Need some feedback and opinions on a new car - SRT Forums

Psycho78 · 06-11-2005, 12:53 AM

Ok as always I am looking at buying other cars to replace mine. I have found a 2002 Z06 corvette with only 30,000 miles on it. Out the door tax, license, negative equity in my car the totall came to like 36,000 something. My payment would be about $522 a month for 84 months. On my current car I pay $416 a month and have 4 more years left to pay. I spent the last 2 hours at Dodge of Bellevue going over numbers. It is a beautiful car and I am going to test drive it tomorrow after I get off of work.

The problem I am having is guilt. I can barely survive with my finances as it is. If you take what I have spent on my Srt since I bought it and spread it out over the 24 months I have owned the car it came to about $104 a month. Which is roughly the difference in the car payment.

Two options are available for me.

1. I buy the corvette and live a dream for as long as I can afford it. I don't even want to think about the final payoff value at the end of the 84 months.

2. I don't buy the car but test drive it anyway. Keep my car and continue to pay on it until the negitive equity is gone. Estimate would be about another year or so to break even.

Decisions decisions....I asked the parental figures for their advice and they say to keep my car until I get a better job that pays more than the $36,000 I am now making. Girlfriend says not to spend the money....Best friend says to buy it so he can drive it....

I feel like I have buyers remorse before I even buy the damn car. I am going to sleep on it for now and figure it out this weekend.

Sorry for the long letter. Don't get me wrong I love my current baby.

Later
Al

ptperformance · 06-11-2005, 01:51 AM

my .02, i believe in owning what you have. my wife wanted the srt-4, (only after i had recommended it) i said used galiant vr4 (we had the cash). she was tired of driving the suburban to work everyday (48 miles round trip). just getting an econmical car would pay for itself in gas alone. she axed the idea of getting the vr4 so i recommended a kia (kick me latter) we were so close to getting the $9000. kia but she wanted something a little sportier. so we got the srt-4 (that was the deal when she got a better paying job). my advise, work extra hard now get the car you have payed off and then go out and get the zo6 (will be cheaper then) and keep both your cars.

daytonagts · 06-11-2005, 02:07 AM

If I was you I would keep your car and put the extra $100 a month into paying it off, you would be much better in the long run, like PT said then buy the ZO6 .... by then it will be even cheaper and you'll be farther ahead than if you just traded in now and went for instant grat.

I've toyed a few times with trading in the SRT for a Viper, even wrote up paper and everything, but decided I wanted to really keep the SRT, and have a Viper also ... so I'm saveing up for the viper in the future.

jaymzx · 06-11-2005, 02:21 AM

84 month loans are a bad idea anyway. You'll always be upside down unless you come up with a 10K+ down payment. It's also not fun to be 'car poor'. If you have a car dragging your finances down, you won't have the money you will need for emergencies and other things life throws at you. If you plan on buying a home soon, most lenders want to see a better debt/income ratio. Hell, as it stands, I couldn't get the bigger condo I wanted for $20K more because of my high monthly payment on the SRT. I went out 60mo on the SRT and financed my upside down trade, TT&L and ended up financing $27K. Now I regret it. Don't get me wrong, I love the car to death, but in retrospect I should have saved for a down payment and picked up the car mid-year or waited until 2004. There was nothing wrong with my 01 Neon I could have driven it for awhile more while I saved. I plan to save up some extra cash and put it down and refi the SRT into a 36mo loan and maybe lower the monthly payment..but it's kinda tough when the current car payment sucks up all my 'extra' cash. Kind of a catch-22

Psycho78 · 06-11-2005, 09:57 AM

Yeah I guess you guys are right. If I throw the extra $100 a month at the SRT I could have it paid off an extra year earlier. As well as getting rid of the negitive equity faster. The whole idea was just a thought and that is why I came on here was to ask some opinions. I guess I will just keep by baby for a while longer. Thanks for the support guys.

justin21 · 06-11-2005, 12:13 PM

just keep the srt. in american cars they ALWAYS loose value quicker than any other car except a kia daewoo or the shitty brands like that. besides having a V8 is fun but gas is a real bitch when i had my 5.0 i was spending 150a week on gas not including my 500 payment for insurance.

snoman · 06-11-2005, 12:34 PM

id say keep the srt, and just up the payments on it so you can pay it off faster, than if you want when your done paying for it trade it in for the thing you want bad

kingj07 · 06-11-2005, 02:13 PM

yeah. keep the debt a little more under control. it will help you out in the future.

j.r.

badassxr50r · 06-11-2005, 02:23 PM

i would wait on the z06 that is not a car u want to drive everyday its a sports car it supposed to see sunny nice days so keep ur car pay it off and get that z06 for those nice summer days or when u just feel the need to kick some ass at the road track lol

kingj07 · 06-11-2005, 02:29 PM

al wont be paying this car all the way before he makes a change. ive met him only a few times, but i get the idea that he likes to play for awhile then move on.

j.r.

Psycho78 · 06-11-2005, 03:24 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by kingj07

al wont be paying this car all the way before he makes a change. ive met him only a few times, but i get the idea that he likes to play for awhile then move on.

j.r.

This is very true.. My attention span is not that great. But now that I am all grown up I need to make grown up decisions. Thank you guys for the feed back but the extra $200 a month including insurence is not worth it to me. So no I will not buy the corvette.

v8killer04 · 06-12-2005, 08:25 PM

the longer you keep the srt the more money you will lose in negative equity.. get out of the dodge while you can. if you can barely afford the srt now.. just wait until you start paying insurance on a z06 haha. listen to your family never finance a car for more than 60 months.. dont let a car cost more than 2/3rds of one pay check a month