Monday, February 9, 2009

Bye bye 4Runner, may the bankers rot in hell

It really shows in my blog when I'm stressing doesn't it? Things have been crazy around here and it's driving me nuts. Homicidally so actually. Which would be fine if there were and actual person I could direct my homicidal tendencies towards but there isn't so I'm pretty much SOL. Hey I'm a chemist, I can hide a body like nobodies business and don't think I wouldn't have a BALL.

So here's the deal, I have a car, a Toyota 4Runner to be exact. I leased it in 2006, I haven't leased a car in decades. Normally we buy and then trade in after 3 years so last time I figured it'd be wiser to lease. Well nobody really counted on this financial mess the US and the car industry is weathering nor did I plan on my brain exploding a little over a year ago. Why oh why should this matter when talking about my lease expiration? Normally you're given a buy out dollar amount that is a pretty decent price. When the economy and car market isn't in record making bottom out garbagio. The price they want me to pay for my car is a wee bit too high considering and the banks right now will not finance anything that isn't worth more than what you are financing. No I'm so not kidding on that last part. And normally my credit would be fine and dandy so that it wouldn't matter but I had this brain explosion and when they say that one medical disaster is all it takes to wipe a family out they are sooo not kidding. You do not want to know what it costs to survive a stroke, it's a large dollar amount that is almost impossible to recover from. There's a sign, that light at then end of the tunnel? It was canceled, the hole you are in you will never ever get out of. I won't complain too much though, I'm alive and fully functional. My credit? Not so much.

So here's the deal, when turning in a lease or trying to buy it out at the end you have to go to a dealership and have the car inspected so that the bank knows they are loaning out money for a car that is worth what they are loaning. Well the lease end says I can buy it for 'x' amount, fine but the trade in value is what, like 2/3's of 'x' amount. Cars aren't worth crap these days and the banks will not lend out diddly squat. Mind you the same company (Toyota Financial) that sold me the lease and is putting that dollar amount on the car. So they are saying that I can pay 'x' for the car but since it is worth 2/3x then they won't finance it. OK then, makes total sense to me, yeah I gotcha. So I go in to do this song and dance and no one in the finance department has the time to speak to me. Some nice salesman that knows the song and dance had me do all the paper work and had the car inspected for me (yes, I just called a car salesman nice) and told me the finance department would call me the next day. So I wait for a call. And got none. So I call. No one in finance is available over the phone. OK so the lady in charge of leasing talks to me and tells me she's seen my file and that she'll get the finance guy to call me. That was a week ago. My take on it? They won't finance me. Fine then, Fuck'em. They can have the car back. Good luck selling that sucker for fractions of what it's worth.

No one is buying SUV's new right now, certainly not new ones. Even if they are buying they aren't buying used. No one will finance used cars anymore. I know, that's what I've been doing for the past 2 weeks! The car must be worth the loan amount and no used car is worth what they are selling them for, they wouldn't make a profit. I found 2 perfect used cars for spectacular prices, one was only $9000 and it was sweet. No go, can't get financing. Whatever. This last place I went to was super nice. They actually went to a bunch of banks to find one that would finance us (not easy, crappy credit right) and then told us what on the lot we could get. We couldn't get one that was inexpensive and older but we could get one that was more expensive and newer. Oh and we couldn't get one that was new, credit isn't good enough. It's like a twisted version of financial catch 22. The really sad part? With my income we can afford a decent car payment. But the banks, they aren't willing to loan.

Why oh why did Bush give the banks billions of dollars just so they could hoard them? You would not believe how busy these car dealerships are. People are buying, or trying to buy, cars left and right. I know, I've been out there all friggin night long. Once I found a place that found me financing all I said was show me which cars I can get and I'll pick one. Tomorrow I find out if the financing goes through. I had to come home and fax them pay stubs, w-2's, proof of residence bills, hell I'm surprised they didn't need birth certificates. If it gets me in a car, any car, though I'll do it at this point.

Ok and you want to know the really funny part? It wasn't something like a Hyundai or a Kia dealership that got me financing. It was Acura. I love this dealership, they totally have me for life if they can get me a car.

4 comments:

BloggessJ said...

Wow....A stroke, I didn't now that. An acura or the 4runner...Usually I would go with the 4runner but in this case ACURA!

Trailboss said...

Good luck with it. I hate dealing with banks and car salesman. UGH!

MichelleSG said...

Jamie, the stroke was on Thanksgiving of 07, it's here back in the blog somewhere. A birth defect called an AVM that usually goes undiscovered until/if it explodes. Which mine did but it was in my brain resulting in an aneurysm/stroke. Not fun.
As it is I can't have the Acura, it's too old and not worth enough for them to give me a loan on it. The bank wants me to buy something newer and more expensive. But not new, they won't finance me for new. Morons.

Kanten said...

Michelle I'm freaking I had no idea about all of these things you have been going through. You really do know how to write novel length updates =) I've been catching up for the last 20 minutes... I don't know where you find the time.