How to get out of an upside down car loan
Being thousands of dollars upside down on a car loan leaves young drivers trapped making heavy monthly payments for years while fearing permanent credit damage. This heavy debt burden stops people from getting out of a bad vehicle situation or moving forward financially.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Keep driving the car while saving money
- 2Fix mechanical and cosmetic issues using used parts or friends
- 3Get a second job to pay off the loan
- 4Putting extra cash savings directly toward the principal to aggressively pay it down
- 5Taking out a personal loan combined with cash to clear the negative equity and trade down to a cheaper vehicle
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
r/personalfinance2 people · September 2026
“Now i’m just upside down making car payments for the next 4 years. I’m only 20 years old and feel like I failed and ruined my credit already.”source ↗
theconceitedqueen · r/personalfinance
Where this came up
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