BlkBuzzard

Hey,

Im pretty inexperienced when it comes to cars and loans and stuff so I need some advice. I am financing an '06 GS430. It has 19k miles on it. It's in good condition. Maintained well. No Mods.

I currently owe 36k on it and have 4 more years to go to finish off paying for it. My financial situation has changed and I need OUT. What are my options? I mean like..Can I sell it? and use the money to pay off the loan and maybe still keep some change in my pocket? Or can I trade down to like an IS250 or heck..even a Toyota Prius or Camry about now? Anything else I can do to get out the payments?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions and advice you can throw at me.

lexuslover

sorry to hear of your situation.

the thing you have to determine is how much equity you have in the car. i have no idea what a 19k-mile GS430 is selling for in your area, but let's just assume it's 40k. if you get 40k, and you pay off 36k in the loan, you only have 4k in equity. which means you can either take that money and run, or finance a less expensive car with the money.

it sounds like you don't want to make any car payments right now so your best bet is probably not to get into another new car that is going to take a depreciation hit. b/c if you run into more problems down the line, you will have to sell that new car and you may very well be "upside down" on the loans, which means you would owe money even after selling it...

greg h

I bet you could get at least 44k for your car. If you want a quick quote from someone who will buy your car on the spot try CarMax. Check www.carmax.com for locations. They will give you a quote and if you decide to accept their offer pay off your loan and give you a check for the equity all within a hour or so. You definately have equity...so once you get the cash in hand go get a used camary or something until your situation improves. Good Luck

BlkBuzzard

Thanks. I'll give carfax a look-see and see what I find. Thanks again.

braheem

iTrader: (4)

Car MAX bro, not carfax. If you have any friends that are car dealers they could run it through an auction for you, you can also try eBay. you're not upside down in your loan so you have a lot of good options as long as you have the time to take advantage of them.

Good luck.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

I'd go for trade-in - a sales guy would be psyched about getting a low mileage new luxury car like yours so you could probably go quite well against a trade-in. Of course if you get a Camry or something they owe you money back.

But if you can say, how much are you looking to lower your monthly payments by?

LeslieRC

I wouldn't get my hopes up. Car dealerships low-ball offers on trade-ins because they make large profits on re-selling late model trades. Look up the resale value of this car and subtract $10K to get an idea of what a car dealer would offer in trade.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

The trade-in value isn't the same as resale of course. And the new car salespersons don't care if the used car salespeople don't make so much.

It's worth a shot anyway, I think.

And CarMax is only going to give a trade-in value also. The best 'value' you can get is to sell it privately, but that's not always easy.

Yang1815

iTrader: (1)

They'd low ball you anyway. That and an expensive low mileage new luxury car is hard to sell, especially at a different brand. Even after you trade it in, the dealership will negotiate with the local Lexus dealer to get rid of it. After all, Toyota potential buyers aren't looking for a Lexus...

LeslieRC

Oh, but yes they do care! It's a for-profit business and used cars is where the $$ is really made. For late model cars, the difference between trade-in value and resale value is usually around $5K. New car salesmen and their sales managers typically stretch this variance to $10K, and the "trick" is to try to get it somewhere in between.