Sell the L.

You're not in a place to own one right now. Just enjoy the memories and get something cheap and responsible. Save up your cash, and by the time you can pay cash for a new truck your insurance rates will be down.

Coldie

 

Do you get a big tax refund every year? if so, claim more dependants and get that money back every month. This could
be good for $100-200+ a month. Of course you loose the tax refund.

Ditch the $40 a month cell phone
Ditch the movie channels: $40 a month

Otherwise, take Coldie's advice. Don't ruin your credit and go ahead and sell it. Get everything in order and by a Gen3 in 06.

 

First, just because one place turned you down for refinancing doesn’t mean another will. Try this place Household Finance

That is who I am with and it saved me $125 a month on my payments. My dealer was a complete jackass and figured they would make up their loss on the sale with the interest rate. I bought my 03 new for $27,800 which included the tonneau cover. I traded my truck straight up, in other words no money back, and no money down just a straight trade-in on my 01.

I knew they would try some slime crap to make money so I played along knowing I was going to refinance. I only made one payment to Ford and with that loan paid off Ford made a net profit (in interest) of $28 LMAO

Another thing how is your credit? Do you know what it looks like? Have you pulled your report online to see if it’s possible there are some things in your credit that are not really yours?

You have a credit score and it ranges from 350 – 850. Anything under approx 500 – 550 is poor and no one will touch you. When I first looked at mine I had a score of 625, not bad but not good, it was considered “fair” and that met higher interest rates.

Long story short, ex and her freak husband refinanced their “mobile home” and put their crap credit on my report. You may think people can’t do that, but I will tell you people do and it is easy, especially if you are like me and never look at your credit to see what is there.

Got that cleaned up and brought my score to about 680 which is good and considered “prime” borrower where you can “possibly” get good rates. 700 – 750 or above is what your shooting for to get the “good” rates.

So, I had some credit cards with high limits on them. Big time points for getting them to 45% or below in balance (i.e. if your card has a limit of $1,000 and you only have a balance of $450 = good points) higher percentage and your points “credit score” goes down.

So, if you have some spare cash that you can spare for 2 – 3 months pay down the cards so your score goes up, higher score means much easier to get refinanced and at LOWER rates.

I got all my cards below 45% and brought my score to 730 excellent score for LOW rates, but my dealer wanting to bend me over and charge me 8.25% on the loan. Ok, screw them I want the truck, have no time to screw around so I sign the papers wait to make the first payment, put in for refinance with Household (above) and in one day was approved.

So if you’re interested in looking into your credit here are some links where you can get your report with a score. It cost extra for the score but you WANT TO GET the score so you know where you are at:

TransUnion

Equifax

Experian

You want to look at all three because one or two could look great while another one looks bad. You don’t know which one they will use so you need to make sure they are all good to go.

I had a bankruptcy in 1997 when I got a divorce. Worse thing I ever had to do and I am still ashamed of having to do it but there was no other way, she left me with all the bills.

Been single every since and have custody of my daughter for the past 2 years.

My point is if there is a will there is a way DON’T GIVE UP yet, check your credit and then apply at a few places.

Another HINT, every time you apply for credit it takes points off your score UNLESS it is for financing (i.e. auto loans, home loans, personal loans) and it’s done within a close time. In other words if you put in for credit for different loans and do it within a few days of each other it only looks as one attempt at getting a loan so very few points are taken off you score.

It would be best, if you don’t know, to check your credit and if need be clean it up and then try to apply for refinancing…

Good luck…

 

Guapo

We all strap ourselves at time, sometimes it's the best thing that can happen because it forces you to HAVE TO make it.
Sometimes a new job is in order, a raise, selling crack, whatever it takes. And unfortunatly sometimes you just have to sell it

Belive me when I tell you I can relate, I've been strapping myself my entire life and I have truly lost tens and tens of thousands on cars. Here I am in the Mid 40's, and I truly have NO savings account, and I mean NO.
Notta, Zip, Nothing..........
I have no clue how and if I will ever retire, I have no clue how and if I can ever put my son through college, yet I just bought another new car cause the frucking heat wasn't working in the Jeep So I pay 550 for a Lightning with hardly any miles on it after two years, and now another 300 for a car I can't even pronounce or spell the name of, (6yr loan no yet).
When you add it together, I could be driving a frigging brand new Viper or Porsche Cayenne Turbo 450/460 and be saving money for his college and or retirement, instead I make 84K have not a penny to my name, live in a shack, and owe over 12K now on the CC's

The worse part is, I'll prob blow the L motor up this yr and really be screwed. But hey, what the Fruck, you only go around once,
I might as well at least drive what I want right ???

If it's strapping you that bad, GET OUT NOW,
or you could screw your whole life up (like I did)
DAM HOT RODS &(@$#(@$#(@%$(@$%(@%$@

FYI
If I had to do it over, I'd do the same thing again..............
Cars are my life, they mean everything to me,
AND THEY DON'T GO ON THE RAG EVERY MONTH, hehehehehehe

 

I hear Viagra and Prozac are a good combination....

