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Keep driving your fiance's Mercedes until you have enough saved to buy a nice car, like our Accord which cost $20800 OTD.
Then keep that car for a long time, like 8-10 years.
Yeah, I know it feels strange to write a check for $20800, but I think it is the right thing to do.
That can't be right, $7K a month after Federal withholding would be about $5,550, add $500 for social security and you should have over $5,000 less any state tax withholding which should only be maybe 2-300.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
If I were to guess I would say 5% of taxable income.
Anyway this is getting off topic, back to your regually scheduled slugfest.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
In many of these areas, a median priced new vehicle, approaches the cost of an average 3 bedroom home. The mean household income is often around $30K per year in such areas. Combine this with the fact that many local banks have been taken over by large regional or national chains, and that many won't make a car loan for less than $8K or so, and you have a definite market for the BHPH dealer.
You would be surprised at the reasonably educated, moderate income individuals, who shop regularly at these dealers.
Get out of your upper middle class subdivision and look around.
I'm am an adjunct instructor at a local community college, have a masters degree and make 28K a year. Live quite adequately thank you. I always drive BHPH cars, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. And yes, 30K houses here do exist, and they're not shacks.
Get out of your upper middle class subdivision and look around.
Do it every day, and after reading this thread I vividly remember my first car buying experience from a classic BHPH. Didn't now it was one at the time, but what a stinky outfit...
I don't mean to be mean or anything, but I think you might be a little off in your perception, not the rest of us.
No argument from me here.
Get out of your upper middle class subdivision and look around.
I live in the city - Saint Paul (though not downtown, hardly anybody lives there.)
I'm am an adjunct instructor at a local community college, have a masters degree and make 28K a year. Live quite adequately thank you. I always drive BHPH cars, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. And yes, 30K houses here do exist, and they're not shacks.
Good for you (but boy, am I glad I chose industry over academia - and primarily because of the tenure treadmill, not money.) And I mostly buy and drive used cars, too - though usually privately, not through BHPH.
30k 3-bedroom houses, though? Please email an ad for one or two privately.
and don't forget to pay your property taxes too.
That second para - where are the $25,000.0 3-bedroom homes :confuse: - I'll buy 4 right away if there are any in FL!!!
Patronage of BHPH dealers is not always a result of bad credit or stupidity. It may be true in large east coast urban areas, but not everywhere.
I will admit with the advent of the internet, finding good used cars at half the price of local BHPH lots is a much better value.
At the end of the day, all car financing is a rip-off no matter where you buy. Buy the most car you can pay cash for.
Even the 0% deals?
Where do you get this?
Not everybody can afford to pay cash for their cars like you obviously are able to.
As long as I can borrow money at a lower rate than I make on my investments, why the hell would I take the money out of the investments??
Sometimes its just painfully easy to finance. The loan on our chrysler, for instance, charges less interest than my 7-month old makes on his lousy savings account!
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '08 Charger R/T Daytona; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '08 Maser QP; '11 Mini Cooper S
I financed another car when I got to Wyoming. Parents took me up there and bought me a $300 1980 Caprice to get me by. Caprice overheated badly, still ran, but I couldn't rely on it to deliver pizza. So I put it and $300 down on a 1979 Chrysler LeBaron. Paid it off and traded it for a 1985 Olds Delta 88, cash deal, kept it for awhile.
I financed my next car at a BHPH in Marion, Ohio. 1980 Buick Electra. $300 down, $50 a week, it got me around for a month until the starter locked up and caused a fire under the hood. Dealer took it back, no questions asked, and put me in a 1985 Dodge Charger hatchback. A month later my Dad co-signed a bank note on a nicer car (1993 Dynasty) and I gave the Charger back to the lot. No problem, they didn't care, they'd sell it to someone else. They were working on rewiring the Buick when I dropped the Charger off.
Next BHPH lot I bought from was my wife's Lumina this past February. We're still paying on the car, had to make a couple minor repairs, but it's doing fine. We put $1300 down on it and financed around $3400 on a $3995 car at $75 a week. Pretty decent deal for a clean, reliable, well-kept 8-year old sedan with 118K on it and a dent in the left front fender.
And finally, a couple hours later, two blocks over, I bought a 1997 model Lumina for $4995 and $700 down and $65 a week. I only got it so we'd have two good cars, but this one didn't turn out so good and wouldn't pass inspection. Because of the laws in Texas regarding emissions, the dealer either had to fix it to pass or buy it back. Instead, the dealer conveniently "lost" our last payment check, repossessed the car, and sold it to some other unlucky sucker. No problem. I don't have to worry about that car anymore, and because of their attitude and the quality of the cars on their lot, I'm not buying from that lot again. I even sent a friend to buy a truck from them at one point, and it turned out to be a real pile. They pulled the same trick, edited their computer to no longer show the last payment, repossessed the truck, and left him hanging.
Reminds me...MAKE SURE you get a receipt every time you make a payment. Might help in small claims court. And if it wasn't over a measly $700 down payment and a few biweeklies, I'd be suing that dealer. Much cheaper to just let it go.
