Do I take the $11,000?

Question

OK! CarMax is offering me $11,000 for my 2005 Nissan Pathfinder. The appraisal was great. The car is in great condition, but I have high miles. I still owe $16,000 on the car. So if I take the $11,000 I will stil have to pay off $5,000 more. Do I take the deal? I really want to save and my car payments are too high. I need to get rid of the car but is this the way to go? What offer should I take for this car? One guy said have someone take over payments and pay it off, but then I will not make any money to get a smaller junk car! HELP! HELP!I really want my 08 to be a great year financially but money matters!

Answer 1

If you want to get rid of it, try selling it on your own before you take it to CarMax. $11000 sounds very low to me. Get it cleaned up, put a For Sale sign in it, and put it on a busy street for the weekend and see what offers you get. You can always sell it to Carmax later, but you can do a lot better by selling it on your own.

Answer 2

Unless you sell the car for more than $16000 you will not have any left over to buy a small junk car, period. Carmax will not be able to get the title for the car until the loan is paid in full. You will never see that $11,000 and you will need to pay the $5000 NOW.

The $11K offer from CarMax seems low, but in any case I doubt you will come out ahead even with a private sale. I don't see why anyone would want to take over the payments either if the loan is for more than the value of the car.

I'm sorry but I think your only choices are sell it for a loss (and still have to pay) or keep making payments until you are "rightside-up" on the loan.

Answer 3

If you want to save money in the long run, you are better off keeping this car until you are not upside down on the financing. If you take the deal, you need to come up with 5,000 dollars to payoff the loan. Then you have to purchase another car. So basically, you lose the Pathfinder and you have 5,000 more debt instantly. So think about it this way - is the new car payment you get going to low enough to offset the 5,000 that you put out now?

Answer 4

The Carmax offer will be good for a week. In the meantime, get it detailed and try to sell it yourself. It will take some work but you will probably get more than $11k. Take some GOOD photos and post the ad in your local craigslist -- costs you nothing. Go to Home Depot and buy some for sale signs, fill them in with the details and your phone number, then park it somewhere visible. If all that fails, you are out the cost of the detailing and the signs and you still get your $11,000, but at least you'll know you tried your best.

Answer 5

first off go to look up the kelly blue book value of the car to see if it is more, or less, that the offer carmax is willing to give you. Then, get a second opinion from say, a dealership where you may potentially buy a cheaper car.

If the blue book value is at or less than the $11000, I would say go for it and take the loss, pay off the remaining $5000, and get another car for $6000 and have no payment and PLPD insurance

Answer 6

You didn't say what car you were going to trade it for. You have $5000 neg equity in this scenario, and that's not going away, just added to your new loan ( so make sure you love what you get as you will not be able to trade that one). Payments on that $5000 will be $100 - 120 on top of whatever you buy. How much is your payment now?

Answer 7

It kinda sounds low to me. I know this headache you are speaking off because i got into it myself a year and a half ago. Lets say they pretty much wanted to rape me and decided to stick it out. If i where you I will try and get a loan to pay off the car then sell it yourself.

Answer 8

Usually if it sounds too good to be true...it usually means you have to step in the other direction...I am not familiar with carmax.....

Answer 9

it is a good deal unless u have top of the line pathfinder.