I posted about this a few Months back, but there's been some changes, so I think it warrants a new thread.
I have a 2008 impala that I owe $7,000 on, as well as a 2017 three row chevy traverse that I'm four months into a 3 year lease. The impala is not without issues, most notably a growing transmission slip. The traverse is completely reliable and should remain that way until lease end. If not, it's under full new car warranty. Once the lease is done, I'll buy a Nissan NV. Until then, i may as well just get used to it.
As far as the impala, I just can't decide if I should continue driving it until the transmission goes and leaves me stranded somewhere, or if I should just pay it off now and buy something newer like a used Nissan Versa. I have about $12 in savings so I could just pay off the impala and trade it in and buy something that would cost trade value on the impala. My only concern is the impala has relatively low mileage. Of course, it's worthless with a failed transmission. I wouldn't want to sell it on my own because I don't trust the transmission, but I wouldn't have an issue with trading it in. At this point trade value is low, so disclosing s transmission issue would not have much affect. I'd feel better letting a dealer know and let them deal with it.
if I were to trade it in, I would be looking for something I could drive the next 5 years. If I decided to just keep the impala until it fails, would I be better off paying it off and having only $5k in savings, or just keep it where it is and dealing with that when it happens. As a related note, I've got an obscene interest rate on the impala.
