Reaffirm lease is expiring, options

[rex444]

The lease on my 06 Subaru is expiring in 2 months and I need some advice on my options. I put the cash aside to buy the vehicle outright but some unexpected expenses have come up and I can't buy the car anymore. The buyout is almost $11k but the car is worth almost $13k (KBB trade-in value).

We were discharged in Feb 09 and current scores are 650ish.

My first question is are there lenders I can go to myself to get a loan? Is my best bet to go to the dealer and see what they can do? I know they want me to turn the vehicle in because every time its in for service they make me offers.

Part of me wants to take it to another dealer and work out a trade on another used vehicle as I'm afraid lenders will want more of a down payment on my current vehicle then they will on another one from a dealer.

Any experience or thoughts would be great.

[JoeBankrupt33]

This happened to me with Ford, but my lease expired two years after discharge. Anyhow, I went into a ford dealership before the lease expired and explained that I wanted to keep the car and finance the balance if I could. I was surprised that they approved it, but my rate did increase 5% which was the maximum increase allowed by the original lease contract.

They said that it would have been a lot more difficult if I waited until after the lease expired.