4/01/2005

Car loans

Many consumers are having bad experiences with their car payments. Their payments are being known as “upside down” loans, because consumers are lengthening car loans to shorten the monthly payment. The loans stretch out for so long that when consumers trade the vehicle in for another they have to still pay for the trade in on top of the new car. Interest is then just killing the consumer. An auto information publishing company in Santa Monica, California says that “more than a quarter of buyers are upside down when they come in.”

The article suggests that the best strategy of purchasing a vehicle is “to try to match the term of the loan to the time you intend to keep the vehicle.” Another thing to keep in mind is to finish paying of the car loan before trading a vehicle in for a new one.

1 comment:

Dr. Tufte said...

This is covered pretty well. It gets back to the idea that's been discussed on this blog about the need for personal finance as a required high school or college course.

BTW: people also get into this sort of situation by taking a cash settlement for an insurance claim, then not fixing or underfixing the problem. Then they put the VIN into CarFax or something like that and say something along the lines of: "can you prove you fixed that hail damage that you were reimbursed for?"