Might be selling soon.

[shane_c]

Well, as much as I love my Vibe I've been having some serious thoughts lately about selling it. I'm looking to lower my monthly payments and therefore my debt ratio because we're hoping to sell our home soon and move back across the country and I'd like to have my monthly expenses as low as possible before getting into another mortgage. So I guess my options are to go to the bank and see about getting a 5 year loan to pay off my GM loan, which will drop my payments around $40/month. Or to go out and get another car with a lower interest rate and spread over 6 yr vs the 5 yrs I had for my Vibe's terms. The union I belong to will allow me to get a discount on new cars so I'm waiting to hear back on pricing for the VW Rabbit and Mazda 3 GT Sport. From what I figured online the 3 Sport will come in around $60-70/month less, not sure about the VW yet. I love my Vibe but have to look to cut some expenses.

[GrayFox]

I call dibs on the intake and muffler! haha The Rabbit and Mazda 3 (I'm guessing you want the hatchback) would be my first two choices if I needed to swap cars You won't have the mileage you do now so you need to factor that into your expenses (I know it's not alot different but something to think about)

[shane_c]

That and I'd have to figure out the insurance differences as well.

[GrayFox]

your insurance could possibly be a little better than the Vibe's b/c they are "techinicaly" smaller cars. I don't think they would classify as wagons like the Vibe does (at least that's how State Farm looks at it )

[shane_c]

Well my choice would be to keep the Vibe and re-finance since it's a great car and I put a couple extra dollars into it, but we'll see what happens. I have a few more banks to call tonight to see what sort of payment I'd be looking at.

[jimincalif]

I understand the desire for a lower payment, but you will take a huge financial beating if you buy a new car. Since your Vibe is an 06, you've just taken the first year biggest hit on depreciation already. You might be upside down on your loan, that negative equity would just roll into the next car's loan.If you want to be economical, keep the Vibe, refinance it only if you can get a LOWER interest rate, not to extent the period. Get it paid for, maintain it well and keep it for 150,000 miles. Once it is paid off, keep the car, put the same amount away each month until you have enough to buy the next car for cash.Skip the planned mods (rims, header, etc.) and keep that money for payments. $40/mo short term cash flow is not enough to put yourself in more debt for a longer period of time to pay for a depreciating asset.

[shane_c]

Yeah you're probably right. And of course my first choice would be to keep the Vibe. In the long run it'd be cheaper to keep what I have since it'll be paid in 4 years and I would hope the car would last longer than that, at which point I'd be payment free, rather than getting myself into another 5 or 6 years of payments. I think I'll start taking transit once or twice a week though, as painful as it is, to save on gas money and could probably save that 40/month in gas by doing that.