Just put a new car on credit card.

[archipirata]

I didn't think you could put cars on credit cards until this weekend. Purchased a 2009 Nissan Murano and as going to write a check from home equity but jokingly I said "I'll just put it on the credit card." The finance guy says "OK, we can do that." So I did. With the cash back at 1% that will be hundreds of bonus bucks I'll get back. When the bill comes, I'll pay it right away with the home equity.

[weapon]

Plus flight miles if you have it...

[GGD]

I tried that 12 years ago and the dealer said they wouldn't allow the whole thing because of the fees they would have to pay, but they said that they would allow me to charge $5,000 of the cost to my credit card.

Maybe in your case you didn't negotiate the best price and they have lots of profit in the deal.

[M A V I C]

Interesting. Typically it's the card company that doesn't like that. I know some people who make their house payments with such checks.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

I knew a woman about ten years ago who paid for a car with a credit card. She didn't understand the difference between credit card debt and auto loan debt and ended up paying 18% compound interest on her auto "loan." For all I know she's still paying that sucker off.

[Lew Zealand]

Huh. When we bought our car recently they said they could only put like $5K on the card and the rest had to be a loan/cash, etc. Something about the fees just like GGD said. Sounds like they were happy to eat the fees to get the deal done?

[AlphaDog]

I asked the dealer if I could do that when I bought the Highlander three and a half years ago, and the person looked at me like they thought I had a very strange sense of humor. The answer, apparently, was "NO!!!!!" I've always wanted to do that to get a surge in my cashback!

[MacArtist]

I am guessing with the present state of the economy; they were just glad to sell a car.

Congrats on the purchase.

[guitarist]

You sure you want to put it on Home Equity? If you number that out, you'll be paying considerably more in interest, for a lot longer, than you would if you got a normal low-interest Auto Loan.

Consumer advocates tend to discourage people from rolling car loans into Home Equity (not that I've not done it before, but with conditions described below, and perhaps others here, too, use this method) it's something to consider.

The only way to offset the compound interest penalty you'd pay for including a car loan into Home Equity is to make additional payments on the principal, for example, the equivalent of a car payment, or at least a sizable additional voluntary monthly payment, paying directly toward the principal of your Home Loan. Then you come out even, or ahead.

Otherwise, an ordinary car loan is less expensive. Hiding it in your Home Equity loan will eventually be more costly. As our accountant told us, you'd be paying interest on the money you borrowed to buy the car for 20-30 years, instead of paying interest for only 5 or 6 years. Making direct voluntary payments on the principal (as many do, or many start out with the best intentions of doing) is the only way to get around that and have the interest advantage instead of disadvantage.

[stephen]

arichipirata, I pick up my new Mini Cooper S on Saturday morning and had given serious thought to much the same thing.

With tax it will be 33K. I figure I might put 12 on a credit card (the amount I was planning to put down from the sale of my other Mini) and then immediately pay it off. I have the Costco card and that would mean $120 bucks.

I just emailed my sales person to see if there is a max credit card amount.