A bit of a reality check these past couple of weeks as I eventually found a couple of the cars I've been looking for at the right price which meant the inevitable topic of trade in value would crop up.
So, my car is a
Dec 21 LR, just shy of 5k miles and I've been offered
between £26k and £28k ranging from a couple of dealers, Motorway etc. I don't actually want to see what WBAC would offer, that's enough to be going on with.
Now the concerning thing is that doesnt even come close to covering the outstanding finance on the car and when I bought mine on PCP, I paid a hefty deposit, so that is long gone too.
Obviously, it is what it is, but it does raise the question, for me anyway and maybe others as to what to do now and I personally think it boils down to 4 options;
- Continue paying for the car for another 3 years and then hand it back, walking away with nothing.
- Continue paying for the car for another 3 years and then pay the balloon paying which going by recent trends, could well be more than 3 times what the car will be worth by then.
- Cut my losses right now, get as much as I can for it and add the difference out of my piggy bank, pay off the finance, walking away with nothing.
- Trade the car in, again adding the difference out of my piggy bank to clear the finance, leaving me with nothing and start again with finance on another car, which will involve increased monthly payments due to interest rates and probably lack of a decent deposit (which is now long gone due to current valuations).
I'm personally looking at losses circa £24k for 13 months of ownership and that's not counting anything additional I'll need to pull together for a deposit for another car and what makes it worse is how much I actually hate the car and how massively disappointed I have been with it, with Tesla as a whole actually. It wouldn't feel so bad if I actually liked the car.
I'm not saving on fuel, insurance is at least double what I would normally be paying and I couldn't care less about the environment or climate change mentalists so it really doesn't make an sense for me at all to keep the car, that is unless I can't afford to get shot of it.