Forum Discussion

pressure_welder's avatar
pressure_welder
Explorer
Aug 13, 2017

TV trade in....

Good morning everyone hope all is well ! I was curious what some of you may have done if you were in the same position as the wife and I... i apologize for the long winded response!

Anyway.. back in 2014 we ordered a 2015 duramax denali dually, drove it for about a year, and it was a complete pig on fuel, and the interiors just didn't do it for us, we actually liked our 2012 denali dually better. Don't get me wrong the 15 duramax pulled great, and did its job well.

long story short a friend convinced us to go look at a 2015 Ram limited dually, and here we are today with the Ram for 2 years. Absolutely love it. Tons of power, about the only gripes i have is the stupidly small fuel tank, and the exhaust brake isn't quite as aggressive as the duramax.

However i love trucks! and i thought i would never say it but the new F350 duallies have really caught my eye big time. The amount of features it has is through the roof, and the 48 gallon tank is awesome! I have come to realize that all 3 brands will more than adequately pull our Montana and boat combo with no issues, so its changed from buying engine/transmission reliability to interiors/exteriors/features for us now. After we had switched from the GM to Ram i vowed to stop being stupid and so "brand loyal" because all we had ever owned is GM and i was extremely happy with our switch to Ram, so i can only imagine the same for a possible switch to Ford.

Being that we traded our 15 GM in on the Ram after one year of use, i imagine we took a bit of a hit, however the dealer was still able to attain the monthly payment we wanted on the RAM and i believe we got a great deal as it was a leftover 2015. Now we don't plan on upgrading to a new truck for roughly 1 to 1.5 years, the ram should be at roughly 70,000KM by then, may not be the best way to look at it... but now that i am not able to delete i just don't trust keeping these trucks past emissions warrenty, being we live in Canada, the amount of diesels in our family and emissions issues has been a really frustrating experience for us. So as a general rule we will be moving on shortly after emissions warrenties end.

What my question is what makes more sense and what have you guys done in the past? We took the longer term 84 months to attain the payment we wanted at the time because it was such a "quick switch" we werent prepared to buy, but things worked out.... Our plan when moving onto a new Ford is to put a great deal of money down 20-30,000$ plus trade in to acquire the lowest monthly payment possible. What would be smarter, putting the money down on the existing RAM loan, or waiting until we trade in and using that money for a downpayment ?
Tow Vehicles
  • blofgren's avatar
    blofgren
    Explorer
    Aug 15, 2017
    At 70k kms your current truck will be barely broken in. Repairing any emissions issues that you may have will be WAY cheaper than trading for a new truck. Of course it may be perfectly reliable and not need much of anything for a long time. If you were putting on a lot of miles in a short period of time it may make sense to keep trading every few years but that certainly doesn't appear to be the case.

    Personally I plan on keeping my truck for a long time, long after it's paid off.
  • Charlie_D_'s avatar
    Charlie_D_
    Explorer
    Aug 14, 2017
    Me thinks it was more than a "bit" of a hit. Lot's of money changed hands to get a few tenths of a gallon MPG improvement.
  • GeoBoy's avatar
    GeoBoy
    Explorer
    Aug 13, 2017
    Put an oversized/auxiliary fuel tank in it and drive it. Stop making finance companies rich!
  • FishOnOne's avatar
    FishOnOne
    Nomad
    Aug 13, 2017
    patperry2766 wrote:
    Having been in the car business years ago, more than likely you're gonna be a little bit more "upside down" than you think. Generally, you can trade once from a short term purchase and be able to absorb a lot of the negative equity in the new deal. After that, it's virtually impossible to trade out without a lot of cash. There is always a way to get it to the payment you want, this time it took a 7 year loan.

    Since you did an 84 month loan, it will be well into the 3rd or 4th year before you have the potential to be at a break even point. If you can constantly afford to keep putting down a big chunk of money every 1-3 years whenever there is a body style change from one of the big 3, the the banks and the dealers will appreciate it. If you like the Ram, but not the size of the tank, just get an additional tank.

    The new Rams will be out in 12-18 months....what then?


