Has anyone had any luck with auto loan lender approval with a freshly started ch 13

[Shanes]

Ok, here is my dilemma.. my chapter 13 was just confirmed last week so I’m just starting out. Here’s the thing.. I have a car with 205,000 miles on it and I’m getting nervous that I’ll be backed in a corner with a catastrophic failure here, so my Attourney said that I can do a plan modification to accommodate for the car payment.
I’ve checked 5-6 Mazda dealers and Cars Direct for loans.. no one will touch me with a 1000000,00000 foot pole with an open chapter 13 even with a co-signer with great credit who lives in the same household as me.. my fiancé.
so I’m left with an option that I’m waiting on my Attourney to speak to the trustee about.. a public employee pension loan since I’m paying into the pension system for my public sector job. I’m hoping I can pay it off early.. like $1500 left, and get trustee approval to take out like $25,000 at 7.24 apr over 5 years. sounds like a great idea right? It’s not a 401k, so I don’t have to worry about not gaining on what’s in the account.

do Trustee’s usually approve PERS loans for cars if other options are pretty much impossible despite what we’re led to believe?

[justbroke]

Those loans are tough to get if you haven't been in the Chapter 13 for at least one year (with good payment history). There are few lenders that would take on a Chapter 13 loan after the one year mark, but there are a couple... and it's almost never a dealership.

I don't know why any attorney would let a debtor go into a 3-5 year Chapter 13 with a vehicle with hundreds of thousands of miles on it. I wouldn't enter a Chapter 13, personally, with a car with over 70,000 miles. But that's me.

If you're going to borrow money from your pension, that should be easily approved. The Trustees don't get in the way of you earning money because if you don't earn, they don't earn! A vehicle is a necessity for the supermajority of debtors in Chapter 13s, so that they can earn their living and make their payments.

[Shanes]

Well, thank god im a public sector employee where the pension loan won’t prevent me from earning like a 401k would if I had borrowed against it.. It’s a defined benefit program. So it’s a loan at a decent 5.25 apr. I think I can borrow up to $35k under normal circumstances. I’m in the process of waiting for my Attourney to speak to the trustee about this and about plan modification to accommodate for a $500 monthly payment, since I have only a few left on the current car and I’ll trade that one in and probably break even on that deal.

exactly 1 year ago I filed chapter 7 and I was shot down, but if I knew beforehand I would have purchased a new car then when this one had about 170k on the odometer.

[flashoflight]

That 35k per year of driving is real brutal. After 100k miles, the choice of make and model matters a lot more than the initial miles especially with the 35k/year of driving. Chapter 13 is a long slog with very little room for error. The best cars for CH13 longevity are those with the highest probability of making it to 200k-300k and that would be the Toyota Corolla and the Honda Civic. Cute, sporty, and fun to drive don't matter at all. Making it to discharge is what matters. Honestly I would not consider any other make/model due to the need for longevity.

On most other cars, 205k miles means it's got a fair chance of crapping out for good so getting another car is a good idea.

[Shanes]

Believe it or not my current vehicle is a 2011 BMW 328xi..AWD with the 205k miles, I had it for almost 6 years and put most of those miles on it. It has been perfectly reliable and runs perfectly also everything still works in it, but like you said at this point of something major happens on such a complex over engineered car, it’s too expensive if I can’t do the work myself, and since it’s been Uber reliable for all those miles, something or multiple things are bound to happen and it’s my only vehicle and I can’t be down.. so It’s definitely best to replace it.
under normal non chapter 13 living conditions I’d love get another BMW . possibly a CPO X3, but for obvious reasons I’m not getting another one.. it’s just not that feasible for chapter 13 survival, so I have to kick it down a few notches..
I’m looking at the Mazda CX-5 at the moment, their Skyactiv technology is really going the distance from what I’ve been reading..they are %100 Japanese now and have a point to make as a company to compete with Honda and Toyota.. hopefully a 2019 leftover or demo... Where I live I need AWD or else I’ll end up stuck in the valley during the winter months.
I would consider a CRV, but I have concerns about anything that has a CVT transmission and Honda is currently having oil dilution problems these days, otherwise in the past I loved my Honda Element that I once owned and ran the piss out of it.
one car I’d never buy for sure is a modern day Nissan.. they are just god awful and it’s sad because they were once such a great company.

[flashoflight]

I think someone could write a book about what car/truck/SUV/minivan to buy for ch13 survival. Civic and Corolla are not the only ways to survive, but there are so many more ways to mess it up than to get it right vs sticking with the boring used early 2010s Corolla or Civic. Yeah if someone bought a Mercedes, BMW, or Chrysler/Fiat, might as well call the lawyer now to dismiss the ch13 LOL. The requirement for AWD/4WD complicates things a lot and reduces MPG considerably vs the Corolla/Civic. I'm also wary of the new tech inside many new cars due to repair costs, even without the CH13. Fixing the old-school dials is much easier on the CH13 wallet.

I agree Nissans have been terrible since the merger with Renault. The 1990s Maximas and Sentras were great. One of my biggest mistakes was to sell my 1994 Sentra just because it was too small. According to DMV records, it's still on the road today in 2019. That Nissan (or any 90s Nissan) would be a great chapter 13 car.