CELL

So toyota approved me for financing to get a tC and theyre doing what they can to get it in by the end of this month at the latest.
I have a 99 cougar for a trade and 1,000 cash down. Theyre giving me 3500 for the cougar and theirs still about 4500 negative equity in it.
The tC I ordered is 5 speed, with just a few accessories. Ground effects, front strut, door sill enhancements, and i think i had the lowering springs added.
They told me that although I ordered super white, i MIGHT just have to take whatever color comes in because they need to get the cougar off me because of the trade. I guess they had to pull alot of strings to get me financed and toyota is only giving them a 30 day window to make it happen.
My payments are going to be 460.00/mo for 72 (I have some less then good credit)
Ive been a total pain in the ___ for them too. My first time in, I argued with the business manager for a half an hour on the pure pricing thing. ( i wasnt familiar with that process at the time)
And ever since, I've been stopping in or calling almost everyday to ask questions and change my mind on accessories. They cant _____ though, they havent had a legally inspected model available to test drive. I finally got to test one yesterday, after 4 trips in.
I guess my reason for this post is. A) Does the deall they put together for me, given my situation sound good?
B) What options should I go for and/or get rid of. Im horrible at making up my mind. Ive been checking around and I hear the factory springs dont do much.

I dunno, random post. Ive never really paid much attention to cars, I just drove them. But now I'm more interested in taking care of my car, and mods, and learning all I can, and its becoming overwhelming.

romper145

i hope you don't take this the wrong way, but in my opinion you're living beyond your means.

seeing that you're only putting a $1000 and that you still have payments on your car you should be wondering if getting a new car is the best decision for you.

not only that, but you're not even getting a base stock car either, you decided to load it up with dealer inflated prices..

i know your post is more about whether or not you got a "good deal" but i think you should be examining your financial prudence foremost.

in any case...if you really want to know if this is a "good deal" then go build your car at scion.com figure in taxes, document fee, etc and calculate your monthly payments from that. your final number should not deviate much from theirs.

as for the $ you're getting on a trade-in that's open to interpretation and you should be checking private parties to see what you could be getting.

CELL

well, I left out a few details. It is within my financial means to handle the payments. I got a new salary plus a commish on top of it, so the payments arent a problem. The cougar is a piece of ____. Kellys trade in value on it is 4100.00 in GOOD condition, i.e....no visual blemishes, mechanically sound. The car has had a CEL on it for about a month now, the battery has a drain somewhere, the moon roof is broke and the tires tread is equivalent to a inner tube.They originally offered me 3200 for it, then upped it to 3500. Its not that I cant fix the cougar up, its just that i dont want to anymore. Its been NOTHING but a financial money pit. No mechanic can evber get the CEL Out for longer then a month, tops....I mean, they stopped making these pos's for a reason. Ive wasted so much money on it, and im just sick of dumping more into it. I want a new car, and one that is worth it .
As far as the options I had added, thats where my question lies...as far as door sill enhancements, and the drop kit, I think theyre a fair deal, but the springs will probably be taken off my order because they seem to not be as good as aftermarkets. I think i'll switch them out for the CAI. The strut bar is a good deal..so I dont think I loaded it up at all with dealer inflated parts. Im getting the basic audio set up, and then having an alpine system installed.
No other accesories were added besides that.
I think for how my credit is, and compared to the alternative, I got a decent deal.
I might be wrong though? This is my first time buying a new car.
But yea, financially, i can handle it
p.s....I owe about 8000 on the cougar...the kelly on it is 5800 (private party)....im not even going waste my time thinking I would get what i would need to pay it off. Especially with all thats wrong with it and not to mention it has 85000 miles on it. I think this is the best route to go, honestly.

romper145

as far as the options go its whatever you place value on...if you dont mind the wait and effort in installing goods yourself you can get most of the accessories off ebay or another retailer for about 40-60% less than what you would pay for at the dealer.

now as far as which mods to get heh well thats just preference. i know how you feel about the door sills and the kit because i want them as well....but i always say performance mods first and then if money allows it appearance mods second.

the only other suggestion is perhaps fixing up your credit first and saving up some money to put more down on the car. money spent on interest in a non-mortgage situation is money wasted in my opinion.

go pull your credit reports for free from annualcreditreport.com and fix whatever errors there may be.

or get a trial membership at privacyadvisor.com for a couple of bucks and get your credit scores as well. with that sort of information on hand you should be able to get a better feel for what is a good deal.

also be sure to check other lenders...generally speaking toyota finance has higher interest rates than some other credit unions and the such.

good luck with it all.

CELL

For right now, the only performance mod im going to add is the cai. Then buy a aftermarket springs. I like the idea of having the performance mods being covered under warranty. The springs shouldnt be a hassle though. Im more of an audiophile I guess. My roomate is the one whos into the perfomance mods. hes gotten me interested though with the new header and custom exuast on his rsx. So im feeling it all out.,
As far as my credit. Im kinda in a rush to get rid of the cougar because of the problems with it. Sure, paying interest is money wasted, youre right, but so is paying for the same mechanical problems over and over on a car. And i know what you might think...find a new mechanic, trust me, I have. I even took it to ford and shelled out almost 800 at one point.
Im in the middle of winter here and im not putting new tires on it knowing I wanna trade it and get the loan on it payed off, which will help my credit btw...
Also...the annualcreditreport.com.....free reports arent available for my state until Sept. 1st 2005.
As far as lenders go...I cant even get my OWN credit union to give me a loan. I think a dealership lender would be more inclined to take a chance on me, then someone who has no strings attached to giving me a loan. It would be more worth it for a dealership to finance me then a private lender. Besides...like I mentionaed above, I still have this negative equity on the cougar to get rid of. What better way then to have it traded off for damn near its blue book value AND have the balance payed off.
Im going to talk to the business dept at toyota tommorow about switching around some accessories and also working it out where I can get a larger portion of my payments towards the principle.
Hell, I might even be able to quickly get what I owe below what its worth, then turn around and resell it to hike my score up a little and then go right back and get another at a better rate.