I'm about to purchase a tC! but i can only do so if my monthly payments are under 300 amonth, due to the wonderful amounts of money im paid at my loving job. itll be a manual transmission, with only trd exhaust, and sport pedals as accessories. i have no credit so my dad will be co-signing, i was wondering how much of a downpayment i would have to put on it to get it under 300 per month? any one have an idea? or know of anything i can do or say to get it lower, ive never bought a car before and have no knowledge of doing so, and hopefully theyll take my '93 plymouth acclaim with over 160k miles on it and rust-o-matic paint job.. i dont really care what i get for it, i just want it gone it runs fine. any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

thanks!

 

try posting in the general tc forum youll get more answers. and to try to answer your ? i dont have a tc but the dealership told me it would be around 350 a month and i was going to put down 4g's. i just turned 18 and also have no credit

 

Do your research before you buy a car. It's really simple math. Hell, I don't even own a tC (4 of my friends do) and I can do it by the top of my head.

A base tC is like 16.5k
With the options it it evens out around 17k.
Dealer processing and handling/misc fees brings it up to 17.5k
Tax depending on area is around 1.2.-1.5k

Total out the door expect around 19k

The Plymouth is worth 300 bucks, but I doubt they'll even take it in. But lets just imagine the best case scenario and they do buy it off of you,

If your dad has excellent credit, the best rate he can get from TFS is 4.5% APR. You'll be financing 18.7k at 4.5 APR for 5 years (which is the longest term you can finance at that APR)

Pop that in a loan calculator and your monthly payments will be $348.62 per month for the next 5 years. A pretty big commitment for someone who is swinging for under 300 a month.

Seriously, if you can't do this, you shouldn't consider getting a new car.

 

i put doen 4500 and mine was 20,500 with all the options i got
my monthly payment is 308.

 

Try this

 

You can usually figure a car payment like this

For a regular five year loan

Every 5000 is a hundred a month

Supposing you dad has really good credit, youd probably have to put 4-5 G down to get it to 300 a month

 

if you want to figure out car payment, try a google search with "car payment calculator" and you'll find sites such as this http://www.automart.com/calculator.php also do a search for "amortization"

93' plymouth whatever... they'll give you $100 bucks for it and they'll say: "hello sir, ill give you a $100 for it, just to take it off your hands". the general manager did the same BS with me, but mine was a '90 camry. 3 years... tell me how much more you get for the trade in. and my 90 camry was fully loaded [v6, power everything, mp3 head unit, cruise control, etc.] what BS... $100 my a$$... sorry, im ranting.

there are two ways to get your monthly payment lower: very good credit or a larger down payment. since you said your father is co-signing with you, that's not a viable option for you. go with a larger down payment, but dont kill yourself making a large down payment. thats the whole point of financing. getting it to a point that you are comfortable with. you may not like/enjoy paying that every month, but then it also wont empty your wallet. play around with those numbers in the calculator to get your comfortable monthly payment.

hope my opinion helps.

 

Those are nice sites...; but might as well do it yourself in Excel

there is a formula for it: PMT()

Remember the interest rate is PER PERIOD. Ie. 6.% is .06/12 in this formula

 

If your money is tight to the point of you not being able to dish out an extra $50 a month, do not get a car that costs that much.

If I were you, I would either:

a. Keep your car and wait until you can more easily afford a new car
b. If your current car needs to be replaced (breaking down), get a cheap realiable used car for now, such as Civic, Corolla, Camry, etc.

Those might be boring cars, but they will be more fun that you paying $300 for 60 months. I hope you realize how long this is. If you buy it now, and make payments for 6 months, you will only be 1/10th of the way there.

 

yea i got that too $500 down $349 a mont for 60 months.

 

I'd say you only need about $3000 down to get below $300/month.

 

You can also get a longer loan to change the payments quite a bit lower. Go 6 yrs instead of 5, huge difference in payment. Of course, you're paying longer and probably a total of a bit more money... but if it's the car and the payment you want, why not?

 

Let's see, when I was 20 I got a used Civic(2 years old), that came out to $277/mo for 5 years. Two years later and I'm trading it in for a tC.

My Civic was $12,995 when I bought it, plus tax, plus dealer crap which brought it up to about 15k. If you are calculating a down payment, you need to get the total finance value below about $15,000 to keep a sub $300 payment. With the tC, that's about a 5k downpayment.

 

my monthy payments are 298.84 a month over 3 years... finance rate of 4.48% i put down about 11500.

i just turned 20 this march., dad co-signed with me, but i paid for everything.

~21k after everything.

 

my dad wrote a check

 

how about a lease? id hate to lease but man oh man i want the tC. id just keep re-leasing it too, and probably eventually buy it at the end, so in a sense itll be mine

 

At 4.5% APR you would have to finance no more then $16,091, to get 300 dollar payments. For every half a percent on the rate after that your talking 150-200 bucks. Keep that in mind and it;'s easy to figure out.

 

worst thing to have in my opinion is a car payment that you can hardly afford. alot more important things to spend your money on then a car you can't afford. i've been lucky enough to never have a car payment, my dad has always paid my cars off in full the minute i bought it, but i think it's stupid when people get a car they can't afford.

 

I've never had a car payment until I got my tC, but I've always bought my previous cars myself. Never had parent(s) who would be able to do that for me at all. Consider yourself lucky.

 

Yea, around here people like that are typically the kids wrecking their cars and tearing up other people's stuff just to see them in a brand new more expensive car the next day.

The only car I got for "free" from my parents was a 90 Cavalier, I've bought every other car including my tC myself. If you can't afford the payment, don't even attempt to get it. When I was shopping for a new car, I knew how much I was willing to part with each month for the car, payment + insurance. I am paying over my payments, simply to pay off the loan early, but I bought a plain 5spd with SAB and only the $500 deposit down, and I'm under $350/mo on payments. I also had excellent credit.