2006 Volkswagen Touareg - Under water financially and problems keep coming

I have had repair problems with my 06 VW Toureg V8 it cost me just recently $2000 to fix cooling system replace water pump among other things. Now its broke down again with engine problems. Don’t know what to do. Still paying on the vehicle.

We can not see the problem you are referring to.
Unfortunately you have a 12-13 year old vehicle that, from the git go, is known to be expensive to repair/maintain.
What to do: have the engine problem diagnosed, then make the decision.
Repair, part out, scrap, after you know the cost of your options.
Who know, might be a simple, cheap fix or catastrophic failure? Until it is diagnosed no one knows.

12 MPG City, 14 MPG Combined on Premium fuel? Still paying off a car that is 13 model years old? Repairs are not your biggest cost problem with your VW. Time to step back and find a big-picture solution.

I hope by “under water” you mean that you owe more than the car is worth–not that it was actually involved in a flood. If your VW was flooded, I suggest getting rid of it immediately, and buying a “beater” to get you around until you can deal with the debt and upgrade to something better. A car that was under water for any amount of time will have constant problems, and never be properly repaired.

That was my interpretation. I guess we use the Merriam Webster rather than Urban dictionary.

Where did you see this? All I’m seeing is the cooling system “among other things”, comment. I see nothing in her post concerning fuel mileage.

OP
I have had repair problems with my 06 VW Toureg V8 it cost me just recently $2000 to fix cooling system replace water pump among other things. Now its broke down again with engine problems. Don’t know what to do. Still paying on the vehicle.

Those are the EPA mpg ratings.

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Yup. Sort of a notorious past model for mileage. $43,550 in gas over 13 years.

Okay, GorehamJ wrote it as part of the problem.

Before you can get useful assistance it would help if you be more precise as to what “engine problems” entails. What, specifically, has gone wrong?

OP’s Post title is: “2006 Volkswagen Touarge - Under water financially and problems keep coming”

Definitely not a flooded vehicle…

It’s hard to comment and it’s a difficult situation to be in on an 06 model. Paying $2000 for a repair might be an OK thing to do “IF” it provides a reliable car again for 40-50,000 miles. If on the other hand, it is only a stop gap and problems continue, it is referred to as throwing good money after bad. These are not reliable cars so you can expect more repairs being required and they will not be cheap. So the time to get rid of this car was before the $2000 expense. Called closing the barn door after the horse is out of the barn. The only thing I can suggest is to determine the cost and extent of the current engine problems and if reasonably cheap, go ahead and do it while you find a replacement car. If not cheap, get rid of it somehow.

But to be underwater on an 06 model means that cars are not the biggest problem. At some point you need to quit digging the hole deeper and get out of debt. If it takes a second or third job to do it, so be it. It can be done in a year or so. See Dave Ramsey’s method. It has saved a lot of people. Enough of the cliches but you get the idea.

This is, of course, not a financial or legal forum, however by the time someone has enough debt that a “second or third job” is needed, bankruptcy is probably the best option. Why run your health into the ground working multiple jobs to try and pay off old debts? Bankruptcy can eliminate the debts, and allow you to use your income to pay current living expenses, and hopefully start saving for the future.

I agree that being “underwater” on a 13-year old car is a sign of bigger problems, such as rolling negative equity into the loan. Perhaps it might be better to take that $2000 and use it to buy an older Toyota Corolla or Camry or Chevy Prizm or similar. If you live in an area where rust is not a problem, a car from the mid 1990s to early 2000s can provide economical transportation for many years.

I see these lawyer ads on TV all the time. Sounds so simple and they’ll even finance the fees required. A banker told me once that they look at two things, financial capacity and character. Are you going to be a man or woman about it or not? If you are, you pay the debt off. If not, you have only yourself to live with. But on a car loan they just take the car if you stop the payments and the car is the bank’s problem. No need for bankruptcy.

My District Manager once used to show me his monthly commission checks to dazzle me and encourage me to work harder so I could be just like him. Then one day he asked me to follow him to a town 20 miles away where he parked the car in front of the bank and gave them the keys. Then I gave him a ride to another house where he picked up a $50 car to use. Financial capacity versus character. He had one not the other. I quit that job.

I am not an attorney. I am an HVAC repairman. I filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2013, due to a lawsuit from one of the many debts which I was forced to stop paying in 2009 when my income collapsed due to the economy. Sure, in theory, I “could” have run my health into the ground working multiple jobs, and maybe still be paying on the debts, but why? After bankruptcy, I found a better paying job, and kept costs down to avoid getting into debt again.