Do you have a family member that’s had a run of bad luck? My cousin Vince recently lost his job. The company he worked for needed to downsize and unfortunately, he was a casualty of these difficult economic times. Vince is in a specialty industry where work is currently at a premium, making it a challenge to quickly replace his income.
My cousin thought that he was one of the lucky ones, since he owned his vehicle and was payment free. That was until he had transmission problems. A trip to his local dealer revealed that he needed to spend almost $1,500.00 just to keep his car on the road. This was approximately one quarter of the value of his 2003 Malibu Maxx.
The dealer advised my cousin that putting that kind of money into a seven year old vehicle may not be the best investment. Once the warranty had expired, Vince started to have regular and normal maintenance issues, including but not limited to new tires and brakes. Last year the motor for his power windows completely broke down leaving him with a $400 repair bill and a sense of uncertainty with what the future had in store. Maybe, Vince thought, that it was time to trade the car in and get something less expensive with some balance of factory warranty.
Vince comes from a family of diehard GM fans and, as a result, he went to the sales department of the local Chevrolet dealership to check out new cars. He quickly realized that the payment he would have on a similar type of vehicle was far more than he wanted, especially due to his current (lack of) employment status. My cousin isn’t lazy and always seems to land on his feet. He was confident that it wouldn’t be long before things turned around for him!
I hadn’t seen Vince in over a year and we just happened to hook up at a family barbeque, where I learned of his current situation. As a LeaseBusters employee, I’m always spouting off about the great deals to be had and suggested that Vince take a good long look at the website for vehicles that would make the most sense for him. When he objected, claiming he couldn’t afford to have a payment, I recommended that he look at taking over a short term lease with a low monthly payment until he got back into the workforce.
The following Monday, Vince called me and asked if I would help him wade through all the lease-take-over deals that were on the website and to show him some of the searching tricks that a first time user didn’t have; Vince wasn’t overly automotive-website savvy. We found three Pontiac Vibes (they had to be GM’s) with payments under $300/month and short terms remaining. One of the customers was even offering to pay a $1,000 cash incentive! Later in the week Vince went to take a look at the two geographically closest Vibes. Both were in excellent condition and although the mileage was a bit high on the one with the incentive, it gave him more kilometres than he needed. Vince agreed to take the car and went to the dealership to fill out a credit application.
My cousin is a home owner and has always had good credit, but without a job he was afraid that he may not be approved for the lease amount. The dealership was going to buy Vince’s Malibu Maxx, for a fair price (considering it was transmissionless) and the Business Manager suggested that he use the proceeds from the sale to prepay the twelve payments remaining on the lease. This was the perfect solution. Vince’s wife, who was gainfully employed at the time was required to sign on the lease as well however GMAC accepted the pre-payment and embraced the “Triple-A” credit rating supplied by Vince and his wife. Vince now has a reliable car, with warranty coverage and is payment free for the next year!
Last week my cousin started a new career. With a little ambition Vince has the opportunity to exceed his old income before the lease on the Vibe is over. Sometimes when things go wrong, a silver lining appears that makes everything ok once again.
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