Hi Guys,

I'm currently driving a 2008 Mini Cooper cabrio. I love the car, but there were some misunderstandings when I purchased the car. I had the intention of adding a custom turbo kit at the time of purchase, but after talking to some local mini pros, realized it's not really possible with this car. I decided to keep the car for a few years and I would purchase a JCW eventually. Well, I feel that it's the right time in my life to make that change, but there may be some obstacles involved in the switch.

1) My car has 64,000 miles on it. Since I did a 6 year loan on it, I still owe $16,000. I'm not sure I can get that for it, even if I sell privately. I could probably supplement it some, depending on how much I would have to pay as a down payment on the new car.

2) I had some issues with a credit card being substantially late in August 2009. Due to some confusion and a bookkeeping error, I though I had paid off the account and stopped making payments. They had the wrong address on file and I never received notices. The balance was really low, but it still hurt my credit a lot. My Trans Union score is about 680 now.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

Save up some cash..

Pay off you current car asap...
Use it as a tradein for the new car...bettter yet, wait longer, pay cash.paying youself the $100+ a month you would be paying interest on a subprime carloan...you can save up $$fast ...just a bit of delayed gratification.
not what you wanted to hear, but if you finance a car with a subprime loan, no down payment or even negative equity, you should not be buying a new car....simply too much of your income from the sounds of it.

 

Agree about saving up and paying down your current loan more quickly. Going upside-down on a new car is never a great idea, although I have done it with success (by taking a fat monthly payment and a shorter term loan).

When I purchased my 2nd MINI in 2010, the minimum credit requirement was 575. So there, you should be fine.

 

If they actually look at your credit history your fine. I have a low credit score right now because of a student loan thats all messed up...but perfect credit otherwise...my score isn't high enough to be approved, but I got my 2012 MINI because they actually looked at the history...not the score. They are more concerned with a paid off car title with no missed or late payments...if you have that your fine.