Not sure if this is the right place to post this. Please point me in the right direction if I need to modify or move it.
My situation is, I owe 11k on a 2015 Nissan Leaf that I bought during the height of the bubble. The limited range is not working out the greatest. CarMax and etc show cash value at around 3k. I’d love to get another EV but am also willing to do something else with large enough incentives and rebates to negate the negative equity.
My credit is around 660 on Credit Karma but Experian shows over 700. I don’t have money to put down but might be able to scrounge 1k to 2k
Any thoughts? Let me know what other info I can provide.
Large incentives don’t negate negative equity, they just enable you to roll it in to the new lease so you can add a couple thousand to your negative equity by adding rent charge and taxing them again.
Keep this until you can afford something. If you can’t get $2k together you should not be making another financial mistake and compound the debt you are in.
I agree with the sentiment so far. My problem is the range. I’d rather pay more money per month to have a car that gets much more range and can truly be used. Right now we are very limited when something happens to our main car and its been an issue a few times. Paying down the negative equity does not necessarily make the most sense when I could be paying more on a car that gets more than 60miles of range. This is the main issue I face.
The problem with an 8k neg equity is you will pay that 8k equity.
If you do this your payment on the Leaf will cease. But almost that entire payment will go into your next car. So now you are paying for 2 payments on a single car. If your neg equity was say 1k, it won’t show, but 8k? That will boost your payment $250/month. So you don’t have a short range car, but now you have a huge payment.
Another way is to sell the Leaf on FB or CL, but according to my quick look, it’s worth $5k on the open market, so the carmax bid looks about right.
I agree. Additional info on our situation:
I had a paid off VW from 2009 with 150k miles but my son wrecked it. I was living in California at the time and gas was ridiculous per gallon. The leaf worked well there especially in the city. Being more out in the county in TX has made more difficult to get by. I still like the car overall but I don’t think holding onto it makes sense with the lack of active battery cooling, CHAdeMO being phased out completely, etc etc.
Anyway, I currently pay $282 a month on a 72 month loan (6.32 %) and 11k left on the loan. I would say my top limit would be $600 but not sure if its even feasible.
Just trying to understand what might be my options might be or might be when I pay another couple grand off. I know we are approaching year end and figured there might be some incentives to get a previous year’s model etc. I’m open at this point. I’m open to also hear that I’m just going to have to hold onto it for a couple more years. If that means I need to buy a gas junker to get around then I’ll do that too. Trying to figure it out
Totally prepared for a bigger payment. Even if we are adding it to our debt snowball it would be the same thing. Paying this car off or closing up the negative equity leaves me with a vehicle that will probably only go 50mi or less at that point. Trying to find that sweet spot of where to cut my losses and get into another vehicle. Lease, buy etc.
Keep in mind that the negative equity is going to add roughly $250/mo to whatever new lease you get, assuming a 36 month lease at a middle of the road money factor.
What I would do then is
Go buy a 2022 Used Bolt EV (About $15-16k)
Apply for the Used EV Rebate $4k to it (Most Bolts qualify)
Then Have the dealer give you 3k for your Leaf and roll in the 8k neg equity. (20k new total 16k+11k-3k-4k)
Put that on a 48 month used EV Loan ($420/m + Interest + Tax)
So that way you own a long range EV and your payments will go up slightly instead of going way up on a new lease.
If you switch to a lease with a low MF (e.g. Equinox EV at 0.00055 for 36 months), at least you’ll be paying 1.32% on the negative equity instead of 6.32%.
do not go by your Credit Karma credit score. Purchase a membership with MyFico for just one month, it gives you a more realistic Fico Auto score, $29.99 will give you Fico Auto 8 or 9 from all 3 beaurus.
Credit Karma scores dings you for even small-ish purchases designed to basicall suck you into higher interest consolidation loans (aka predictory loans) that they get kick backs for… My score with them and whatever “rating” they use is 50-100 points less, unless of course I keep a near $0.00 balance on each CC statement, over any FICO scores that most lenders use. Basically, they use a score that is considered “risky” if you use more than 10% of your total revolving score…even if you pay all statement balances in full each month…to sell you high interest personal loans, that’s their line of business.
Thanks for the input so far. Not sure the best path yet. The answer may be to just keep paying down the negative equity until we only have to roll over a little bit…
I don’t foresee paying off the car being the answer… Luckily one of us can still get to work and back or to Costco and back… but then that’s it until later in the day. Winter will tell us more and help us determine how desperate we are.
1 - dealer gives him at least 3K or more for his car (any ties to CA where it might be worth a tad more?)
2 - find a low cost lease under $200/mo for at least 36 mos, 48 would be even better for this purpose (look into Ioniq, Arya, Blazer, etc or some cheap Kia or Hyundai ICE cars). 8K over 36 mos = 222.22, so 420 is your magic number again. Right, Elon?
3 - find a TX dealer that will offer tax credit or go out of state. Any friends or family in CO or WA as mentioned by @themachine ?
This doesn’t exist unless he already owned a Bolt. It’s more like $325 with 0 down. The Bolt path I put has a 4000 rebate built in to buffer that neg equity. Plus his mid tier credit would put a damper on things a bit.