    A guy at work bought a brand new Jeep Wrangler 4 door about a month ago and traded it on a GMC truck just after 1.5 weeks of ownership. He admitted he lost his shorts on that deal. :E
  • patperry2766's avatar
    patperry2766
    Explorer II
    Aug 13, 2017
    Having been in the car business years ago, more than likely you're gonna be a little bit more "upside down" than you think. Generally, you can trade once from a short term purchase and be able to absorb a lot of the negative equity in the new deal. After that, it's virtually impossible to trade out without a lot of cash. There is always a way to get it to the payment you want, this time it took a 7 year loan.

    Since you did an 84 month loan, it will be well into the 3rd or 4th year before you have the potential to be at a break even point. If you can constantly afford to keep putting down a big chunk of money every 1-3 years whenever there is a body style change from one of the big 3, the the banks and the dealers will appreciate it. If you like the Ram, but not the size of the tank, just get an additional tank.

    The new Rams will be out in 12-18 months....what then?
  • FishOnOne's avatar
    FishOnOne
    Nomad
    Aug 13, 2017
    goducks10 wrote:
    What about a Ram extended warranty for the emission stuff you're worried about? It would be far less than what you'll lose on trading in. Pay down the Ram and hang on until the 2019 Ram comes out.


    And then loose money in 2019!
  • Grit_dog's avatar
    Grit_dog
    Navigator
    Aug 13, 2017
    You shouldn't be looking for the lowest payment, you should be looking for the lowest overall cost to own whatever you want to own. Don't even let the dealer hear you say that! That's why they love YOU, lol.

    If you amortize your current loan, it probably doesnt make sense to pay down your loan unless you can re-fi it and the interest is less over the next __years until it's paid off. You're in the spot where you've payed mostly all interest and now paying more and more principal every month.
    Putting big $ down on a new loan would likely be better. Again, run out the costs several ways and see which is for you.
  • Grit_dog's avatar
    Grit_dog
    Navigator
    Aug 13, 2017
    Has nothing to do with what truck your trading or buying.
    Pull out your pencil and a loan amortizing app/calculator.
    Looking forward only, what's in the past is done, look at what you owe now on principal and what you'll owe on principal in a year or whenever you want to switch trucks.
    Compare that to what it's worth if you sold it today (sell it, don't trade it, you'll get more $selling private party 9 of 10 times) and what it will be worth in a year with xxxx miles on it.
    That will tell you if you're upside down or not and how much.

    Separate equation, take the remaining interest you have to pay on your loan to term vs paying that off (the $20-30k down on the new truck next year could pay off your loan as well and save you $xxxx in interest payments.
    Now compare that to what you'll pay for the new truck, interest rate, etc. "Assume a purchase price and rate and amortize that loan out 1,2,4,7 years whatever is. Compare $ spent by then.
    Hard to explain, but break it down to several different scenarios based on a set point in time in the future and run each scenario to see which cost s the least.

    One of those scenarios can be keeping your (almost new) truck and adding $xxx for an out of warranty emissions rebuild since that is a big part of your consideration.

    In general, you're going to spend more, trading off (low trade vs selling) early, spend more interest (you'll pay most of the overall interest charge in the first half of the loan term) by trading/selling in such a short term, spend more by eating the depreciation of yet another new vehicle and spend more by buying the next newest bestest truck on the lot.
    Add up all that and you'll probably spend enough to fix the emissions on your own dime a few times over on your current truck.
    You're already keeping the banker's kids in new clothes and private school. Don't fund his college savings too unless you "have" to have the new F350!
  • time2roll's avatar
    time2roll
    Nomad
    Aug 13, 2017
    pressure_welder wrote:
    What would be smarter, putting the money down on the existing RAM loan, or waiting until we trade in and using that money for a downpayment ?
    It does not have to be all or none. Go ahead and put an extra $500/month on the loan and save similar to have some cash to give flexibility.

    While you said you want to trade at the end of the warranty... if all seems to be working good consider one or two years longer to really save some money.

About Travel Trailer Group

44,025 PostsLatest Activity: Feb 18, 2025