...a lil' help here?

[GrayFox]

I'm in need of some advice/tips & I want to hear other peoples thought on this. I've been thinking of ways to save a little money. I've always felt like I paid too much for my car b/c I was so eager to get something better than my sunfire. I bought it used & it's out of warranty now & I'm worrried if something breaks "will I have the money to fix it". I'm already having to wait 'til tax time to get the money for the body work that needs to be done. So I've been thinking about what I should've done originally and buy a cheaper car.When my wife & I started looking at cars we were looking at 02-03 year models with decent miles. Warranty wasn't a big deal but then we started looking at newer program cars. I kinda got sucked into it. We looked at alot of cars. I feel like we rushed buying the vibe b/c we went from looking at midsize sedans to "Hey a vibe. that's cool! We'll take it" kinda like that without putting too much thought into it. The F&I manager was a friend of mine (kinda) and explained to me that to payoff my sunfire he would have to raise the price of the Vibe to cover the trade. I feel like an idot for not suggesting waiting for another vibe to come along with more options/less miles or something and the pay a reasonable price. Anyway, I've decided that I want to find a 02 or 03 Mazda Protege5. I found one about 3hrs away from here for $8500 OBO (53k, sunroof, etc.) I wish I could jump on this but I don't know how to go about getting rid of my vibe. My wife suggests we wait to get our pricipal down on the vibe (I know she's right... I need to get it fixed first anyway) before looking for the Mazda. So... my question: How should I go about this. Right now my payoff for my Vibe is ~$12,900. I'm going to wait 3-6 more months before going thru with this. How do you do a Private Party deal. I've heard that you can sell a car to a dealer but I wouldn't think I would get much. I can't afford to buy the Mazda & then sell the Vibe privately b/c it would probly take several more months. Or should I just keep looking for a good one at a dealer somewhere (then I'd have a higher buy price but maybe I could get a decent trade). It seems like less work when going to a dealer, but I would much rather deal with another person than a dealer...Anyway, thanks for reading all this and I really appriciate and info/tips on this whole process. Thanks Just in case noone knows what a Protege5 is I've attatched a pic

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[VforVIBE]

Say it aint so...

[GrayFox]

Don't worry V... I'll still be loyal to Genvibe. There's no better online community out there!

[illusion]

Don't worry so much...there are lots of options out there (I promise - I financed $22k when I bought my Vibe thanks to the inequity in my Stratus).My first suggestion is to, if you can afford it, toss a little extra cash at your payment every month. For example, my payment was $461, so I just rouded that up to a nice even $500 a couple of years ago. The past 6 months or so, I was even able to kick that up to $600. When I traded the Vibe off earlier this week, I got a pretty even trade-to-payoff number. I think I came in about a grand shy, so they played the "raise the price of the selling vehicle to cover the inequity in the trade" game. No biggie. I still managed to get the truck right about KBB/NADA/Edmunds TMV price. I figured that wasn't too bad for dropping my payment and getting back into a warranty for a while. And rounding my payment up will help me get it paid off just a little faster.Another option, if you're worried about repair costs, is to pick up an aftermarket warranty. Most of those seem to follow the "you cover the normal maintenance and such, and we'll cover the real big stuff" kind of motto. Depending on year and miles on your car, I would say that a warranty through a reputable company would run anywhere from $1000-$1500. I just bought an '02 Trailblazer 4x4 with 78k miles on it, and the 3 year/36k mile warranty from AUL ran me about $1500.That said, if you want to trade the car on something now, you're going to just have to eat the inequity. A couple of months won't really make a big difference in your trade value - the payoff balance that you'll be paying down will be affected by the trade-in value dropping due to miles - though you'll usually end up ahead in that game - miles are usually counted somewhere around -$0.50 per mile above 12k miles/year. Keep shopping dealers - different dealers will give you different trade allowances. It also will vary depending on the car you're looking at. If it's been on their lot for a while, they may be wiling to deal a little more than if it just hit the sales floor. It's just a matter of patience.

[nygiantzz1]

I agree with Illusion, if you can throw a little more toward the monthly payments, it will help. I don't how dealers are in AR, but here in NY it's almost impossible to get anywhere close to TMV on a trade. Private Party sales generally give you the best chance of getting more for the car, but you have to play the waiting game. Go to Edmunds.com and do a vehicle appraisal on the Vibe, it will allow you print Window Stickers for the Vibe and write in your asking price. If and when you get a potential buyer, then you try to find the protege you want and pay off the Vibe. Good Luck with it. If you do sell it private party, make sure you have all the required paperwork from the Dept. of Motor Vehicles, it will make the transaction smoother and be certain you write "Sold As Is" on the receipt. Good Luck.

