mechanical issue? I am normally much more "ahead" in my cars (paid off and still worth good money) but a few years ago I had a big failure on a car that was paid off, but I needed to get a vehicle right away, so having little money down and not wanting a huge payment (coming off of no payment situation), I bought a used (normally reliable) car. I put a lot of miles on my daily driver (which may have also been where this situation went bad). Well, needless to say, I am having some issues with it and it 'might' be related to a compression issue, which may be extremely expensive to fix (perhaps more than the car is worth). The biggest problem might be that I still owe a few thousand $ on the loan. I have never ever been in this situation and have no idea how to deal with it with the next purchase. Outside of writing a huge check to pay it off, if you go to a dealer and go to buy a new/used car, can they wrap that into the new loan? I can't believe I am basically up side down in a car, something I never ever do.

Not debating which cars are most reliable or how to fix it, but the specific financing dilemma I might be in.