not sure if anyone can help, but here goes... my wife and I bought a used SUV for 17,990.00. With taxes and fees the grand total was around 22,000.00. Our monthly payment is 470.00. We still owe 21,000.00 on the loan. We started inquiring about refinancing, to lower our payments, when we were told that the car is only worth 15,000.00. What should we do now? I'm not sure if the any bank will help us because of the difference between the value and the balance. I'm pretty sure we made a mistake when we signed for the car (hindsight 20/20). Is there anything we can do without making our situation worse?

open for suggestions...

Sadly there is almost nothing you can do at this point except just keep paying the payment. A second job to help get it paid down quicker so you pay less interest over the life of the loan.

You can't let it go back, you would still owe money and not have the car.
You can't sell it most likely

I wish I had some word of wisdom but no you are basically stuck

One thing, depending how many years you have it for, if you just can't make the payment, see if the current lender will let you extend the loan for a longer time, Not really a good idea since you pay more interest, but it may lower the payment to something you can afford better

Man I totally feel your pain. Back in 08 I was looking for a Nice truck and found one.
It's a 96 ford F-150 with a two inch lift and 32 inch tires. Gorgeous truck it's a 4X4, 5 speed overdrive. All the works.

Well I was young and dumb. The truck its self was 4,000. I had another loan for 2,000 that I added to the loan. To avoid two loan payments and add a 1,000 for taxes, title, and transffer. So all together 7,000. Stupid!! Bad lesson learned.

Now I have found out that I over paid for it by almost 3,800. Not to mention its in the shop right now and I have the feeling the motor is blown. It gets better. Now the truck is worth on a good day 500.00 bucks lol.

The kicker about all this I'm stuck for 5 years on a truck that I over paid for. That the motor is blown. Also I have to keep full coverage insurance on it or my finance company will add another 240.00 bucks to my truck payment. So if its blown I've overpaid by 6,500 buck.
Also the finance company knows about the condition of the truck and won't help at all.

So I feel your paid it sucks...

Well, that was a year and a half ago, so maybe it's not sucking quite as much now.

I feel your pain as well. I recently drove into a dodge dealer and somehow was convinced to get a new truck, I had a 04 tundra and loved it.I let go of my truck for a new dodge and wasn't happy at all. I just wanted to see the new truck. Well I took it back the next couple days and they gave an older dodge truck that was a gas hog and only a year warranty and to top it off, I had six years to pay it off when I only owed 3 years on my tundra.I got worried I couldn't sleep and stressed hard because I didn't get what I wanted. I took that truck to a toyota dealer and traded it for a tacoma. But now I'm stuck with a 500+ monthly payment. I got screwed and now I'm stuck.

I feel your pain as well. I recently drove into a dodge dealer and somehow was convinced to get a new truck, I had a 04 tundra and loved it.I let go of my truck for a new dodge and wasn't happy at all. I just wanted to see the new truck. Well I took it back the next couple days and they gave an older dodge truck that was a gas hog and only a year warranty and to top it off, I had six years to pay it off when I only owed 3 years on my tundra.I got worried I couldn't sleep and stressed hard because I didn't get what I wanted. I took that truck to a toyota dealer and traded it for a tacoma. But now I'm stuck with a 500+ monthly payment. I got screwed and now I'm stuck.

Hello Cars1

What did you mean by you just wanted to see the new truck? Did you not know how to say "hey I'm just looking" or did you just buy on the spur of the moment. Seems to me if you were happy with your 04 tundra you would have kept it. So what is your question?

I feel so stupid comparing my case with yours; 2 years ago my husband and I bought a 2004 Mitsubishi Galant ES, after taxes and tags and tittle we were to pay 14,000 and change, then we found out that our car was only worth 5,000!! Can you imagine? Now we are 2 payments away from paying it off, but the feeling that we could have bought 3 of the same car with that money!! Today our car is only worth 3,000 and change but we plan on keeping it for some time until it dies because it has 104,000 milles (when we bought it it had 97,000!! ) Now tell me how stupid we were... it was our first buy.

I feel so stupid comparing my case with yours; 2 years ago my husband and I bought a 2004 Mitsubishi Galant ES, after taxes and tags and tittle we were to pay 14,000 and change, then we found out that our car was only worth 5,000!! Can you imagine? Now we are 2 payments away from paying it off, but the feeling that we could have bought 3 of the same car with that money!! Today our car is only worth 3,000 and change but we plan on keeping it for some time until it dies because it has 104,000 milles (when we bought it it had 97,000!! ) Now tell me how stupid we were... it was our first buy.

We generally appreciate if you don't keep dragging up old threads. The thread is like two years old and you're in a long line of people to keep dragging this thing back up.

It's not so much being "stupid" as it is lack of homework. People selling cars know how to take advantage of someone who doesn't sound like they know exactly what they are doing, and they can try to take advantage even when you do sound like you know what you're doing. They sell for a living. You don't buy for a living. Buying a car is not something we do every day, so it's not like we're experts at it. (I kind of got screwed once myself, but an entirely different situation. The car was what I thought, the price was fine - the circumstances just weren't what I thought and it was illegal to boot.)

Which is where the research comes in. We're not an expert, but we can certainly find stuff online. At first I thought $4000 was low for a car that was only 4 years old at the time, except for that 97,000 miles. That's a lot of miles! And mileage counts more than age.

Next time you get a car, you can go to kbb.com (Kelly blue book), or edmunds.com. Also Consumer Reports has both a new car and used car "kit" you can buy for a 3-month period, which gives lots of info on both. You can get the blue book price free, but the Consumer Reports stuff is also where you can get info on the cars themselves, their reliability, etc.

Don't feel bad. I had a friend who paid more for his first car than the dealer was asking for it. He bought it on the spur of the moment and the next day saw the dealer's ad for the car he just bought and the asking price was less than he paid. It is now years later and makes a good story and a good laugh, but not so much at the time.

Please watch the dates on threads. Everyone keeps dragging up what is a two year old thread.

I also overpaid on a used car... a 2008 convertible beetle... I like the car but I should have paid around 15k tops not the 27k I ended up paying... we live and learn I guess.

Morgaine, why is it bad to reply to old threads? Are you saying people should start new threads? Doesn't that just clog up the index? I would think it would be better to have all similar stories in one place. It certainly helped me, reading all these people's stories.