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Automotive News & Views Chronic Car Buyers Anonymous
15044 messages, Last post on Nov 10, 2009 at 5:23 AM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: andre1969 (Jun 12, 2009 11:41 am) Nothing wrong with my '03 L-series (83K and counting) that I feel like spending $300-400 / month to get. Plus, now that I work from home, I really haven't put too many miles on it lately. In addition, I'm trying to pay down some of this debt I've accrued  The good news is, only one more year of college for the daughter! On another note, I saw an article that stated that "New Chrysler" will not be responsible for any product liability issues for the 30+ million cars currently on the road that were sold by "Old Chrysler". While that doesn't impact me directly, I am wondering if Penske, in his purchase of Saturn from GM, would have the same stipulation in his deal. Does he assume any product liability, current and future? |
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"scratch the itch" today (an itch, you say? Why it's only been 6 weeks since you bought a car! Well, yes, it never really goes away!) by helping the sister of a friend buy a car, but it was a bust because unbeknownst to me her credit has been ruined by a divorce. Some places were downright unfriendly. The Toyota dealer wouldn't even show us a car, just called her credit "special" and declared that she wouldn't be able to buy a car anywhere. He turned out to be right! After that first place, I told her to stop telling everyone about her credit before we even had a chance to look at the available cars. The Nissan store and the Chrysler store, both part of a big conglomerate and the Chrysler store the last one standing inside a 50-mile radius of itself, both played lots of games and finally said any credit score under 550 would require a STRONG co-signer or 20% down in cash on a car costing no more than $8000. They only did this after an hour of shenanigans where they tried to wheedle a cash payment out of her that I knew she didn't have. I couldn't get her to just walk out with me, she had hope that there was a car at the end of that rainbow! Then we hit up the Saturn store, actually found a reasonably priced '05 Vue, black automatic, 70K miles, $9K. We were sternly shown the door, though, after they ran the credit report. But not before they made the same declaration that we should stop wasting our time, that she would never be able to buy a car. The last place we hit was the credit doctor dealer - "We finance anyone! Repair your credit here!". Even the doc didn't have enough medicine for what ailed her credit. We left there with the advice that if she could come up with $1000 in cash, they could finance her on a $6000 car at $400/month. Oh, and by the way, the $6000 cars come in on Wednesdays and Fridays (!!). That place sounds like a REAL good bet. So she's stuck. She has an '01 Galant V-6 with 159K on the clock and a dead auto trans, best price she can find to fix it is $1800. Guess she could be walking or bus-riding for a while, a CCBAer's worst nightmare! Having never been in that situation (either with credit or the urgent need for a replacement vehicle), it was weird viewing dealers in a different light. They sure aren't very friendly if you don't have good credit......it was particularly striking at the Saturn dealer, where the attitude before and after the running of the credit were like night and day.....
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| I finally got my '75 2002 on a lift in order to track down a small ATF drip from the radiator. We first thought it was a bad hose clamp, but it turns out the radiator is cracked where the cooler line is attached. Thanks to a fellow 2002 cult member that problem will soon be resolved. While I had the car up in the air I poked around a bit and made several interesting discoveries. I knew that the front passenger floor pan was rusted through, but a close inspection revealed that the unibody frame rail itself is rust free but the floor on either side is rotten; at least it should be an easy fix. The rest of the car also seems to be solid, with no evidence of cost-cutting, tin worm, or PO jury rigs. I also found the reason why the car rides and handles exceptionally well for a 196,000 mile '02; one of the POs had fitted Bilstein HDs at all four corners. Woo-Hoo!!! | |
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Well, my advice was gong to be suck it up, and bottom feed for something cheaper (IOW, a cash and carry). But, it sounds like she already has that, so in essence, it might be easiest to finance the AT repair, and hope the rest of the car holds up. If the Mitsu is otherwise a piece of crud, what is her DP availability? Nada? That's bad. At least if you can scrape up a couple grand, you can get drivable wheels. I was lucky to get a wholesale deal (family plan) on my recently (Dec.? Not that recent!) TL, for 2K. But, I sold a 1998 Contour, overall clean shape (new sneaks, needed nothing, pretty clean) with only 90K on it, for ~ 2K. So it can be done. I guess your only option if you have no credit and no cash is a BHPH lot, and just take the $50/week in the shorts to drive something roughly like what she has!
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Replying to: stickguy (Jun 14, 2009 8:18 pm) Thing is, if she could find a loan to fix the trans she would just do that, but this is a person to whom NO credit is available it would seem. A $2000 car from the BHPH lot is going to make it to the corner and then break down, I figure. If she could just find the $1800, fixing the Mitsubishi would be her best bet right now among her very limited options, even in the sorry state it is otherwise in. IMHO. But finding an unsecured loan for $1800 looks to be out of the question. I have looked at it from every angle, and I think she's stuck walking or riding the bus. 
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Replying to: nippononly (Jun 14, 2009 8:45 pm) Or.. (and, this is usually what happens to me)... you can find her a beater for $800 or so.. Of course, you'll have to loan her the money.. she can pay it back at $100/mo.... (maybe a salvage yard will give her $300 for hers?). We all know how that turns out..
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Replying to: kyfdx (Jun 15, 2009 4:23 am) I thought that too until I re-read the post and realised it is a friend of nippononly's sister, not his sister. I'm not sure I'd want to lend money to a friend of my sister with bad credit. |
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Does the por lady at least have income to pay back a loan? Bad credit is one thing (and really, if divorce related, not an accurate barometor of whether she can or will pay back a loan), but not having income is obviously a problem. Saddest thing is, if she can handle about $200 a month, a lease would be perfect. Sube is still offering sign and drive (1st + tags) on an impreza for right around $209/month. As cheap as a loan, but you get fixed operating costs (gas). I know whe would never qualify, but it would be safer over the long term to put someone like her in a deal like that, then getting a 20% interest rate and paying 10K for a 4K Taurus tht eats her alive in repairs. maybe a local charity can help out with a donation?
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Replying to: stickguy (Jun 15, 2009 6:26 am) If anyone in her family had money they could lend her privately, I think that would be her best option by far, but I guess they don't, and it certainly isn't going to be me. My sister wanted to do it, and I recommended against it. I don't if she could get a lease, don't you have to have the same credit to get a lease as you do to get a loan? I have never leased, so I am not as familiar with leasing.
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