[GrayFox]

Quote, originally posted by nygiantzz1 » If and when you get a potential buyer, then you try to find the protege you want and pay off the Vibe. Good Luck with it. I guess doing it private party I could be rideless for a little while, huh? thanks for the comments guysI'd like to pay more on the pricipal of the vibe but that kinda goes against what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to make my payments cheaper. I guess I'm gonna have to pay the money either way it goes tho. Pay more a month to get the payoff down VS. negative equity NADA guides actually gives me a pretty good price on trade value ($11,775) KBB only gives me $8,140. (it takes the condition into acount tho.)Maybe after I get the body work done it won't be as bad as I think it is. If I can get $11k for it I would only owe about anotther grand by then.Thanks again guys

[nygiantzz1]

That is the down side to selling privately, you are without a car until you find the replacement you want. I did it once and was lucky enough to have the use of my father-in-laws truck while I found my new ride. The other option is renting the cheapest econo box you can find for a few days. Trading the Vibe in would be the easiest if you can work a good deal. Start checking the dealerships in February, sales are usually down in the winter and dealers are hurting.

[djb383]

Go to your local library and check out 'The Millionaire Next Door' by T Stanley. You and your wife will be able to use his advice for the rest of your lives. Don't take financial advice from broke people.......most people are broke and broke is normal.......be different. Good luck to you.

[GrayFox]

Quote, originally posted by djb383 »Don't take financial advice from broke people.......most people are broke and broke is normal.......be different. Good luck to you. So I shouldn't listen to myself then? j/kThanks, I'll check out that book sometime.being rideless wouldn't be that big of a deal to me I guess b/c I live realatively close to my work and my mom lives right down the street.

[VforVIBE]

Quote, originally posted by djb383 »Go to your local library and check out 'The Millionaire Next Door' by T Stanley. I've heard of that book before, it's a good concept, I try to follow it, sometimes

[ColonelPanic]

Yeah, don't listen to us broke foolz yo! Probably because I'll tell you "find a dealer that has a 120% over book value for your trade sale!" That's how I made it slightly less painful when I traded mine in... They gave me $6900 for it, it was in really rough shape and 74,000 miles on it. I was really surprised how well I actually did on that deal. But man, oh man, it still hurts though. Let's do the math here, hmm...First is the '98 Malibu that I owed over 2x what it was worth which went into an '03 Vibe that I owed almost 2x what it was worth which ends up getting rolled into the new car......$8,000 - 3250 = 4750$11,000 - 6900 = 4100-----------------------------Some how, that worked out to be ~21,000 financed for a $15,410 car. (that's also after extending the warranty though so knock a grand and some change off that for the accurate reaming.) Was it worth it? Hell yeah. In both cases, I had cars I couldn't trust and my patience was wearing thin... But trying to get out of a bad situation creates another bad one. That's why I made sure I'll have something with enough warranty to get me completely through the loan, and if I get five bucks for it on trade in, at least I didn't have to pay THEM five! lol!If your Vibe is functioning normally and has no signs of being a total turd like mine was, maybe you could hold out a bit longer and work on paying it down before you do anything... Remember, these are Toyotas, I think is the phrase that gets thrown around here a lot. (removed)! Unless you're really having really bad vibes about it, it could probably last another year.

[djb383]

http://www.finalcall.com/artma...shtml

[NascarXprt]

No!!!!! not another one to leave the vibe. but i was looking at the PR5 before i got my vibe i loved those snice they came out and wanted one soooo bad great cars and theres quite a bit of aftermarket items out there for it. Good Luck with your search and you best stay on this site or well hunt you down and force you to stay

[GrayFox]

lol, thanks cole. (can I still come to a meet someday? )I tried to go look at one this weekend (just to see if that's what I really wanted) but the dealer had sold the one I was gonna look at but told me that they were getting some more so I'll likely go back this weekend & have a look see.I'm about half way thru with that book. It's really interesting. My wife has stolen it from me a few times after peering over my shoulder. Thanks djb for recomending it. I'm still thinking on this... I'm just gonna take my time and see what comes along.