Cliff:
-2020 Ram 1500 White Midnight Package
-Just under 20k miles
-Lease Payment $437
-Financed through Ally Auto with a year and a half left
-Transmission blew on the highway, almost caused accident
-Want out of lease ASAP
Hello, Lease my ram 2020 ram about a year and a half ago, Currently has just under 19k miles. This past Saturday my pregnant wife was driving over large highway bridge going 70 mph, the truck completely shuts off and goes from 70-0 in under 10 seconds. It is a miracle she did not get into a major accident. Truck got towed to the dealer and the transmission is completely blown. Dealership says they have to take pictures of the truck to send to Chrysler to approve warranty work, they gave us zero time frame. At this point we are both over the truck and want out of it, my wife will not drive it again.
Our lease is through Ally, with another year and a half left. Buyout is 34k and to end the lease now is 6k. We know that after the transmission is fixed no dealer is going to want this truck on the lot anyways and it is just going to go to auction.
Any thoughts or help? We want out of this lease ASAP but do not want to put anymore money into the truck. Blown transmission on a brand new truck (basically) makes myself and my wife nervous for the future of the truck.
Ally lease will make this harder to walk away…Ally finance, get bids from all of the online operations and sell it to the highest bidder.
It’s a 2020 full size truck still under warranty. New transmission or not most dealers will want this on their lot.
NM….just reread “year and a half left”, indicating it’s leased. I think the others have given good advice below regarding Ally lease. You may be able to contact one of the brokers on here who do a lot of Ally leases and not take as big of an equity hit.
I get the emotional response here but that’s a good way to cost yourself a lot of $$. Glad your wife is ok! Now step back and take a deep breath.
have you checked the various players to see what a purchase offer would be vs. your payoff to see if there is any equity?
no one will care that the transmission was replaced as long as it is fixed and works afterwards. A dealer will put that on their lot and resell it with no need to disclose that repair. Don’t worry about that.
I wouldn’t say no dealer will want it but you do have to deal with Ally not being easy to get out of with buyout limitations, especially if you’re in a high tax state and you have to buy it out first.
Stuff happens with cars, once it’s fixed shop around to multiple places and see what you can get. If it’s fixed right and you’ve had no other problems with the truck and offers are bad you may just ride it out.
A blown transmission is not treated like an accident. Accidents of course will diminish value.
I understand the emotional response, and am very happy everyone is okay - but let’s slow the roll here. 1st off, Ally says the buyout is 34k, that is for you. They have every right to charge the dealer more in this market, and they probably will. You could owe more than what you think.
A blown transmission means a new one is gonna get warrantied and chucked into this truck. If you still don’t want to drive it, then you will have to take the negative equity hit, because nobody after you is going to care if a transmission got warrantied.
A dealer won’t - they won’t send it to auction, if they sell it locally they make that money, and they get the warranty $ if it breaks again anyways.
The trucked was leased. I was talking with the dealership that I we leased it from (about an hour from us) and they were going to work with Ally and it was basically going to be a wash and we could walk away from the truck until he found out about the transmission and said “we no longer want the truck”…I thought this was interesting.
The dealership that it is currently at (another Ram dealership) said that Ally told them the buyout for them is 45k compared to my 34k buyout.
After it is fixed it sounds like we should just shop the vehicle around and hope that a dealership will be able to work with Ally? We are wanting to buy our next vehicle.
Where are you located? If the 3rd parties (Carmax, Carvana, driveway, broom, GMTV, etc) give you a strong offer you may be able to buy it out yourself ($34k + tax) and still cash out some positive equity.
Just a guess because I wasn’t there to ask follow-up questions, but they probably don’t want the truck with unrepaired mechanical issues (not knowing what else could be wrong on a vehicle they haven’t inspected), which is the current state of the vehicle.
That makes sense! At the end of the day it sounds like dealerships will still be interested in the truck, even with a new transmission and this is good to hear because I would love to send it down the road.
We are a one vehicle family, it blew about 30 minutes from the house. Thankfully, a semi driver stopped behind her and blocked traffic. She had to call 911 for the cops to stop traffic, so as you can see we are over the truck.
Sorry to hear about what happened. Glad to hear nobody was hurt.
Your signature on the lease contract says no, you are not over the truck. Get it repaired under warranty, get a loaner vehicle from dealer in meantime, get the truck back and either buy it out/sell it out or ride out the lease.
Stuff happens, deal with it and move on.
