car finance - BIG HUGE mistake

lynzpower

i dont wish to sound awful or anything, but the amount of struggles people are having with car finance, makes me feel SO Sad, and i for one will never get a car on finance, this is my pledge, they seem like a right rip off

Hugs and sympathies OP

dudleyboy

out of interest, what's the car?

mboro

Have you asked the finance people for advice ??? eg......can I sell the car (not privately) but to a local car dealer and pay you so much a month?... this is what I did when I bought a car on finance.

Tell them that you cant afford the re payments, they could come up with a couple of ways to help you out. I think I am right in saying they can come and reposess the car and you pay monthly re paymets on what you owe them.

Good luck .

ceejam

You could ask for a settlement figure from your finance company and try and refinance it with an unsecured personal loan.

I did that, still got the car, but just about to sell it. Unfortunately it's an MG, and the value has fallen, so what was £15 grands worth of car (I didn't pay that!!), is now only worth about £4000!

sunflower_2

thanks v much for all the replies
am not really sure what sort of answers i wanted - i know there is not a lot i can do - i suppose i just wanted to get it off my chest and admit i was wrong!

havent been able to do this til today - i just tell everyone i love the car and its totally worth the money !!! he he

oh - its a new Clio - a very expensive one at that
i wanted the cheapest one and ended up with the top of range !!
those salesmen are very good.....

twink

we were always advised to take out a bank loan for a car then it is your car from the start, maybe things have changed now though

Cantdance_2

I feel your pain...

We traded in a perfectly reliable 13-year old Ford Fiesta for a brand spanking new Peugeot 206 in February last year and have been paying out £150 a month for it ever since. We only did it because we were going to have to fork out £400 to get the Fiesta through its MOT and it seemed like a great excuse to get a new car!

The car's great but we really shouldn't have done it because £150 a month for a year is certainly a damn sight more expensive than £400!

Anyway, we've hit rock bottom financially now so we have no real option but to get rid of the car as it's a payment we can't afford. We're also on one of those "pay so much for 3 years and then give it back or buy it" plans, but when I rang Peugeot up they told me that as long as I pay off all the finance on it I can do what I like with it.

The car's worth about £500 less than we owe on it so I've put it up for sale for the market value and have just got an offer to buy it for that price... so in a few days I'll be rid of the car and the loan will be paid off (although I will still have £500 to pay on my 0% Credit Card, sadly...)

So it can be done but the way it works is that you always owe more than the car's worth, so be prepared to try and find a few hundred quid.

James

Lewby

What a familiar story. I bought a brand new top of the range Focus in Nov 2003. Fortunately I have been pleased with it and took out a personal loan to pay for it, but the amount left on the loan is now more than the value of the car. I am coming up to the 3 year warranty mark and have been asked if I want to exchange it. If I do, it means more finance, on top of what I'm already paying off for another 3 years!!

I've decided to keep the car for the next 3 years, it's reliable and I like it and I need to have a car. I think that when I've had it about 8 years I will feel like I've had value for money but I would NEVER buy a brand new car again.

I know that over the years car loans have been a significant part of our problem, espepcially when my OH has a car, gets a loan, changes the car, more finance and still paying off the last loan!

Thank goodness for MSE and my 'awakening'.

My advice ceejam is to firstly check that you haven't got PPI on it, if you have cancel it and save some money. Secondly, if you really don't like the car go back to the garage and speak to the saleman, tell him you don't like it and don't think it's good value. You could make a complaint if it was a brand new car, dealers don't like complaints and will often try to help you out. You could ask to downgrade the car and see what deal they will give you around the finance. They may give you another car and depending on what the value of the other car is they may go back to the finance company and rearrange the finance for the lower cost car, reducing you monthly payments.

We definately don't complain enough in this country .. I had some problems with my new car in the first 3 months, wrote a four page letter of complaint and they treat me like royalty now!!

Good luck.

Lewby xx

sunflower_2

thanks very much i will give them a try.

i wonder if i would get a refund on the grounds that it seems like a very "unlucky" car...

8 days after picking it up someone scraped all the paint off the back bumper whilst it was left in a little chef carpark
then few days after that someone took paint off one of the wing mirrors - ended up costing me £400 altogether - gutted !!!