Should I just pay off my truck with a personal loan?

I don't understand why you couldn't have just had Toyota fix it without selling it to them. Even if it wasn't under warranty, surely that would have cost less than $13k.

 

They quoted me at 5/5.5k before the work started and they started adding more shit like transmission cooler etc…

I can show you the paper work if I still have it when I get home. I will let you know if I still have it when I get home.

 

Unless I’m missing something, all that matters is which one has the lowest interest rate. I can’t imagine a personal loan would be lower, but I could be wrong.

 

+ the $8k to Ammco - essentially paid $21k for a trans repair. And that’s not counting whatever he lost on the Avalon.

 

It’s not a big deal to sell a truck with a loan on it as long as you can pay it off and get the title from the lender when you sell it. I wouldn’t change the type of loan unless it was to get a lower rate and the origination fees weren’t crazy. It probably makes the most sense to just pay it off as quick as possible.

As far as the Aamco issue, I would have given them the opportunity to fix it first. If they couldn’t or wouldn’t. I would take them to small claims court. That’s what small claims courts is for. If you paid to have work done, they should do it. If you have evidence to back up your case and it hasn’t been too long you could try and see if you could get some of your money back that way. I am guessing you could get the repair invoice from Toyota where they did the repair right after Aamco?

 

Even selling to a private party is no big deal if the bank has the title. You will have a copy of the title to keep in your truck. When you sell, make sure to have a Bill of Sale that follows the rules/law in your state (they differ) and use the money to pay off the truck loan. During the sale, you will also assign title to the buyer and the loan company (bank, credit union, etc.) will either send you the released title or send it to the buyer or buyers loan company. This sounds complicated but it's really not. There is absolutely zero reason for you to take out a higher rate personal loan just to get a cleared title.

 

I recommend a credit union or online bank for the loan. Get the lowest interest rate.

 

I don't think anybody can make sense of this saga.

OP, just pay off the loan you have. No new personal loan is going to have a better interest rate. Pay of it off and just move on.

 

Do you have time to stand in front of their shop with a big sign warning people not to go there?

 

FINALLY! Someone spells Aamco correctly! The whole time I've been reading this thread I was hearing their commercial in my head.

"Double A, beep-beep, M-C-O"

 

They just suck completely but they sure didn’t mind taking my 7k and I was only 28 then and now I’m 29 and still pissed because I had to sell my truck and buy it back from Toyota but Toyota did fix it correctly.

I can even show you the down payment that I put towards the Avalon and tundra but what would be the point. I hate dishonest ppl and 7k is not cheap, not for anybody.






I had to put 6k down to get back into my tundra+ the Avalon that I bought from toyota

 

WTF? It appears that you have misplaced your head somewhere! Stop asking questions and seek a mental health evaluation.

 

I find it hard to believe you could refinance anything today for a better rate than you got even a few days ago. Rates just keep going up.

If you make good money, better off to double up payments (or more) and get it paid off more quickly. Hindsight is 20/20. I've not always made the best financial decisions - especially when cars are involved. Sometimes you just gotta grind through it and chalk it up to the cost of a lesson learned.

 

I still don’t understand the current issue

 

I think I have the chronolgy down.
OP is driving truck and it has transmission issue
OP takes to Aamco where they "repair" for $7009.49 (per invoice, not clear where teh *.2K comes from)
OP still has problem with transmission so Op trades it to the Toyota dealer for an Avalon.
Toyota dealer fixes truck and offrs for sale
OP doesn't like the Aavalon/misses truck so he trades Avalon back to Toyota for the truck and ends up with ~21K loan.

Based on a quick look at KBB, loan is currently upside down. But without details on mileage, condiiton and location this is a maybe.

While Dave Ramesy gives sound advice for the most part, it's the same my grandparents taught me. My issue is selling a person that is struggling with finances, a set of custom budget envelopes for $25, go to dollar tree buy a box and a pen. Borrow money matters book at the library. I imparted these concepts to my kids, both are debt free. My son paid his first car (2019 Kona purchased used) in 2 years. Daughters truck was purchased for cash.


