Financing before CH7

[TEW]

I would love to lease, but my credit is HORRIBLE! Ever since I stopped paying my bills that I will be including in the CH7 my credit has tanked from 700 to a 470.

I don't think any dealer would lease me a vehicle.

[debtmonster]

You need good credit to lease. Plus 550 miles per week is too much for a lease. Leases are for people who drive like 12,000 to 15,000 miles per year.

I was just looking on AutoTrader. I set the years from 5 to 7 years old. I pick under 75,000 miles and change the price from $500 to $3500 to see what comes up.

I just saw a 2003 Ford Taurus on there with 62,000 miles for $2,850.

While in the middle of writing this message...
I found a 2005 Ford Taurus with 65,500 miles going for $2900. The car looks beautiful in the pictures. I am by no means a fan of Ford, but I would not mind driving this car for a few months to a year until I could save the money to buy a much better car for cash.

Another one...

2003 Dodge Intrepid with 74,000 miles. $3,100. Needs brakes and alignment. That's not too hard to fix. Maybe $40-60 for brake pads if you change them yourself in the front yard and another $60-80 for a wheel alignment, as long as the tie rods are not shot.

With Autotrader.com, most of the time I will change the range to 300 miles from my zip code when searching for a good, cheap car. It's worth the drive to get a car for thousands less than a dealer would sell for. I try to buy from a private owner for a price near blackbook. Blackbook is all a dealer will give them for a trade-in anyway. So if a dealer is going to give them blackbook, why should you pay much more? A private person is not offering you any kind of warranty anyway.

I was on there the other day and saw a 2005 Chevy Malibu with 121 original miles that was owned by some old person. That car is like BRAND SPANKING NEW!!! They wanted $7,000 for it. Granted, it just sat out in a parking lot for about 3 years, but with 121 original miles on it, you could start synthetic oil in it while it's new and I bet you could get 300,000 miles out of that car easily.

The thing I hate about buying used cars is that virtually nobody I know ever changed the transmission fluid when you're supposed to. Most shops don't have the equipment to change it or many owners are too cheap to pay to have it done. By the time the transmission starts slipping, it's too late and then the person needs $1500-3000 to replace or rebuild the tranny. Instead, they sell the car cheap and then one of us buys it and gets the shaft. This is one of the reasons I have always bought brand new cars off of the lot my entire life.