Who does "So you have a discharge wanna car" deals?

[Rahaton]

We only just had our 341 meeting but I just got a letter from the local Chrysler/Dodge people offering to set us up with a new car and a loan after the discharge. Can we expect to hear from other dealers? In particular there is a Toyota my wife would like, but if not that well get something off of Craig's list. Anyone received this kind of offer from them? What other brands are friendly in that way?

Thanks!

[AngelinaCat]

The car dealerships are getting desperate if this is starting to happen. My personal belief is to stay far AWAY from any kind of credit offers. Save up your cash, and then after Discharge, find a good used serviceable vehicle, and pay cash for it.

I am driving a 1993 Pontiac Grand-Am SE that was an ex-police car and then ex code enforcement car. We paid $800.00 at auction; put another $200.00 of work into it and it is doing well getting me from point A to point B w/o trouble for a reasonbly good gas mileage rate. Yes, it needs a paint job, and the windows don't close all the way, but it is PAID for and owes us nothing should I have to leave it at the side of the road.

[Rahaton]

I totally agree in principal, and I am getting an $800 truck for my use. However, as part of her work my wife has to visit customers on-site and has to present a certain image. She also has to occasionally bring people in from the airport as a courtesy (we live by the airport and work is 65 miles away with bad public transit) so often she will bring someone in with her or drop them off on her way home.

All that is to say as part of her work she needs to have a better car than I do. We looked into getting a high mileage or older "nice car" but we cannot afford one outright and you cannot get financing on anything with more than 100k or older than 2000.

One potential route we are looking into would be getting something like a Prius, that would be a "quirky" choice that would not reflect badly on her professionally, while being relatively inexpensive. But we need to figure out what we will be able to do in the coming months as things get sorted, and I cannot figure a way of doing this without a car payment of some sort. I really don't think of it as a car payment but rather a business expense and since she is the one bringing home the bacon at the moment I think we are wise to not push things too much at her job.

I was being kind of flip about saying that we could get something off of Craig's List. It will be hard to find something that will work for her professionally and still pay cash, but we will work with what we can.

[AngelinaCat]

If you look diligently at 'side of the road' deals, you might be surprised at what is out there. In our community, there is a white late model 4 door sedan Mercedes available for about 3K. While out of our league or interest, it has been sitting there for about two-three weeks and an interested party might be able to work out a deal.

Good luck to you.

[Rahaton]

We are looking at those as well as things with light body damage, I worked in a body shop after high school for a bit so I can fix cosmetic stuff (I don't have the tools for bigger jobs.) I am actually trying to haggle on a Lexus right now that was lightly side-swiped that might work out for us. One big problem that I have found (at least in this area) is that 90% of those sidewalk deal cars reeks of smoke like you would not believe. I bought a $1000 Taurus for my commuter about 7 yeas ago like that and after cleaning it as well as we could I would smell like stale cigarets in the office 6 months later. On the 7th month the transmission literally fell on the ground and that fixed my smoke smell problem.

The truth of the matter is that there are very few cars that will work for my wife professionally, particularly in the bought-with-cash range. I go to look at ever one that sounds even close and have been struck out. So we need a Plan B, and that is what I am trying to work on at the moment.

Now from a public relations standpoint it might well be the case that this is not the best thread because it looks like we are running out to get some more debt. But a car of a certain type is basically part of my wife's professional dress, and we budget for it as a "business expense" just like we do her professional wardrobe.

Given all that, might we expect to get more of these sort of offers?