Let's say you had the chance to have a late model (circa 2005) car with under 85,000 miles completely paid for in 18 months, would you do it?

Why? Whatchu got?

Seriously, it would depend on the car. Something limited-edition or high-powered would move the needle a bit more for me than, say, an '05 Impala.

If I'm buying a 2005, I'm paying for it with cash or my finances don't need another car to maintain and insure.

In the interest of pushing this hypothetical situation along, you would be trading your newer 2011 model vehicle down and trading in your 2000 model beater/project. The car is a 2005 Mustang 4.0 V6 with a $7950 price tag.

Lord no. You'll hate that 4.0...

NOPE, wrong choice to trade a 2011 in for the 2005 4.0 V6 muttang.

NO, NO, NO, NO! NO!

This is so maddening I can't even remember how to rig the forum software code to autoplay embedded YouTube videos intended to make fun of this hilariously bad idea!

Edited September 19, 201311 yr by Señor Ding Dong

Okay, forget about the car itself and say that it's different car or truck. Going back to the main question, would it be worth trading down and up to get out of debt sooner?

Edited September 19, 201311 yr by black-knight

Okay, forget about the car itself and say that it's different car or truck. Going back to the main question, would it be worth trading down and up to get out of debt sooner?

Depends on if you can sustain your current debt load to pay off the Charger (dump the Jeep IMO--project cars are a money pit, no better than lighting money on fire). Otherwise, trading down to an older vehicle with higher mileage (and unknown history/reliability) seems like a big mistake to me...the devil you know is better than the unknown potential despair of a used car.

Edited September 19, 201311 yr by Cubical-aka-Moltar

Dump the jeep, put the money into the charger loan till paid off. Keep charger longer.

Or, I have a 2004 Honda CR-V AWD I'll sell you. $9k

Just some clarification here.

The debt load isn't the issue. God only knows that when I'm not in class, I work enough to pay the payment three times over every month (not that it would be feasible, but I could).

No, the issue here is one that I never stopped to think of when I bought the Charger, and I feel pretty stupid that it didn't dawn on me then.

My Charger has become an even bigger money pit than the Jeep. Here's why: the amount I drive. Between going to class and work seven days a week for most of the time that I've had it, I've managed to log over 14,000 miles on my car in less than a year. When I bought the Charger in February, I had 42,000 miles on the clock. Now I'm sitting at almost 57,000, even after handing work trips over to the Jeep.

When I bought the car, it was worth a fair amount more than pay off if I had to trade it in. Now I'll be lucky to milk a grand to the good out of it and by the middle of next year, I'll be firmly upside down. With every couple of miles I drive, I manage to piss a few hundred dollars down the drain. About five years from now when the loan reaches maturity, the Charger will probably have close to 200,000 miles on it. From here, you can see what the big picture really looks like.

I realized this when I started my beater/project hunt. That's the reason I have the Cherokee, but it's proving to need more than I want to bother with right now and my enthusiasm is waning as a result, sadly. It's gotten me to work and back (I'd never drive it to class and back every day) every day without a critical problem since I started driving it, but overall, I don't know how much longer it can hold out without having the engine and transmission both totally overhauled. At the end of the day, it's an old Jeep and it feels its age sometimes. That's only something you can find out after you buy a car and live with it for a period of time.

So, to make a long story short, the only way that a car is truly economically feasible in my case is if either a.) it's completely paid for or b.) the outstanding balance on any loan I carry is significantly less than the rate the car depreciates. Considering that I'm still at risk of going in the hole on the Charger, I'm going to have to figure something out and soon. I've worked hard to make sure that every car I've had wasn't a complete loss if I had to get rid of it, and that isn't changing now.

Edited September 19, 201311 yr by black-knight