Did you figure a way out of the financial hole? Or maybe get a less expensive diagnosis on your engine?

Ken

 

The car is a 2004 and he still owns $7,500. How did that happen to begin with? That's a hell of a lot of money to owe for a car that is 11 years old. I bet the bank did a tap dance on him with the interest rate on that loan - usually typical when financing old cars. Worse if you have poor credit or not enough credit history.

I would start by refinancing that ridiculous loan. A lower interest rate will obviously make the loan smaller, which will obviously lower the monthly payments and give him a little extra air to breathe until he figures out what to do with the car. Local credit unions often run the extra mile -if you have good credit - as they often try to steal people away from the big banks.

 

^ I'm kind of scratching my head on that one too. According to NADA and KBB, a very good condition 2004 Touring 6 speed is worth about $5,500 to $6,000 at retail. Most RX-8s would fall well below that. The OP paid a very premium price.

Having said that, there is no reason to kick him while he is down. We all make mistakes. In fact, I just made one on a 2004 MSM--the difference being I can afford it at my stage in life.

I like the refinance idea. If the OP has good credit, he could convert the auto loan into a personal loan at a lower rate. I know my credit union would do that for me.

 

In my defense, my irritation came from the fact that the OP came on here asking for help ASAP.
I wasn't busting his chops for making a mistake.
When help was offered, it was ignored.
I and others here were trying to find out if he knew for sure he had bad compression.
I think it's more of a case where he realized he couldn't make the payments and didn't care if it could be fixed or not.
My mistake was forgetting I was in the new members thread.
It's annoying when people can find time when they're in a bind and ask for help, then can't find time to respond to said help offered.
Notice, he responded once and still never answered anything.

 

He did come here with the firm belief that his engine was blown. His question was how to get out of the financial hole, not how to be sure the engine was dead.

In his last post he said he had worked two weeks straight of 12 hour shifts. Looks like his solution was to put in the time to earn enough money to cover things. Hope he made it. A couple of weeks of hard grind is better than trashing his finances.

Maybe when that's fixed he'll have enough breathing room to look at the advice on properly checking his engine. If it's alive, it will be a bonus.

Ken

 

KBB and Edmunds are behind the times all used cars are up 35% due to the Great depression of the 21st century.

However it is now changing. Last year was the best year in the last 8 years for sale.

I wouldn't let my garage queen go for under $15K.

I only has about 36,000 miles