CAR LOAN TIPS

Determine your financial situation

This is the first and most important step in the car buying process. You must know how much you can spend before you can determine what you can afford. You don't want to get stuck making a bloated car payment that will leave you eating bologna sandwiches for three years. First of all, you need to have a monthly budget. This is very easy to calculate. Add up all of your fixed monthly expenses, such as your rent/mortgage, phone bill, etc. Subtract that from your net income. Then subtract your estimated extraneous expenses, such as food, gas, entertainment, whatever. The result should be an amount of money you have to play with. From that, you need to remember that buying a car involves more than a down payment and monthly payments. In your budget you will need to include licensing, registration and other hidden costs, as well as monthly insurance costs, gas and maintenance. Once you have all of this worked out, you should have a ballpark figure of the budgeted amount you can use for car payments. A good rule of thumb is roughly 33 percent of your net income can be used for a car payment. Once you determine that figure, stay with it.

the increasing gas prices. Plan on taking road trips? Consider something that gets good mileage and has cargo space and lots of cup holders. Plan on going off-roading? The SUV is your best bet. Some even come with a first-aid kit! Once you've narrowed your choices down to a couple, it's time to do some car research.

Decide which car you want

Now that you have settled on a monthly allotment, now you can look at which vehicles fit into your price range. This is really about personal choice, but a good criteria to go buy is to look at what your needs are. Do you have a family? There are plenty of affordable, safe and reliable minivans and station wagons on the market. Single and commute, or do a lot of city driving? The compact segment has a wide range of models to choose from that boast handling and superior gas mileage. Do you use your vehicle for work-related tasks, such as hauling, delivery, etc?? There are several convertibles and sports cars that will make you feel young again. Also consider your wants. Compact cars get really good gas mileage and are a great if you want to save money on the increasing gas prices. Plan on taking road trips? Consider something that gets good mileage and has cargo space and lots of cup holders. Plan on going off-roading? The SUV is your best bet. Some even come with a first-aid kit! Once you've narrowed your choices down to a couple, it's time to do some car research.

Do your homework

Here's where you will need to spend some time sorting through some details, but it will be worth the effort in the end. After all, the more you know about what you're buying, about whom you're buying from, and about the buying process itself, the more money you will end up saving. There are plenty of places for you to do your car research. Check out the Internet and newspapers, contact car dealerships, credit unions and local banks to see what kind of deal you can get. Knowing what a car dealer's competition is offering can only help you out in the negotiating process. Look at interest rates. You'll want to get the lowest possible interest rate, as it will help you pay less in the long run. Many car buyers focus on getting the lowest possible down payment. If a car dealer gives you a low down payment, the money you are saving has to be made back.

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TRADE IN USED CAR

For those who's interested to sell their car personally or trade in or sell to 2nd hand dealer, i hope this info might give you some direction on the process to sell your car...

General JPJ transfer car ownership. (both owner/buyer must be there)

1. Get the forms ready for transfer. You can download the forms from JPJ website. Forms you need as follow: JPJK3, TM-1, TM-AB (photocopy both buyer/seller IC).
2. After form complete, just go to JPJ and submit all the forms together with car original registration card and also new buyer insurance cover note.
3. Pay RM100 (you can buy postal order from JPJ itself).
4. Wait for the transfer name to complete and collect back the transferred ownership of car registration card.

When selling a car directly to buyer/bank loan:

1. Buyer/seller need to be at the bank with the car registration document in order to apply the loan. If buyer is from outstation, then seller need to fax over the car registration.
2. Upon approval, the bank will issue an undertaking letter and after that the seller need to transfer the car ownership to the buyer's name.
3. Upon completion, bank will release the fund to the seller.
4. Any additional fees in loan/transfer ownership shall be paid by buyer.

When selling a car to 2nd hand car dealer:

1. Owner/2nd hand car dealer agree on the price.

2. 2nd hand car dealer pays the owner a downpayment fee. At the same time, provide information on selling price + downpayment + balance.

For my case, it was just written on a white piece of paper with my IC photocopied and also the car number written down. Owner at this time hand over the car but keep the registration document (geran).

3. Seller and 2nd hand car dealer meet up at JPJ to complete "penyaksian pengesahan identiti pemunya berdaftar". This is for JPJ to certify that the actual owner of the car agree on the sales. I heard this need to be done so the car can proceed for inspection as well.

4. After JPJ process completed, owner handover the registration document of the car to the 2nd hand dealer and at the same time owner received bank draft cheque for payment of remaining balance owed. You can arrange with dealer to get cash or direct deposit to savings acc etc, at your own arrangement. But before that I was offered a personal cheque which i declined to be on the safe side.

5. For final precaution, I prepared a letter of indemnity for the 2nd hand car dealer to sign, which they duly obliged.

This is as far as i can remember for the whole process and i hope the cheque doesn't bounced but should be ok since it's a bank draft and not a personal cheque.