A hard road for the poor in need of cars

[n2doc]

By Ken Bensinger, Los Angeles Times
November 3, 2011
Last of three parts

No car, no work. That's the conclusion Lisa Twombly reached as she fought to hang on to her job as a caretaker for an elderly San Diego couple. Taking the bus and bumming rides from friends wasn't cutting it, and she was repeatedly late for work.

Told she'd be fired if it happened again, Twombly put down $4,000 — all her savings — on a 9-year-old Chrysler Sebring with 95,000 miles. The dealership lent her the $2,600 balance at a steep 18% interest rate.

A few months later, the Sebring broke down and she got into a dispute with the dealer over who should pay for repairs. Twombly quit making loan payments, and Dig's Wheels of Escondido, Calif., repossessed the car.

She again struggled to get to work on time and was fired. That set off a chain of events that left the 38-year-old single mother and her two children homeless for six weeks. "I don't know what I'm going to do," said Twombly, who is still out of work. "I lost my job because I lost my car."


http://www.latimes.com/business/buy-here-pay-here/la-fi-buyhere-payhere-20111103,0,6688116.story

[Hassin Bin Sober]

1. Sounds like a "buy here pay here" lot. Most likely, they made their money on...

... the down payment (which is typical for Buy here pay here lots) and financed the profit/gravy.

[dkf]

2. 9 year old Chrysler Sebring?

Hmm if I needed a reliable car I'd have looked for an old Honda or Toyota.

[SoCalDem]

3. She lost her job because she bought a bad car

Around here you can buy a decent oldie for $500-800

It will be an ugly one, with dings , dents & bad paint, but it will run for a long time, and when it's toast you buy another one..

Our '86 Toyota Corolla wagon we bought for $500 back in 93, and every member of our family "owned/drove" it for a time, and last year we sold it for $500.. It ran well & did not look all that bad, and it never failed a smog test:)

A person is the spot that this woman was, should ask around, and should buy the cheapest car she can find, pay cash for it, and drive it until it dies..

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

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[ChandlerJr]

5. One of the successes

If anything, the government has hindered the working poor's access to cars. The 2009 Cash-for-Clunkers program, for example, put 690,000 running vehicles in the junkyard, making the used cars that remained more expensive.

"Those cars could have been used for very needy working-class families," said Carolyn Hayden, a Glendarden, Md., transportation consultant. "It will go down in the annals as a missed opportunity."

That sure is still the case around here, been looking for a beater for a grandkid. It's ridiculous the prices.