Got approved with Capital One...

[lovebirds]

My concern with the 100k miles on a vehicle is the service that has to be done to the timing belts soon (or should have been done in the past) and if the transmission fluid wasn't changed religiously, you're looking at a nice $2,000 bill to fix it. I've seen it too many times.

My father-in-law had a Honda Odyssey that was in beautiful shape. When the van hit 130k miles, the transmission went out and cost him $2,000 to fix. Plus that engine has a dual overhead cam with 2 timing belts, so you're looking at a 4-digit bill to maintain that.

When I buy used cars, I am always anticipating what my expense will be in the not-to-distant future. I am super picky when it comes to maintenance. I try not to buy any vehicle that has over 50,000 miles.

That $4,000 dollar vehicle can quickly turn into a $7,000 dollar one in no time.

When I check Auto Trader, I always look 300-500 miles out from my zip code. I am ALWAYS willing to make a long drive for a car if the price is right. Saving $2,000 to $5,000 is well worth a 4 to 12 hour drive for me. I could not earn that kind of money in that time period. So I will sacrifice my time to find a good deal.

I guess in a nutshell, I am "cherry picking" the cars, so to speak. I want my cake and eat it, too. The deals I look for are very rare and require a ton of research to find. Many emails and phone calls have to be made to find the deals I discover.

High-mileage cars have too many "what-if's" to deal with. There's a reason why those people got rid of the car in the first place. They probably got tired of dumping money into it. So now you get the car and now it's your turn to start dumping money into it. Been there, done that. Can't afford it right now.

Another tip when buying a used car is to invest in a "paint meter". This will help you discover if the car had any body work.

I said immaculate records. This guy did everything at the local Honda dealership and has every single receipt to back it up. Looks like the right door and back seat was never used. Guess he got tired to being lonely and wanted to upgrade to a BMW to fix that haha!

I plan on using this car to get back and forth to work (10 miles) while my hubby uses my 2006 Nissan Sentra to drive back and forth from Baton Rouge to New Orleans twice a week for school.

Then again, I come from a family of mechanics. My dad drives a 1987 Toyota truck. Tiny little thing and super old. I will never understand driving such a old vehicle but he (like me) is definitely a Point A to Point B person. My uncles tend to buy newish cars (Honda & Toyotas only).

What I plan to do is put the $355 we are giving up in payments from his crushed Nissan Altima to move that into a car emergency fund along with my $75 car emergency fund for my Nissan Sentra. And if the Honda goes out, we are just back down to one car again.

We've been a one car couple since his Altima was crushed at a red-light in February. Annoying but it is not a requirement for a 2nd vehicle in our case. He drops me off at work at 5 am and I just stay until he picks me up at 6pm. Best part is I would get to take off Fridays! But not anymore...back to regular 8 hour days, thank god.

[Never_Again]

It sure did. Doesn't matter about a Honda having high mileage if it was maintained correctly. If you want something the dump after 100k you should stick to American. Super cheap and useless after 80-100k.

If you believe the news media for the last ten years, you will think this way. My 2000 Chevrolet Suburban has over 175,000 miles, and is still going strong. I work in the automotive business, and have a suburban that comes in with over 300,000 miles on it. Not a Toyota or Honda, but a CHEVROLET! I have also seen Hondas that are done at 100K. Of course, they haven't had the care taken of them.

Bottom line... if you take care of any vehicle, it will last. Do all of the recommended maintenance. There isn't an American vehicle out there that isn't good for 200K miles if you do this.

Don't get me wrong.... Honda is a good vehicle. Most people with Hondas (and Toyotas for that matter) are conditioned that they are the best thing on the road, so they had better take care of them. They do the maintenance. Yes, everyone knows of someone with ANY kind of car that has had lots of problems. Again, do your maintenance.

Buy something that has had reasonable care taken of it, and you will be fine.

[debtmonster]

I've owned 4 Saturns or so in the past several years. Several of them had electrical problems with the check engine light coming on. The very first one I ever bought had problems the very MINUTE I parked in the driveway. I called the dealer the very next day and swapped it out for a replacement.