I don't want to BHPH finance another car, but we may be stuck doing so when we get a minivan soon. Have kid #6 on the way. Oldest stays with her father, so we have to have 7 seatbelts and the Lumina isn't going to cut it. We're trying to work with the selling dealer to trade up, but they're only offering $600 versus the $1900 we owe, and that's wrong. Hoping to sell the Lumina outright to someone willing to wait while the lien is released from the title. I'm sure we can get $1900 for it at the very least, and start fresh on the minivan, whether it's from the same BHPH lot or not.
Some BHPH lots are horrible. I know of one lot on the south side of town who has GREAT cash prices on their cars. One example would be a car we looked at back in February. Gray 1999 Chevy Lumina, 130K, cash price was $2799. Sounded great and if we could have financed that with half down and that price, we were all for it. But the finance price was $5799!!! They insisted on making an extra $3000 over an 18 month note instead of taking half now and 4 or 5 months at $300 a month. They would have had their money in much less time our way, and there is no reason to mark up a car to double the asking price to allow financing.
And some BHPH lots are great, like the lot we bought my wife's Lumina from. No ridiculously priced sleds, no major mechanical gremlins, and they didn't even check her credit (it's BAD, and mine is even worse!!!). We've been able to pay by cash or check. I do wish they'd offer credit card payments so we could call in our payment like I did with my other BHPH Lumina that got repo'd.
It's evident that the financial means of most of the posters here, does not allow for a discussion of BHPH lots from a consumers point of view.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '08 Charger R/T Daytona; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '08 Maser QP; '11 Mini Cooper S
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '08 Charger R/T Daytona; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '08 Maser QP; '11 Mini Cooper S
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '08 Charger R/T Daytona; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '08 Maser QP; '11 Mini Cooper S
I dealt with one in Marietta, GA called Georgia Motors. They were a bit over-priced if you had to finace, but not insanely so. I called in advance once when I was having some money issues and got them to wait about a week and a half on a payment. They were very pleasant and very open on any issues the cars had. After all a $2000 dollar car WILL have problems. I know this, I'm a good mechanic, just tell me what to expect out of it and I'm okay with that. I'd cheerfully do business with them again if circumstances dictated and we hadn't moved to Louisville.
As a basic rule of thumb: If the finance price is more than double what the car is worth...you may not wanna deal with that particular lot. There are a couple around here that are just horrible...
Biggest thing a BHPH guy is looking for is a car that will out run the note, and they never let you get one paid for. When you come in to make your third to last $50 weekly payment they trade you into something else.
I have learned one thing on this web site, allot of people look at things from only there point of view and not from others. What I mean is,
Just because you can pay cash does not mean every one can.
Just because you can afford to keep a $3000 emergency fund in the bank in case of repairs does not mean every one can.
Just because you did not need GAP insurance does not mean every body doesn't
Just because you qualify for a better rate then 19% does not mean every body does
Etc, Etc,
I am not saying any one person in particular, that just seems to be the general theme some times.
I figure it this way. You pick out a nice low mileage '99 Taurus, it's $700 down, $75 a week, 78 weeks, total price $4995+ttl+interest, comes to $6400 altogether. You'd be making payments on that car, and say the transmission gives out after a few months. Now you have choices.
One, you can fix the car out of your own pocket ($2000), continue making payments and end up spending $8400 for a $2000 car over the course of the remaining 12 months of payments.
Two, you can have the dealership fix the car (probably with a junkyard transmission) and tack the $2000 onto your payments and you end up spending more like $8700 for the car with the added interest.
Three, you can tell them to stick it, you're only out $1675 thus far, and you take a few hundred and go to another lot and get another car. They don't check your credit, so who cares, right?
That car lot had a lot less than $1675 in the Taurus anyway. If the down payment was $700, that's probably about what they had in it. They can scrap the car and still be way ahead, or drop in another transmission from one of the dozen Tauruses they have sitting out back with various broken parts, and sell it to someone else. Or sell it as a mechanic's special for cash. Or fix it right and sell it with a higher down payment. They've made their money from the down payment, so every payment you make is profit to them.
So those of us (my dear wife) who simply MUST have a newer model car, but don't have any credit worth speaking of, we just head to a BHPH, pick out something she likes, and if it lasts to the end of the note, terrific. If it craps out, no problem, we go find her something else. If we can't make the payments, it gets repossessed, and we save up for another down payment. If the note tries to switch us to another car, we consider it, as if it were another car purchase, which it kinda is.
The key to BHPH *IS* finding a car that will last to the end of the note. My new motto is that "GM cars run bad longer than most cars run at all!" So Aleros and Malibus and Impalas and Grand Ams and Luminas are what we look for.
The second key to BHPH is to get the lowest down payment and weekly payment possible, without getting overcharged for the car itself. Examples:
1996 Lumina, $500dn, $50/wk, asking price $4995
1997 Lumina, $700dn, $65/wk, asking price $3995
1998 Lumina, $1200dn, $75/wk, asking price $3995
1999 Lumina, $1000dn, $75/wk, asking price $5995
2001 Lumins, $1000dn, $75/wk, asking price $8995
If you can handle the down payment, that '98 is the best deal of those four. The '99 is overpriced compared to the '98, and unless the condition of the car is light years better, the '98 is probably fine. The '96 has cheap payments, BUT look at the asking price, a grand more than the '97. That 2001 looks the same as the '99...UNTIL you look at the asking price. And yes, all five of these are cars we looked at before settling on the '97 and '98 models last year.
