How does this cash for clunkers thing work?

[Xtreme]

no

You owe $17500 on your truck. If they give you $14,500 then you still owe $3000 on your existing loan aka negative equity. They will roll that into your new loan.

Your truck in this scenario does NOT qualify for "cash for clunkers" since you owe money on it, and its greater than the $4500. They arent going to give you $14,500 then an additional $4500 on top of that.

So in the end, you would end up with a $13,000 that you would have to roll your $3000 in negative equity into aka $16,000 total cost for you to turn your truck in an get a new car (before TTL and fees).

Your best bet is to go buy some POS $500 V8, turn your truck in, and get $4500 for the V8 toward your "new fuel efficient car"

I thought you had to have the car in your name for a year? (Trade in). Probably not, I heard it from someone. I wish I still had my truck.

[1439/2000]

I thought you had to have the car in your name for a year? (Trade in). Probably not, I heard it from someone. I wish I still had my truck.

You do have to have it for over a year.

[Total_Blender]

I thought you had to have the car in your name for a year? (Trade in). Probably not, I heard it from someone. I wish I still had my truck.

You're right, you have to provide proof that the vehicle has been registered and insured for at least one year. So its not like you can go out and buy a $500 beater just to qualify for the trade-in.

Edit: the program also has a cap of $4500, meaning that if the vehicle's blue book value is more than $4500 they won't take it. So if you owe more than that on the vehicle in question its probably no dice.