I used to own a Vue V6. As soon as the car broke 36,000 miles, the check-engine light came on. I didn't want to pay to fix it. So I traded it for the Hybrid one. That car had nothing but problems after we put a few thousands miles on it.

I find it amazing that the Saturn Ion I have now runs like brand new. I put Amsoil in the engine and transmission right when the car was new, so now the engine or tranny never goes out (of course I won't tell GMAC this.) As far as they are concerned, this car will be ready to be wholesaled off to the first BUY HERE PAY HERE lot to sell as a high mileage junker! I am hoping to buy it cheap after my discharge just to save me the headache of having to go all over the place to buy a new car. It starts and runs every day and has never left me stranded. I'm amazed that I have not had to change the battery yet with all of the miles I have put on it. Plus I have a huge sub-woofer with a 1,000 watt amp that should be ragging on the battery and alternator.

Lovebirds, if you have a family of mechanics, you're good to go!! That should help you tremendously with your vehicle.

[killinstinct]

If you believe the news media for the last ten years, you will think this way. My 2000 Chevrolet Suburban has over 175,000 miles, and is still going strong. I work in the automotive business, and have a suburban that comes in with over 300,000 miles on it. Not a Toyota or Honda, but a CHEVROLET! I have also seen Hondas that are done at 100K. Of course, they haven't had the care taken of them.

Bottom line... if you take care of any vehicle, it will last. Do all of the recommended maintenance. There isn't an American vehicle out there that isn't good for 200K miles if you do this.

Don't get me wrong.... Honda is a good vehicle. Most people with Hondas (and Toyotas for that matter) are conditioned that they are the best thing on the road, so they had better take care of them. They do the maintenance. Yes, everyone knows of someone with ANY kind of car that has had lots of problems. Again, do your maintenance.

Buy something that has had reasonable care taken of it, and you will be fine.

Thank you. I agree. I do all my own oil changes, brakes, flushes, etc. I have an '04 Chevrolet Malibu with 104,000 that I need to last at least several more years and I'm counting on this. I just bought new tires and replaced the power steering pump last year, but that's pretty much it. Not even a hint of problems, and it has a timing chain, not a belt, so that doesn't even need replacement. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

[debtmonster]

That's the one good thing I like about GM cars... the timing chains. Timing belts always have to be changed when you least expect it... when you're broke!

That's what I like about my Saturn and one of the reasons why I want to keep it. My car has electric power steering. No pumps to mess with. Tires for it were about $400 (that I included in my bankruptcy... <gulp!>)

[killinstinct]

Nice! $400 for tires is not bad. I'm looking at a grand for the Charger. Ugh. That's one of the reason's I'm not going to reaffirm it. It's a really, really awesome car, but at the same time, if things ever got really bad I could just dump it and not have the repercussions.

I had an '81 Celica and a '93 Nissan that ran forever and showed no signs of fainting. I swear to god they would have run without oil. However, the American cars I've owned (Plymouth, Chevy, Chrysler, Dodge) and I've had trouble with, it's pretty clearly my own fault. I was not religious with maintenance like I am now. I was sporadic with oil changes and I'm not sure I ever flushed the tranny on my PT cruiser a few years ago and the tranny crapped out at 96,000 miles. That was an expensive lesson (about 2 grand). Oh well....

I think that money was still on a card that I BK'd!

[debtmonster]

I charged the tires on my Sam's Club card. Not long after, my lawyer told me to stop paying on all of my cards. I needed tires as a necessity. I had 60,000 miles on the factory ones. It wasn't worth dying over from having a blown tire. I had a lump in one of the belts and you could feel the car vibrate really bad over 45 MPH. The car kept pulling to the left or right since the tires were worn, even though I kept rotating the tires.

Look at the problems the PT Cruiser had...

http://www.ptcruiserproblems.com/

I've founds lots of those cars for $6,000 to $8,000 that I was looking to buy after bankruptcy. After seeing that web site, FORGET IT.

