Hi Mustachians!
I'm in real need of advice, as my husband and I don't know what to do.
TLDR: Bought a luxury car before discovering FIRE. Owe $44k in loan, highest dealership offer $41k, listed online for remaining loan amount (no one is interested). Is it better to sell now to a dealer, take a loss on sell/loan difference and move on?
Long story: About a year ago, right before discovering FIRE, my husband bought a luxury SUV (2018 Audi SQ5 with a bunch of premium features). I'm not going to say that I had nothing to do with that, because I did give my blessing for this purchase. After $7k upfront payment, we ended up with nearly $53k car loan. The euphoria of owning a luxury car dissipated a month later and we realized how badly we messed up. We've been talking about shifting to an economy car for a while and about 2 weeks ago we pulled the trigger on buying a high MPG gently used comfort car (all cash, as MMM advised). Right now we would like to sell the Audi, but owe too much on the loan. We can sell it to a dealer for $41k and take a $3k loss or wait for someone to offer more (not guaranteed, as the car keeps depreciating even by just sitting in the garage). Looking for advice on what to do.
The reason we bough a second car before selling the first one is because I started a new job that requires me to travel 3-4 days a week and I get reimbursed for work-related mileage. My calculations show that projected monthly reimbursement would cover gas, insurance, depreciation and maybe even some maintenance. Work trips of 600-700 miles/month in 18mpg of premium gas vehicle just didn't seem like a smart thing to do.