What to do with a trashed car?
 

So I did a buy here pay here for my mother's friend's adopted (at 17) daughter against my better judgment. No job, bad credit and on welfare. Her "mom" slapped down $1000 and I financed the rest ($2500). I made the payments small ($133 per month) so she could afford them........

......3 months down the road she calls and says the rad. is leaking. I refer her to my mechanic and tell her not to drive it. I haven't heard from her since.

.......so after being late on her 1st 3 payments and not making the next 2 I repo finally the car. Get the report from my mechanic. Motor is toast. Sad thing is its a really clean 98 Maxima GLE, loaded, leather, etc. Now it has a smashed front fender and blown motor....sigh.

I'm upside down about $1000 and it will cost atleast $1500 to fix. Any ideas besides the scrapper?

I even googled fun motor swaps but there are none.....

Looks like its a $2500 lesson

Pop it on Craigslist. Someone will pay $1000 for it as-is. You broke even and learned your lesson.

Or, buy a beat up Maxima with a bad trans but a good engine for ~$500 at auction (many years motor interchange wiht '98 Max). Then pay ~$300-400 to swap motors, sell the carcass and resell your 'nice' Maxima.

I'd do the CL as-is route.

E

Terry now you see why the buy here pay here is only done with $500 auction beaters.... My dad used to do that... It was a rough biz... One tip from him though.... ALWAYS keep a set of keys to the ride...

Funny thing is I never do it for that reason. Rough biz. Normal friend of the family story. After the math it looks like its part out the good stuff and scrapper. What a shame.

Terry if you can get the carcass with glass and doors intact to OK.... We will blow it to smithereens on film for you....

The Maxima is the biggest POS ever made by Nissan
It's in the top 5 cars towed by AAA

Really.... Cuz my mom drove the snot out of a '91 maxima for 10yrs.... Always got her home....

she must have got the good one that they made on a tuesday

In the future, remember what Sinatra said, "A friend in need.....
is a Pest!" Good Luck!

And, most of those have the ever popular "Runs and drives fine, has issues." description. I SO hate that! :(

I work in sub-prime car financing, and this story is as old as the hills. Your first mistake was welfare - the first rule we play by is "you work you drive". No worky = no drivey. The girl had nothing into it - it was a rental car to her, so why take care of it?

I don't know her, so I don't feel bad passing judgment, sorry if I offend: welfare + bad credit = deadbeat with a bus pass. Period. These people can't afford cars, and usually don't deserve them. End of story.

As for your end of things, if it were my company, we'd sell the car at auction (or ebay, CL, whatever) for whatever we could and write off the rest. That's all there is to it. It's a loss. And a 12 year old car with a blown engine isn't worth the cost of the tow. I'd be surprised if someone on CL offered $1000 - if you could get that for it, take it and thank your lucky stars.

Sorry to sound so negative. I've had a few of these bite my in the ass, then we stopped financing unemployed people.

fix it up so it runs

donate it

Nope, I'm right there with ya. Luckily I made the mom cosign and she has (I mean had, lol) good credit. I'm working on getting a lump sum check from her and then the scrapper.

OT but Terry if I hadn't pretty much sworn off Vdubs b/c of this Corrado I would be all over that GTI... Thats a steal....

Ok, you're in good shape. Glad you didn't take offence - when I re-read after posting, I sounded a bit harsh. I'm just really sick of these types of people.

We are unable to provide a complete range of options until we see pictures of the driver. And possibly the mother.

I'm betting more on the Crack whore side of life... In which case pictures are to be with held from the internets...

I can't believe no one has asked yet:

What's the 17yo daughter look like????

See post #17