Car loan is crippling me!

justmeagain

Ok, new on here so dont quite know how it works. I'll explain the problem and perhaps others in the situation can comment or advise.
Three years into a car loan my circumstances have changed. Im self employed at present so dont find getting credit very easy. (not that I want it any more) Anyway, the long and the short of it is that my car is worth less than I owe on it, taken it to main dealers today who have advised £700 worth of work for mot- brakes tyres usual stuff. in reality I need a small van for my work, more storage than milage a second hand one would do. the question is can i tell my car finance company to take the car back and how would this affect my credit in future?

paddyrg

Depends entirely on your credit agreement, none of us can guess! Can you scan/paste it here?

But as a rule, you'll still owe the money and it would trash your credit.

DevCoder

You need to tell us more information

Is it HP? Is there a VT agreement? How many payments have you made?

justmeagain

Its a straight forward hp agreement, 60 months with a final payment of £299 for admin etc. paid under 30 months and as such as far as im aware they still own the car. (cant lay my hands on the agreement, but have read in the past that there is a point where the cars ownership changes from finance company to registered keeper) took it to dealers today for warranty work, dealers have implied that warranty will be smoother if I agree they do other repairs

chalkie99

The finance company will own the car until the agreement is settled.

If you wish to return it you will need to have made half the monthly payments and the final payment. You will then need to inform the company you wish to terminate the agreement and return it according to their instructions. The additional problem is that you will need to return it in an acceptable condition so may get stung for repairs anyway.

The general concensus is that terminating in this way will not adversely affect your credit rating though lenders may be able to see that you have terminated a previous agreement.

I wouldn't let dealers sweet talk you into too many repairs. Many are desperately short of work at the moment and trying to drum up business.

justmeagain

Thanks all, as I said at first, Im new here, didnt quite understand terminology- googled vt and think we're talking about the same thing, so the next question is can i use the vt route as a lever to get the seemingly sliding scale warranty work carried out ie you fix it or i leave it here type of threat, its a fiat with fiat finance and the threat of fiat steering problems arising, we have two ones been done under warranty at a cost of almost a £1000

DevCoder

The VT route is adverse only to you, it "shouldn't" be classed as a default but as a thread on this sub forum points out today Noddle registers it as such.

Even if you agree VT then it's registered as such on your credit record, it hurts you and not the loan/HP company.

19lottie82

justmeagain wrote: »

taken it to main dealers today who have advised £700 worth of work for mot- brakes tyres usual stuff

there is NO WAY I would ever just take their word for it and splash out the cash on these.

My Mum took her Merc to a Mercedes garage for an MOT which it passed but they "recommended" £1k worth of repairs. My OH is a mechanic, he checked it over and surprise surprise, there was nothing wrong with it.

I took my Corsa in to Arnold Clark as there was a recall relating to the brake bearings. They did a "health check" and made £160 worth of recommendations. I pointed out that as my car is under 3 years old (I have a private plate on it so they obv never clocked), then surely they should be covered under the warranty? Then they told me that they weren't serious enough to be covered by the warranty! But obv serious enough for them to tell me I need them done and charge me a ridiculous amount?! Take a hike pal!

Seriously, ask a round, get a recommendation for a small garage that are renound for being trust worthy and get them to give you their opinion before handing over any cash to these scammers!