I recently bought a new (for me) car, which we've financed. I just found out that my husband's car has died. All the way died, like needs a new engine which would cost more than what we paid for the car. Carpooling isn't an option for us. We work in opposite directions from home, and at different times, need to get the kids to daycare, etc etc.

So, my question is this; is this ever done? Go find 2 reasonably priced cars to trade my more expensive one in for. What happens to my car loan? Would anyone even do this for us? I have no idea what to do. We don't have the money to just go buy a new car, plus we're trying to re-fi our house right now, so getting another new car loan is pretty much not an option. Any advice????

Well either way you go about it, you are going to have another auto loan.

If you trade one successfully to two then you are gonna have two auto tradelines.

or

If you go out and buy another vehicle to be financed you'll still end up with the new loan making 2 auto loans reporting.

So you will have to deal with not only shopping but inquiries etc........

The loan on your car has to be paid off as the first part of the deal. It is likely that since you just bought it (unless you paid a lot of money down) that it will not trade for enough to pay the loan off. Thus it will cost you money to trade it. It would cost less to buy another car outright with no trade.

Now if you had an expensive car that was mostly or completely paid off, it would be no problem to trade it for two lesser cars.

You might look for a really cheap old car, or consider putting a used engine in your husband's car.

1 for 2 only works if you have equity in your new purchase and can pay off your loan fully. if there is negative you will have to pay it off or rollover and try and purchase the 2...may work depending on the dealer

the housing situation of the refi seems to be the issue here. if you don't want to jeopardize the refi you may want to try and buy something outright, borrow from family, or replace the motor in DH beater. HTH

kia has some deals where they do 2 for 1.
that is the only thing I know about,