Car Trouble, Need Advice

[KLHJ2]

Trade it in for a new car.

Last spring I needed new brakes and rotors on my EVO VIII. The parts alone cost 4K. On top of that I did have a check engine light on and my Turbo wasn't boosting properly. Kelly Blue Book had it going for 8K in fair condition. Sorry but I'm not going to put 4K into an 8K car to make it a 10K car, when I was a teenager I would have but not now.

I traded it in for 7K, avoided a huge maintence cost, and got 5 car years younger. The real beauty is that due to the fact that I had a 6 year loan on the EVO and a 3 year loan on the new car I didn't add any additional years to my payoff. In fact I subtracted 2 months.

Since my payoff was more than what they gave me for the car I was a little bit upside down and I carried the negative equity over to the new car. To cover myself I purchased the gap insurance. Gap insurance covers a vehicle with negative equity in the event you get into an accident.

I ended up with a 2008 Scion so it wasn't brand new, but it's newer used and my payments stayed about the same.

Recap: I avoided a huge maintenance cost, purchased a newer vehicle, cut loan payoff date by 2 months and essentially eliminated my negative equity. It's worth looking into.