I see we have duplicate threads. I copied and pasted this here and hopefully the other thread will fall off the board.
He advised me to wait until perhaps February, and then see what the value of the Cruiser might be.
I agree. Or research 2 YO Cruisers and see how their resale value is holding up. Check consuners digest and see what kind of problems have been noted for your model. Any really expensive problems showing up regularly?
What would the payments be on the $8440? I'd try to do it in 2 years instead of 3. But that's just me. I did some quick figuring and my guess is ~ $390 a month for 24 or $340 for 36. I multiplied $8440 by 1.12 for an approximate payoff at 12%.
Work on your credit rating. By just paying everything on time and getting your debt down you will begin to recieve very low credit offers from credit card companies. I took the remaining $11,000 x 6% debt on my truck and put it on a credit card at 3.9% for the life of the loan. I have about that amount again remaining in debt that occurred from putting myself into business and sending a kid to fool around in college. I have some of it ~ $8,000 at 2.99%, also for the life of the loan and the rest is down at 0% on with about 8 months left before it reverts and I am working like crazy to pay off before it does. I am constantly working to whittle away at those interest rates. The thing I like about this is that the "Minimum Payment" on a card is much less than a set in stone loan payment. The SECRET IS you have to be DISCIPLINED enough so that when you have a good month you pay as much as you can on the card but if you're having a slow month it is very easy to make the minimum payments because they really are minimal. I always look at paying just the minimum a setback. After a while of keeping those payments up all the card companies will be screaming for your business and offering you ridiculously low rates and massive credit lines. Especially now because I hear people are starting to get behind. They are trying to snag people with this. Again it all comes down to discipline. Remember, if you buy it, you have to pay for it. They want you to incur a lot of debt and get behind because THAT'S where their money is. This is why they can offer such deals.
I don't want to make the story even longer but...
A couple of tips:
I don't normally go for the offers that will transfer a balance to a low rate but charge a 3% transfer fee.
If I DO go for one of those I make sure I do it as a one shot large sum so that I avoid paying multiple transfer fees. They have a max, USUALLY 50$ but if you transfer a bunch of small ones you can go well over $50 in total fees.
Another, VERY IMPORTANT! Once you have established a low rate account you DO NOT want to purchase anything on it. What they do is pay off the low rate balance transfer first and leave the higher rate purchase lingering and sucking the cash out of your pocket until the low rate balance is paid off. They're sneaky little devils. And I LOVE beating them at their own game!
All this is just to tell you that there are more and easier ways to pay for that car if you decide to keep it. Sorry it took so long
More Me and the wife are kind of in the same deal with GM, but for 4 years. We have also discussed this scenario. What it looks like to me is that if we keep the car and payoff the loan we will not necessarily have paid much more for the car than we would have had we gone conventional. What we HAVE DONE (if we keep it) is stretched out the payments for 7 years instead of 4 or even 6. We'll pay ~ $11,000 for a 4 YO Monte which brings us back to "How much is it worth when it's time to buy or trade?
Equal to or more than blue book = Good.
Substantially LESS than blue book = BAD!!
Unfortunately, only time will tell.