I have a 60 moth, 11k+ car note @ 21.9% on a '03 Honda Civic, that I've had since AUG '06. What should I do?

21.9%!!! 14.9%!!! My lord, I would hate to see your credit score!! But, if you can keep refinancing at lower rates do it immediately. Obviously at 21.9% you will be upside down on your trade... That is the probelm with car salesmen, they are scam artists, they shouldn't be able to allow persons to purchase a vehicle at 21.9%

They buried you on your car. Where do you live? I am asking because let's say this. We have had two car loans in the last year. One has a 7% interest rate and the other had an 8.25% interest rate (One was new the other used). Now that being siad, let me say this...Most sates have laws in place to make sure that even if you have the worst credit in the world, they cannot finance you at higher than a 18 or 19% interest rate. A 14.9% car loan right now is high too! The dealer retail is only about $8,000 on the '03 Honda civic.

It is never a smart thing to refinance a car. Sure you might think it is a deal to trade in your '03 for a newer Accord but they are going to tack evey bit of what your are buried on one car on to the loan amount of the other car, and they are going to bury you in that one too. Bury- to make it so that you have extremely high payments, high interest rate, etc. beneficial to the dealer because they are making more money off it than at at lower rate loan.

What you need to do is educate yourself. If your credit doesn't absolutely suck, you need to find out exactly what your credit beacon is and if you are over 550 you should not have been put into a 21.9% interest rate loan. You might now that I think about it, may be better off refinancing your car loan. (One of a very few exceptions). Go to YOUR bank or credit union. Speak to a loan officer. Tell them that you bought this car the '03 Honda and they buried you at a 21.9% interest rate. Ask them if they would be willing to re-finance the loan amount in full at a lower rate. (If your credit was bad or shakey, bring evidence of your good payment history on the current loan). They actually might be able to lower your payments by significantly lowering the interest rate. If they put you in at 10% (some new car loans are now down in the high 5's% low 6's%) you are lowering your interest by 10.9% a month and that is a huge number you would be looking to drop your payments down to about $233.72 a month for 60 months financing the entire $11,000 if they let you. I bet you are paying over $310 a month now. Or they may also be able to do this, lower your interest rate, shorten the term of the loan, keeping the a payment of around $310 a month, say it will be paid after 40 or 42 months rather than 60 that is 18-20 months of fewer payments. I would also contact my States Attorney General Office about both the dealer you bought the car from and the lender who wrote the loan at 21.9% they might have some relief or peace of mind for you.

Good Luck! :)

I hope this helped...

You're going to lose a ton of money by trading it in as well. You're probably upside down by a few thousand. Yo'll just be adding that negative equity onto the new loan. Basically you're buying a more expensive car, and adding the negative equity to that. You did get a better interest rate, but that's still very high. You're payments won't be any different than they are now, they may be more....so what's the point? Refinance the loan. If you can get 14.9% on your current loan you will be much better off.

You are going to be upside down big time as these types of loans usually have you paying the interest off first with very little going to the principle. Chances are your pay off is almost the same as what you paid for the car originally. I would get this car paid off as soon as possible (any extra payments you can send in towards principle) and then get yourself another car. You may want to check into refinancing for a shorter term if you can afford.

WOW.

Let me know what your payoff is, and I call tell you how the numbers would work (wont be area-specific) but when it comes to the Honda's, pricing and Trade Values are pretty average nationwide.

Ill also give you some pricing comparrisons to use for your area on car price of the Accord you are interested in, then you can go from there.

If you want, email me at cbondhonda@yahoo.com - I help people with this sort of thing all the time all across the states.

Chris

That sound quite a bit better to me you save a ton of interest.