I currently own a 2006 Ford Fusion (73,300 miles) in excellent condition. I owe 11,000 on it with the bank. I am now in negative equity and i am looking to trade it in. I looked around and found a 2002 Mercedes Benz ML-320 also in excellent condition (80,000 miles) to trade mine in with. I am currently still decideing if it would be a good idea to trade my car in for the mercedes or to keep my fusion.
Anything to consider or if its a good idea or bad would be great! Im suppose to go do papers and work out payments saturday so im in dire need 
Thanks,
Concernd car buyer!
I’d hold off buying soemething else until you’ve paid off what you already have. Keeping a Benz on the road is an expensive endevour. Never trade in a vehicle you are upside down on.
Is this a loan or a lease? What does the agreement say?
I don’t have the real information so I can only guess, but I would suggest that it would be financially wise to keep it and to pay it off as soon as possible. Getting into another loan or lease is just postponing the problem and next time it will be just that much worse.
The point is, it is almost always better financially to keep a car as long as possible. You loose every time you sell or buy and you usually lose most when you lease.
If you really don’t care about the financial part, but you just want a new car (and can afford it) then ignore all I wrote and get what you want. If you have the money that is your right and I certainly don’t want to get in your way.
If you owe more than it’s worth in trade, keep it until you pay it off. Buy your next car after paying for this one. If you buy the Benz, you will make payments for many more years on the Benz and the Fusion. If you don’t own the Fusion, why make payments on it? That’s what hapens when you trade a car for less than you owe.
the thing is, the ford fusion has done us well and the payments are 350.00 But, the mercedes is actually cheaper payment wise and we’d be paying on it for 3yrs. with the $ we were going to put down. Im just thinking that it being a ford 06 with as many miles as its got on it, it wouldn’t be THAT wise of a decision to keep it (or so we’ve been told)
Is there anything wrong with the Fusion besides being upside down on your loan?
Is the Mercedes an even-up trade? If yes, consider this too; [i][u]there is no such thing as a cheap Mercedes[/i][/u]
Wait, so are you planning to do a straight across trade of the Fusion for the Benz? If that’s the case, I guess there’s something to be said for getting into something that’s not depreciating quite as quickly, but like FoDaddy says they can be a lot more expensive to run.
Really the sensible thing to do is sell the Fusion to a private party and use part of the proceeds to buy a cheaper used car like an older Taurus or something similar and the rest to pay towards the loan on the Fusion.
as far as the maintence on the mercedes, we aren’t worried about. It does have a positive side and comes with a bumper to bumber warranty and lifetime oil changes threw the dealer. && the fusion is in perfect condition. just we were wanting a SUV.
Oh, I forgot that those are the SUV models. Those things are especially expensive to maintain. I’d get that “lifetime oil change” thing checked out very carefully as oil changes on those things are really expensive because they take some proprietary MB filter and require something like 9 quarts of synthetic oil which all adds up to usually being a $100+ oil change. I’d be really surprised if the dealership was extending that offer to this particular model.
My (everybody’s) financial advisor told me that I couldn’t afford to take a beating every time I wanted to trade a car. That guy at the credit union (years ago) couldn’t tell how much money I had in a bank. I didn’t have much, but I wasn’t starving either, so it took an hour for his words to sink in. Seven or eight years later, I started to learn a little. If you are into negative equity, you are behind in your responsibility to yourself. If you are behind, don’t go looking for more debt. Pay yourself first by saving money. Make a five year plan.
Financially trading and being upside down for a different vehicle is financial disaster especially not newer which is like the extra kick when your down.
Given your high mileage (assuming) driven a ML-320 with bankrupt you in fuel consumption. Also even if you believe the Ford needs more repairs(overall Ford has average repair record) one MB repair will likely yield 2-3 repairs on Ford due to high costs.
This idea is a total non-starter in my opinion. You can’t be trading in a negative equity vehicle and expect to come out ahead in any way . . . at all. I don’t care if the payments per month are slightly less, they must be for a longer term and you will end up paying more for both vehicles.
There is nothing wrong with your Ford. It will likely last a good long time yet, at least twice as long as you’ve had it so far, as long as you keep up the maintenance on it. I don’t know who is telling you it’s going to be a problem, but unless it’s a good mechanic who’s spotted specific problems, it’s just speculation.
I would run away from a 2002 ML-320. That model has had consistently worse than average repair record as reported by Consumer Reports. And I am skeptical about the ‘bumper to bumper’ warranty you mentioned. Very few used car warranties are that extensive. If it is not a factory warranty, forget about it. Finally, even if it has the warranty, having to deal with thel likely repair would be a pain in the neck. And this is not touching on the financial problem you’d be facing. Pay off the Fusion, then start looking.
Keep thinking like that and you’ll eventually find yourself in deep, deep financial trouble…if you aren’t already.
Keep the Fusion. Pay it off. Skip the Mercedes. Save the fancy luxury car dreams for if you get to a point where you can buy one cash.
I would also be leery of that offer as it could mean just for the warranty period and not the life of the vehicle
Totally agree; you will be digging yourself a giant financial hole!!! If you have not paid off your car, pay it off first. Learn to differentiate between what you LIKE, what you NEED, and what you can AFFORD! The LIKE part should be at the bottom of the list. Credit councillors call this Financial Maturity.
A Mercedes SUV, even with some free service, will be a very expensive vehicle to keep on the road. There are numerous things the “service” does not cover. This is a situation where the Fusion is actually a much more reliable and cheaper to maintain vehicle than the Mercedes.