QOTD: What Was The Worst Beating You Ever Took?

Jack Baruth
by Jack Baruth

Yesterday I talked about the worst kind of subprime lenders and how they misused the courts to collect their profits. There was a broad spectrum of reader response, including a few people who felt compelled to discuss the fact that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and therefore won the presidency. (To which I can only respond: that’s like awarding the Super Bowl win to the team with the most rushing yards.)

Here’s what we didn’t discuss: our own experiences with subprime loans and/or bad car deals. I suspect that there are some members of the B&B who have never so much as walked by a subprime lender; I also suspect that there are plenty of readers who are currently in a subprime situation right now but don’t want to admit it.

So for today, let’s consider two topics: a) What’s the worst car deal you ever made? and b) did you ever use a subprime source? I’ll start, of course.


Looking back at the twenty-five or so new cars I’ve bought since 1990, I have to say that most of them were bought as close to the proverbial bone as possible. Which makes sense; after years of selling cars and financing them, I should have a pretty good idea about how to buy one. That doesn’t mean that I was always perfect. In 2005, I decided that I wanted a VW Phaeton. My local dealer didn’t have one in stock and the best deal they were willing to make me was $1,500 off sticker for a dealer-traded example. That was a garbage deal, to put it mildly, but I didn’t think too much about it. The second Phaeton I got was capitalized at $54,000 against a sticker of $65,600 for a lease payment of $510 a month. I’d say that balances it out but in the final analysis I was still dumb enough to have two Phaetons.

When it comes to motorcycles, I haven’t been quite as sharp. In 1996 I decided that I wanted a new Yamaha FZR600. I was pretty tapped-out, credit-wise, at the time and I didn’t have a ton of income. I did have a paid-off ’86 Jaguar Vanden Plas but like most twenty-four-year-old men I felt that I was entitled to a new sportbike and a Jaguar. So I went to the shady Yamaha dealer in Grove City, Ohio and told him to get me bought no matter what. He came back with a purchase price of $4,999 and 36 months at 24.59% via “The Loan Zone”.

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

“Absolutely not,” my wife at the time said. So much for my Yamaha dreams. I had to wait until April of 2000 to buy a new sportbike, and that time I did it with cash. Still, I kind of wish I’d taken the Loan Zone deal. I would have had three more years to ride a relatively decent bike instead of suffering with my 1975 Honda CB550, which at the time did not yet have any hipster credentials. It’s bad to lose money on a deal; it can be worse to lose time.

Jack Baruth
Jack Baruth

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  • PJmacgee PJmacgee on Jan 02, 2018

    Biggest beating is going to be forced on me in about a year with my 2014 X1. Not due to financing, but because I'll be forced to sell it about 40,000 miles earlier than I planned, due to the ticking N20 timebomb under the hood. Warranty for failed timing chain guide extended to 70,000 miles by BMW, then it's a $17,000 gamble for the remainder of your ownership! I made money or broke even on all my mid-90s sportbikes. Bought and sold in college (early 2000s), using the miracle of eBay/Paypal + 0% credit cards. Good times.

  • Speedlaw Speedlaw on Jan 02, 2018

    They only got me once. I leased a 1988 Saab, my first grownup car. My wife was pushing for a Jetta GLI, and in retrospect, mama was right. This was before leasing was big, and I was wrong in calculation of the money factor. At some point I realized it was 17%, and my credit was much, much better than that. The beating continued when a leaf spring on the highway punctured the bottom of the transmission, and the same dealer rebuilt it, a major dealer on the Ramsey NJ auto strip. A year later, the transmission puked. Another shop rebuilt it, and the car went back at the end of the lease. I sued the dealer, and got some money, but nowhere near my actual repair bills and lost time. I am not a fan of the Ramsey Auto Group. I've been OK since...although my current CTS has eaten every "they all do that" part-wheel bearings, a throttle body, and an alternator, but as the price was right, and I bought it knowing that shocks, etc were going in the hopper, I'm not upset-I mod all my cars in some way. At 30k per year I can't lease and all of my cars end up eating parts, so the Caddy was cheap to get but no different to run than an off lease German, but with reasonable part prices and a lot less bizarre over engineering. I bought another Saab, later, but never got beat in the showroom again....

  • Ajla If I was Ford I would just troll Stellantis at all times.
  • Ronin It's one thing to stay tried and true to loyal past customers; you'll ensure a stream of revenue from your installed base- maybe every several years or so.It's another to attract net-new customers, who are dazzled by so many other attractive offerings that have more cargo capacity than that high-floored 4-Runner bed, and are not so scrunched in scrunchy front seats.Like with the FJ Cruiser: don't bother to update it, thereby saving money while explaining customers like it that way, all the way into oblivion. Not recognizing some customers like to actually have right rear visibility in their SUVs.
  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
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