Tips on Buying Cars: trade ins?, down pymt, saturn dealerships

Question
I own a 2006 Saturn Ion 2 4D Sedan.  I owe $9,011.31 on it. I co-bought a car for my brother. It's a 2004 Saturn Ion 2 4D Sedan. We owe $7,604.09 on it.  Grand total comes to $16,615.40. The thing is, there will be no more Saturn dealerships because Penske said forget it. Another thing, my brother is irresponsible and is not making any payments, in which my wife and I are.  If I can get him to sign over the car to me, would it be smart of me to bring both cars to a dealership and try to do a trade in for one new car? My wife and I are sick and tired of trying to bail him out and we thought the best way was to get rid of the car and with Saturn going away, we were looking to combine both cars and get a different make; hopefully one that won't be going under anytime soon. Please help.  Zip code 60193. 2006 model appx 52000 miles and 2004 model appx 71000 miles. 2006 model in good condition, some interior flaws.  2004 model in good condition, some interior flaws.

Answer
Hello Nick, When I looked up the trade values, to me it looks like your upside down $8000, $4000 in each car. The way I look at this is you take 8000 at 6.9% x 60 and your starting off with a $171.00 pymt on the negative equity alone. Now there are some big rebates out there that would help cover this but you would have to be real sure about the car you choose because you wouldn't be able to trade back out for probably 4yrs. You could trade out sooner but it would require a large down pymt. The pros and cons, New car with full factory warranty for a min of 3yrs, low cost. Cons, Making 2pymts, out of warranty, you will require out of pocket expenses for any maint or repairs. I always say when is something more likely to break down, first half or second half? So at this point you need to figure what you can stand in pymt, go to edmunds.com and use their pymt calculator and figure out the pymt including the $170 and that will tell you how much you can spend on another car. If you co bought the car you can take it without him and trade it with out any special paperwork, some states may have other requirements but in mine you only need one person on the loan. Sometimes they may ask for a copy of the other persons driver license or the dealer will have a power of attorney for the other party to sign. Hope this helps, if you need more let me know.