 

I just picked up 2 more Valium Prescriptions tonight, now I have 3 diff doses, (two of the doses even melt in your mouth)
Pop a few of those a day along with some Hydro, and woooooooooooooooo weeeeeeeee
ALL YOUR TROUBLES GO AWAY

 

$480/mo for '01 L, $510/mo for '03 Expedition, $100/mo cable TV, $400/mo auto insurance, $160/mo for 4 cell phones for everyone, $300/mo gas, $1K/mo mortgage, $250/mo - heat/lights, $70/mo reg phone, $600/mo food, $200/mo kids allowances, $150/mo meds... and state of Mass charges property taxes on cars as well. Just dropped $750/yr for tax (which was on top of sales tax).


And kid going to college soon, college tells me I have to pony up $2K/mo !!

Came with in one day of being laid off this fall.

Frigging impossible.. but I will not part with L...

JR

 

Ditto Rob........ on the high cost of entertainment !!!! ten and tens of thousands on those fricken cars ...if I had a dollar for every dollar I've pissed away on cars .....I would have a ton of cash

Like me, it sounds like you enjoyed yourself........Your a lucky man......why bother second guessing.


Something that was not in the cards for you was being miserable driving a low cost cheap to insure economy car for the last 18 yrs so that frugality would pay off in savings today, or money towards early retirement.........you could drop dead tomorrow......and you would have been( dead) and pissed if you didnt have fun!!!

of course the down side to that live for the moment speech is that you might accidently live to be 97 and die standing out in front of Wal-Mart handing out buggys........with a high dollar Ford in the employee parking area........



Guapo, (are you young ?) if you are..., get old... the cost of insurance gets cheaper.....
everyone has been there, I have been way up and way down.....financially.... who know you might make a million in the next few years...

If you cant reduce you bills now somewhere else , "man up" and sell that thing... and and be grateful/humble that you had what ya had......You will be closer to owning another one soon. dont sweat it. They day you sell it will be liberating..... then you can go down to the store and pick up an auto trader and start looking for your next one.

 

In my humble opinion if its this hard for you to own it just sell it. Its only a truck. Not worth the stress its putting you through. One day when you are in the position to spend again who knows what you will be able to own. Its hard yes but remember there is so much more to life then cars.

Good luck bro!

 

did someone say hyyyyyyyyyddrrrrro?

 

At least you save a bundle on wax, tire dressing, and car washes.....I have never seen that brown lightning of yours clean.

I thought you drank because it dulled the pain of the inapropriate relationship your involved in with Alan ?


Guapo

Everyone gets depressed.if ya want to talk to a Lightning brother
anytime just add your E-mail to the mailing list in Steeles Sig.

All L owners are here for ya. Steele is an psychotherapist and will gladly talk with any depressed L owner for free.

 

Thanks for the help, everyone.
I just ran my credit report... I have a score of 722. Is that good?
Shouldn't that be enough to get a loan?

 

722 is a very good score. It is not good enough for the real sweet loans of 0% or tier 0 & 1. Ford for instance has I believe 5 credit tiers, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

I may be off a bit so take this with that in mind and someone that works for Ford may be able to come along and correct me.

Tiers 0 and 1 are for customers with flawless credit basically with a credit score in the neighborhood of 800 and above. Then you have tier 2 which is low interest rates and that score is in the neighborhood of 650 – 750, tier 3 score around 550 – 650 not very good rates, more like in the range of 12% and higher. Anything under 550 forget it, or maybe someone would get lucky and get offered somewhere around 21% and up.

So your 722 is good and should be able to get you an interest rate in the neighborhood of 4% - 7%, just depends on who you apply with and what kind of offers they have.

Don’t just try one place try a few and most likely you will get different offers from each. Try the one I posted “Household” they were excellent to deal with and made it very easy. Try a local credit union and then maybe your bank.

The online credit and credit unions will almost always have lower rates then your normal banks and I can guarantee just about every time they will always beat the dealers rates…

Now after pulling your credit and getting a score did you look at all three? Did they all look accurate with no mistakes? If so then you have nothing to lose by trying to apply for an auto refinance loan and as I said before if you apply at more then one place do so within a week’s time so they all count as one credit inquiry on your report (less points taken off your score)

Now, you do have a good credit score that “should” qualify you for a good rate (with that score I would think you could get a rate of no higher then 8% max if that) but the other side of it will be your annual income, how long you been at your current employer and how long you been at your current residence…

Again, I am by no means a credit expert or expert on interest rates. This is just something I had learned just a few months back when it took me approx. 3 months getting my things in order to buy my Lightning. Just trying to pass on what knowledge I have and it may not be complete…

Good luck and let us know how things work out…

 

12,000 a year

1,000 a month

230 a week

33.70 a day

1.40 an hour

2.33 cents a minute

Feel better now that it's only costing you pennies ?

Now that it's only costing you pennies........ get out the credit cards and let the modifications begin.

 

F the credit cards. I just paid off all of mine except one. Worst thing one can have.