in negative equity. I know exactly which Z I want, but am upside down a significant amount. I have a 2003 Expedition loaded to the max, and I'm ready to get rid of it. The resale value on this thing is absolutely atrocious. Do you guys have any pointers on how to get the most money possible for this other than a private sale.

I just about have negotiated an invoice price for the Z i'm going to buy. Would adding this negative equity into the car be completely detrimental? I've read where the Z has been rated to be very good on resale value, but would this be an entirely insane to do?

 

thats like adding 5 grand to the price of the z... i would try to take out all of the toys in the ford and sell them (if you have the stock pieces remaining) and then try and get the dealer to eat some of the cost of your trade in, i got my dealer to pay off a 1g of negative equity when i got my z...

 

Agree sell the toys. Thats the thing that really sucks about doing any mods, you can't add the value into the price of a vehicle unless it was a factory option.

Any Z with $10K in mods is worth just as much as a Z without any mods! Unless you have someone who is willing to pay for the extras.

 

I was in the same situation withmy 04' VW, though mine dropped 6K in 3 months. I coudln't negotiate any dealer to give me much more than 15k for it, and it had been on autotrader for 3 months with no bites. I had to pay off about 4K of the negative equity and add the rest onto the new loan. Really sucked, but it was worth geting the Z and out of the POS VW!

Worse part was 3 days after I got the Z someone's agent contacted me saying they would pay asking plus shipping costs to wherever the buyer was pending a test drive. !@#%!@#$% always works that way.

 

If you really want to dump the expedition, i would seriously consider looking high and low for a nice used Z. Consider this, you are upside down by about 5k now, once you drive that Z off the lot you will be upside down by another 3-5k (yeah i know you are getting invoice, but that is about market price nowadays). Thats a big chunk of change. You will definitely also want to look into gap insurance.

 

Your best option may be leasing. You can bury that amount easily in a lease payment and at the end of the term you can walk away from it, or buy the car, whatever. My points being, the #'s in a lease are negotiated up front, therefore you are never really "upside down" in a lease per se... or at least, you know what the story is gonna be on day 1.

 

Actually if you have ever leased a car before and tried to get out of that lease, you will realize that you are almost always upside down (Unless you put a shitload of money down). Yes its true that if you plan to keep the car to the end of the lease term this is irrelevant, but it gets sticky when you want to get out. To get out of most leases, you typically have to pay the residual + the remaining payments you have left. This means you are constantly chasing your buyout price. The negative equity will just make it worse. Unless you really want to have a new car every 2-3 years or have your own business and can utilize the tax deduction from the payments, most people end up getting the shaft when it comes to leases. YMMV

 

I have leased like 6 vehicles, I won't even purchase anymore. You are upside down regardless, the difference in the lease is its predetermined was all I was getting at. Whether you buy or lease, if you want to get out 1/2 way thru the term, you're probably screwed. Cars are not investments unfortunately.

I have found this statement "To get out of most leases, you typically have to pay the residual + the remaining payments you have left." untrue. I've traded out of a few leases now before they were over and didn't have this happen. Perhaps that's true if you try to turn the car in early. ie. hand them the keys and intend to break the contract....