Here's a suprise. When my son bought his car, his credit union used what they called a first time buyers loan. It prevented the dealer from adding on BS like paint protection, tire warranties, etc.

As far as the loan, as others have said, lowest rate shortest term. Then buckle down and pay it off.

 

From reading this I really think he just wants to complain a little about passed issues.

Chock it up as a loss and a good lesson learned. The best thing you can do is focus on the future not past. Be smart with your money, pay the truck off as fast as you can. Don’t play musical chairs with the banks, extra payments per month, understanding how interest rates work, being smart with your money.

 

Everyone in life has wasted 7k on a bad decision. Welcome to mistakes. Move on. If you can afford the truck, keep it, if you cant, sell it. If you’re upside down too much, go get a part time second job and work it until youve paid off the loan

 

You can’t afford the truck. If you need the truck for work, then you need to find another job where you won’t.

54 payments on a 2012 is too much.

I have a beater 2009 F-150 that does hard work all the time. It’s worth about 10k max. Lawn crews in my area are driving around much older trucks. You can too. Gotta live within your means man.

 

Of course I wanna complain because ammco made me lose 7k for the shittt trans rebuilt that they didn’t do correct in the first place and they don’t want to honor there warranty which made me lose more because I think I put 2k or 3k down for the Avalon then after I paid 6k more down for my truck after I sold it to Toyota they said they fixed the transmission with a replacement, granted it is a used transmission but still it is working. I’m not saying I’m not greatful that my truck isn’t working but I wouldn’t have to go through all this bs if ammco fixed the transmission right and for 7k I say F them.

that is way to much money I lost because of Fmmco. At 29 I could be doing so much with all the down payment I spent on the Avalon and to get the tundra back.

why ammco doesn’t want honor there warranty when they say they have a 18 month warranty is f***ng unbelievable.

 

Our boy be living in 2008. Excuse me, off to the theater to see ironman 1 and tropic thunder.

 

@helpmeout truly wish you best of luck with next steps.
1. Accept the lesson, mistakes happen
2. Find some peace and move on
3. Financially educate yourself before creating a larger financial problem. As most have said more loans are not the answer.

 

Yes

 

Almost 140k miles. Originally bought the truck since November of 2020 with 90k miles.
Happy with it so far, if it can last with me throughout my life time I am keeping it. This girl is going down with me.

 

Man, what a ride..

(The situation, not the pickup)

 

Before this whole ammco fiasco, I had 8k left on the damn truck. If they didn’t screw me then I would have it paid off by now or very close to paying off.

 

Honestly one of the best lessons here is the experience with Aamco. As someone else said you paid for a service and they didn’t preform/honor it. They advertise a warranty to get your business and they don’t make money by honoring those. Car dealerships are the same way, they use it as a selling tool and do everything they can to not have to pay up if/when it comes time.

This is one of those deals you needed to keep good documentation on the truck and should have been firm with them. They tried to snake out of it and you let them.

It’s too late now, like I said a good lesson learned.

If you want to keep the truck pay it off fast. If you can’t sell it and buy somthing more affordable. It’s that simple. Jumping bank to bank and just moving around debit is the “oh I will just worry about it later” solution and will cost you even more money.

 

They didn't force you to sell the truck or to buy it back...

 

I'm going to be harsh.

Yes what happened with AAMCO sucks but you are 100% responsible for the situation you're in. Yes they are shit for not honoring the warranty but you just made some dumbass decisions afterwards. It's fine we all make dumb mistakes but you need to realize no one besides you are solely responsible for this situation.

You had a lot of other options you could have gone with other than trading the truck in and then buying it back.

You could have:
Escalated to AAMCO corporate
Gone to a different AAMCO location
Sued them in small claims (this wouldn't have gotten all of your cash back but some)
Done a chargeback with your bank/credit card
Used your 6k down payment to put a used transmission in

There's probably a lot more.

 

I tried talking to ammco corporate but they are worst than anything. It’s a shit company and I never go back to any of them. 7k should be for a good job done. They didn’t mind seeing me pay them but the fact that bothers me is they wouldn’t fix their issue. If they fix the transmission like they should have then I would be done with it and my truck payment to or close to finishing my truck.