If you're giving your car back, DON'T waste your money on the Amsoil then. It will save the car down the road and it's not too cheap to use initially, but if you're going to give it back, then let the next person deal with the headaches and just put in the cheap stuff until they take the car. I'd only use that oil if you plan on keeping the car at least 6 to 12 months just to save on oil changes. That's how I got away with doing 4 oil changes in 78,000 miles! Needless to say, it's saving me a lot of money.

[killinstinct]

No. I plan on keeping the Charger. I would like to keep it forever if possible. I'm just saying, if things got even WORSE (is that possible, of course it is....) I could just let it go if I didn't have it paid off yet (about 3 1/2 yrs. left of payments). Worst case scenario I'll still have it for another year. That's if the world comes to an end.

It's my baby and my most prized possession. So if this stuff is really good I will use it. I have a really hard time getting out of the 3,000 mile oil change even if people swear by the stuff though.

You know what's funny. After I rebuilt the tranny, I TRADED IN the PT for the Charger about a year and a half ago. They gave me about 4 grand. Not too bad eh?

[debtmonster]

How old was it and how many miles did it have on it?

I remember seeing those PT's on the showroom floor back in 2001 and the dealers were selling them for like $32,000 back then. Can you imagine if you paid that much back then only to get $4,000 today?

[killinstinct]

It was an '03 with just under 100,000. Course brand new rebuilt tranny at the time too.

It had like 30K miles when I bought it with my ex, paid probably $14K or so for it. I'm not sure because I had my head buried in the sand with finances in those days (she used to hide CC bills in the cupboards where I couldn't find them...good times). Anyhoo, I felt I got a good deal on trade in cause I bought the Charger when gas was sky high and people were freaking out and unloading those cars. I owe about 12K on the Charger and it's in great shape.

[debtmonster]

They gave you $4k with 100k miles on it?!?!?! WOW!!! I can't see paying $7,000-8,000 at a dealer for a used PT with 100k miles on it. That's usually what they would mark it up. So then the people talk them down to $5,000 to $6,000. But for $6,000, there's a lot of low mileage PT's on AutoTrader.

[killinstinct]

I know it! I couldn't believe it. But then again, at that time, gas prices were high (PT got pretty decent gas mileage), dealers were struggling, and we had fantastic credit. I think it was just the perfect storm.

When we get discharged I might check our score, but I'm scared right now. And it doesn't really matter as I'm pretty certain I will just pay cash for some kind of piece of (*&t from here on out. I'm over financing.

[lovebirds]

That's the one good thing I like about GM cars... the timing chains. Timing belts always have to be changed when you least expect it... when you're broke!

That's what I like about my Saturn and one of the reasons why I want to keep it. My car has electric power steering. No pumps to mess with. Tires for it were about $400 (that I included in my bankruptcy... <gulp!>)

Timing chains with the safety are great but they are a bastard to install.

[debtmonster]

Timing chains with the safety are great but they are a bastard to install.

You got that right. But most people never have to change them. The entire car is wore out long before the timing chains go.

I've changed one before. It was no fun. You need all kinds of special pulleys and stuff to get one to come off. You don't just turn a screw and it falls off.

If it didn't rain so much and wasn't hot here, I'd rather just drive a motorcycle.

[relief13035]

Relief 15035,

How did you modify your heloc, after chap 7 discharge.

I had to reaffirm primary mortgage with Wamu/Chase and have my heloc with Citibank.

on the road to recovery





Filed 7/28/09
Meeting of creditors 9/16/09:

First - we didn't reaffirm the first or the Heloc.

Then basically I stopped paying on my HELOC with Citi. Then I contacted the Citi Executive Response Team (pm me if you want the info). I offered them a settlement of 10% and we ended up settling at 12%. I wired them the money and they are now reporting my HELOC as "Paid-settled at a lesser amount" on my credit report.

In the end - I paid $15k on a HELOC owing $125k and we are done! I have my house back now, with my little mortgage payment again.