Looking at trading my 2011 Ford with 80k miles in with an engine knock for a newer jeep Patriot with low miles, Roll 3k negative equity?

Ford Fusion has developed and Engine Knock and another mechanical issue. Thinking about getting it repaired or trading it in for a newer Jeep Patriot with low mileage. I would have to roll $3000 of negative equity over to new loan. Any thoughts?

Get the Fusion repaired and the knocking noise usually means low on oil.

You're assuming the lender would allow that much negative equity on to a new loan. Without excellent credit or some heavy cash down, they may shoot this down immediately.

Patriots are very capable vehicles, but they lose resale value VERY quickly… So, you'd go from being $3K upside-down to being $6-8K upside down all with the stroke of a pen. You'd be buried in that Patriot for the life of the loan.

Short-term decisions are much easier to make. If you don't have the money to get the Ford fixed, trading it in to try and put off the fix isn't wise. In the long-term, being WAY more upside-down in the Patriot might cripple you more financially than finding the money to fix it.

You lost me at "Negative Equity". Long term rolling any NE into another car loan is a bad financial move. Because cars will lose value and you have now in effect paid $3,000 more for the Jeep than you needed to, which gives you even more NE on the Jeep.

You would be much better off getting the knocking looked at. It could be something as simple as the engine needing a tune up which would cost significantly less than $3,000.

The other unknown here is where are you getting that $3,000 number? Did you get an actual offer from a dealer or are you trying to find the "Blue Book" value and calculated that from your loan balance. As if it is the later you may find that a dealer is not going to give you full "value" especially with a mechanical issue. So you would actually end up with more than $3,000 in NE.

When you find yourself in a hole… STOP digging.

Fix the Ford. Jeeps are worse in reliability.

Unless you can hide the defects, you won't be trading this car in. As for rolling the $3000 negative equity (if you could), no lender will loan you more than the replacement car's loan value. So, in my opinion, your only option is to get the car repaired if you want to keep driving it.

A Ford Fusion engine should last a lot longer than 80,000 miles before developing serious issues. Try a tank of premium gas in it. Likely though all you may need is new plugs or maybe a coil pack. Get it diagnosed professionally. It may be a minor fix. It will not cost as much as your negative equity will.

My 2004 Focus has 140K on it and the engine runs great. I have run fill synthetic oil in it since I got it with 51k on it.

Sure, because lots of lenders love financing people who will be upside down $6500+.