Or you can go to Carmax and pay $8500 for the vehicle.
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(thanks Terry aka R Royce) the BHPH lots are your only
way to go !
Those BHPH lots in Fl. sure made a ton of $$$$.........
Sell a car that anyone with cash could buy for $2000
to a person with a little cash and/or no credit for
$1000 down and $60 or so a week for a YEAR.........
You figure MOST can't or won't pay after several weeks.
The car gets popped and resold to some other poor sap
for the same deal...................
http://www.philly.com/philly/classifieds/cars/20080302_ap_paydayloanfoesaimatcar- - titleloans.html
Johnson is paying about $40 per month on the principal and about $200 in interest. If he stops, he'll lose the car. If he continues, he'll sink more money into the car than it's worth.
"I'm paying $5,000 for a car that cost me $1,300, and if I get sick and miss a payment or can't make a payment they're going to come take my car away," Johnson, a 67-year-old retired carpenter, said in a telephone interview.
Johnson now wishes he'd just gotten a payday loan. At least then, he says, he would have known what he owed. Either way, he said, legislators need to protect families like his from predatory lenders.
Man, that just burns me up. Here a poor blue collar worker just trying to make ends meet is forced at gunpoint to take a handful of cash and hand over his car keys. When is the government going to step in and stop this victimization?!
Reminds me of the time a banker came to the house and held a knife to my wife's throat while I signed documents to refinance our home. Anyone know a good lawyer that can help me out?
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '08 Charger R/T Daytona; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '08 Maser QP; '11 Mini Cooper S
Not to sound unsympathetic, but the numbers in that article just don't add up.
First, the current balance on the loan is greater than the amount borrowed ($900 vs. $800). How is that possible?
Second, the article claims Mr. Johnson is paying $240 per month ($20 principal + $200 interest) but has already made three payments totaling $533 which works out to $177.78 per month. Which is it, $240 per month or $177.78 per month?
Finally, if he's paying $200 interest per month on a loan with a balance of $900 then his monthly percentage rate is about 22%. which adds up to an astonishing 264% annual percentage rate. Even a predatory lending organization is required by law to inform the customer what the APR is along with the total amount that will be paid over the term of the loan. Mr. Johnson had to have been aware when he signed on the dotted line that the total cost of this $800 loan would be over $5,000.
The government should certainly go after predatory lenders. However, I suspect the author of the article botched it and just didn't get her facts straight. And if the 67 year old Mr. Johnson was either completely oblivious to the tems of the contract into which he entered or was unable to coherently convey the facts to the author of the article then perhaps he ought not be driving in the first place.
tidester, host
SUVs and Smart Shopper.
No, this doesn't add up.
It is a sad story and I feel for this guy especially at the age he is.
Still, he put himself in this position either by not paying his bills or making some horrible decisions.
This is when family support is needed. Hopefully this may be available to him.
There are restricted to something like 35% PER MONTH interest rates.
Sometimes it's not the person's fault. A job loss or medical emergency can put a person over the edge.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '08 Charger R/T Daytona; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '08 Maser QP; '11 Mini Cooper S
I think you missed the sarcasm. He even said at the end that a mortgage broker came over and put a knife to his throat to refinance the house.... (sarcasm)
tidester, host
SUVs and Smart Shopper
Just checking.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '08 Charger R/T Daytona; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '08 Maser QP; '11 Mini Cooper S
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
Wow, no one coud ever afford that loan. If they could they would not have to borrow in the first place.
Wonder how they get around state usory limits :confuse:
Right now I own a vehicle with 100K on it. By the time it was all said and done I paid about 17K for it. I financed it for 5 years 4 years ago, and paid it off in 3. I think the original price was 16K, but with added interest I think it came to about 17K. These are rough numbers here, I really don't know. Anyway, my point is, I have now put over 75K miles on it in the last 4 years (it had 25K when I bought it). I have had a few things go wrong, but all I think I have only spent about $500 in repairs in the last 4 years and 75K miles. I am about to spend another 1-200 in repairs next week. This is not including oil changes and tires and brakes of course. Anyway, my point is, I plan to drive this vehicle till the wheels practically fall off. I could be theoritcally driving it another 4 or 5 years putting hopefully the total mileage close to 200K. That would be nice. If I can get that much out of the vehicle, I would consider that original 17K money well spent. Sure the vehicle probably won't be worth much more than 1000 by the time I am done with it, but I sure was able get it's worth out of it....
Or is the 15K car not a Mercedes and therefore you don't want to be seen in that particular car? I mean even the above mentioned Taurus would do you well. It's cheap, reliable, and will help you rebuild credit. It aint a flashy car, or a "cool" car, but what's more important? Looking cool in a borrowed Mercedes or, or having a solid credit history that you worked hard to build?