I could find that was newer and within my price range. That narrowed the list down a lot, but there were still a lot of newer cars that needed quite a few repairs. It is amazing how performing regular maintenance on a car will make it last much longer than "normal", and how not keeping it up will make it die a quick death from a thousand annoying problems.
Anyway, I've finally nailed it down to a vehicle that is fairly new, in good running condition, looks nice, and is within budget. So far this has been the best option because there is nothing on it that needs to be fixed. I found a 2002 Ford Crown Vic Police Interceptor. Surprisingly, it was my wife that pushed me towards it. (I didn't seriosuly look at the cop cars I was finding before because I thought she would laugh at me, go figure) I went and checked it out today. It's in great condition, especially for the price ($2600). Tires are pretty much new, body doesn't have any serious damage (a couple small scrapes is all, what do you expect, it's an ex-cop car), the interior is pretty clean, and everything works on it. It may not get the best gas mileage, but it's better than what I was getting in the libby, so it's still a plus. The best part about this car is there is nothing wrong with it at the moment. Doesn't have any leaks, everything works, drives terrific. And to your point about cost of repairs, the parts are going to be much cheaper since it is a ford with many names under the same overall design and tons of these cars still on the roads.
I decided to go with a bigger car because lately smaller cars have been killing my back. The libby did great because I sat upright and had lots of room. My wife's lancer on the other hand kills me after an hour no matter how I sit.
As for your point about my first post, I guess I don't quite understand. If you are thinking that the deal I ended up striking with teh dealership was not the best idea, then you might be right. But you need to look at it from my perspective. There was no way on earth I was going to be able to afford the payments for those two cars. I had no way of refinancing them, be it a new auto loan, 2nd mortgage, credit line, rich relative, etc. I'm all out of rich relatives (Sadly), don't have enough credit line, and there is not enough equity in my home to swallow $42,000 in debt. We explored all of our options before going to the dealer, believe me. This deal was one step up from defaulting on one of the cars, ruining both mine and my wifes credit, and being miserable for the next 7-10 years while we tried to rebuild our credit, if we ever were able to. It may not be the best option out there, but it's working the way we need it to so that we can stay financially afloat.
Putting a number on it might help you udnerstand. Our payments were $750 combined. We could afford maybe $500, but just barely (and I mean, literally, just barely, we already have all of our bills down to the necessary levels, there is no cable bill or any extra fluff we could get rid of, we already have done that). So that would have put us at negative $250 a month, which adds up really, really fast. Second, we were upside dwon in our loans for the cars by $19,500 combined. That is enough for a third car. Even if we financed $20k through an equity, we still would not have been able to meet monthly payments. We were pretty much inbetween a rock and a hard place.
All of this would never have been a problem of course, if we had stuck to our guns and not let them talk us into getting the two cars to begin with. But, everyone is a little bit stupid often, and a lot stupid sometimes. Sadly that was one of our really dumb moments in life. We have learned a great deal form it, though at a very high financial cost, and are sure to never repeat it again and will make sure our children do not do the same thing, or at least rry our darndest to.
At any rate, I do appreciate your comments Sir Sam, they are completely valid and truthful. Sometimes you just gotta do what you can to get back on track.
Thats what my comments were geared toward. Not turning the cars back in.
I had a 96 Crown vic, ex POPO car, but not a patrol car, used for a bike cop to drive to where ever he rode - it was a CNG vehicle, had I gotten a home pump for it would it have cost about $1.00 per GGE(gasoline gallon equivalent) to drive it.
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) and I need to find myself a new vehicle. Due to cost of gas I'm just going to get a small sedan for a couple thousand, otherwise I'd just get myself a TJ wrangler.
