I'll chime in here since I went through a similar experience last fall. I was at the very end of a divorce, which cost me about $15K in lawyer fees alone. Plus lawyers want their money up front, so I was charging everything on my credit card just to stay afloat. Bottom line was I found myself into the lawyer for about $5K and into the credit card for about $7K. Every night I thought about where I was going to get the money, and every morning when I walked out to my nearly paid off Inifiniti G35 coupe I couldn't help but think selling it was the answer. It broke my heart to sell it, it was the first car I bought after college, brand new, 6-speed, Brembo brakes, navi, black-on-black, the works, and I loved it dearly. Reliability wasn't an issue (though the cost of parts when things went wrong was ridiculous) but I kept thinking that I could eliminate a $450/mo. car payment AND get $12-14K in cash to sell it. In the end I sold the car to some guy to give his 16-year old for their birthday () and used the money to buy my way out of debt. I hated selling it, but in the end (for me) the relief was worth it.

But deciding to sell was really the easy part. The much harder part is figuring out what to replace it with that will still keep you in a good financial position. At the time I was considering a new Wrangler Unlimited (gasp) in Rubicon Red, a slightly used Xterra in Red Brick, or a 2000/2001 VX in Foxfire (see a trend here? ). I weighed the same options you probably are, warranty v. out-of-pocket, predictable payment v. unpredictable repairs, etc. In the end I decided to pick up a low mileage VX (24K on the clock in Apr 08) that would be a super low monthly payment while also being mechanically sound. My payment is only $260 per month, and in the last 18 months all I've done is scheduled maintenance and replaced a window motor. If I had bought the new Wrangler I wouldn't have repair costs, but I'd have a sizeable monthly payment. If I'd bought the Xterra I would have had a lower payment but less of a warranty. In either case, those higher payments don't stop when the warranty ends; so your big risk in buying a new(er) car isn't in years 1-4, it's in 5,6,7, when you're still making that predictable monthly payment AND personally covering repairs. But by then maybe you're ready to trade in again.

Bottom line is that if you're going to sell the VX, make sure you don't really regret it later by overcommitting on your next vehicle. Good luck!