Military Battle buddies please help. :-)?

Question

im spc. clinton in the u.s army shipping off to active duty in a week.(frm ARNG, wasn't wrkn 4 me) i was wondering if someone could give me information on leasing a car, fairly new 05-06. I have good credit and would like to put down about 3k on a car 20k-24k looking to keep the vehicle for maybe a 36 month period. if anyone leased a car in any military branch, what steps or things will i have to do in my situation.

-how much a month would i be looking at.
-how much should i put down
-what should i know, dealing with the "shark" dealer
-idk, should a spec. even have a car

thanxs and those in the army answering, i love you guys....and females.

Answer 1

1. Dont buy until you get to your next duty station and find out what the situation is like. You may not need a car (ie: all transport is provided free in Iraq).

2. Dont lease. Huge rip-off.

3. Your chain of command will probably advise against a car. Not that much need in the barracks. Listen to them. They are probably right.

3. If you must buy, get a decent used car. I purchased a good used car - 2 years old with about 20k miles on it - and only paid about $14k Thats because I have kids. No kids (ie: less concern if it breaks down somewhere) and you could get a good car for $9-10k. Thats smarter too, because even if your not deployng NOW, you very well might in 24 months. Check Carmax.com or other 'no-haggle' dealers for good use car prices.

Good luck!!

Answer 2

Well, Spc. Clinton. First of all, if you are shipping out, why would you want to lease a car? The best reason for you right now is to save the money you have rather than leasing a car. For the simple fact that you are basically renting the car instead of keeping it later on, not only that you are responsible for the upkeep for that leased car, whether or not you are driving it or not. Which I know you won't since you are leasing the car, and that you will be shipping in a week.

If I were you the best thing I can tell you is to save your money and buy a car when you come home from deployment. This way you are using the car instead of having the car in the garage and you on deployment not able to use it, that is wasting your money.

However, if you really really want to lease a car, here's a couple of things that you should tell your "leaser":

1. Congress has enacted a bill that if you are getting a loan to buy anything such as a vehicle or a house that the loan's APR rate should not be larger than 6.5%, and if the leaser give you larger than this you can report them and must report them.

2.If you really are leasing it, then you should put down about 10 to 15 percent of what the car's value is.

3. Yes, as a specialist you can own a car. However, it is your responsibility that if you lease a vehicle or buy a vehicle with a loan, that you have to be able to manage your financial needs. Meaning that you should have a budget. If you fail to manage your financial stability and you defaulted on a loan, you could lose your job in the army, specially if you as Spc have a specialty on a rating that carries a security clearance. You could lose your security clearance if you defaulted on a loan or any lease, and you could be considered as a threat to secret materials; if you get this you could get discharge from the army if you can not pay the loan or the lease.

4. While you are on deployment, if there is a court proceeding against you, the court can not award who ever is suing you for anything such as a pending alimony or payment to something.

Likewise, my suggestion for you is to keep your money and use it later on to buy a car. Specially if you are shipping out to a combat zone or hazardous zone. The combat and hazardous zone money are not taxable, you could save money and get a car.

Answer 3

My husband is in the Army and when we first got married he was under a terrible agreement with a "shark" dealer. First and foremost you should talk with JAG and get a list of dealerships in your area that may be on the "no-go" list.

But I agree on not leasing. It's best to fall under a normal contract and by all means have THAT looked at by JAG as well before you sign anything. And yes especially if you are single a Specialist should have a car unless you want to rely on other guys for rides everywhere. Which my husband did for a time and sucked. But make sure you aren't deploying anytime soon, otherwise it's next to pointless. What you put down is really up to you, but there are also financial counselors somewhere, I don't know what post you will be at but there are always directions as to how to spend your money wisely. Hope this helped.

Answer 4

Battle buddies, havn't heard that term in a while. Back at flight school we had "stick buddies" which sounds extremly gay when your at a bar and introduce everyone to your stick buddy, anyways.
From what your describing it sounds like you don't want to lease a car, you want to buy a car and finance it, am I right?
If you lease a car, you generally don't put much money down, you make monthly payments and at the end of the lease, you rather bring it back, or pay off the remaining cost and buy it. Being in the military I wouldn't really reccomand leasing a car being that if you don't buy it, you have to pay a certain percentage on the amount of miles you drove it, and between pcsing and trips to the beach and what not, I put alot of miles on my car. The only plus side to leasing a car is you could get out of your contract if you deploy.
Yes you should have a car, unless you plan on spending most of your time on base, and relying on your buddies to get you from A to B. I'm guessing you're single, since you'll be living in the barracks you won't have many bills so I'd say definatly get a car.
I would suggest buying a car though. A 20-24K car with about 3k down I'd guesstimate your payments to be between 300-350 a month. Don't go spending your entire savings on a car though, cause when you do pcs, even though most of your moving expenses will eventually get reimbursed, moving is quite costly and you'll have to pay some stuff out of pocket.
You could aways wait untill you get to your first duty station and take a look at the cars on the "lemon lot" on post. There's ussually some decent deals, soldiers who can't keep up with payments, guys getting ready to deploy ect.
Once you do get to your duty station, stay away from the dealships around post, they're the real "sharks", they feed on soldiers. I had a buddy that sold his truck to a dealer for 4 grand, they sold it several days later to a pvt for 8, and although it looked real nice, it needed about 5 grand worth of work. What ever you do, good luck.
Oh yeah, wait untill u find out where you're going! If you end up in korea or a place you can't bring a car, you definatly don't want to be making payments on a car you can't drive. If you go to germany, wait untill you get there to buy a car, you probably won't even need one over there, they've got a good public trans. system.

Answer 5

First, you'll want to take along someone from your unit that knows about cars. It won't be to hard to find that person and befriend him. Second, I would suggest buying a car. You'll need one beyond 36 months, and the army will store it when you deploy, or you can do what I did and leave it with your parents. Third, get as far away from a military base as feasible to buy a car.

Answer 6

Dont lease, use that money to buy a pov out right. making payments sucks and you always lose money on a car.