Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Unfortunately, it gets even worse as it seems
The purchase was done almost two months ago, so the 3 day remorse period is long since gone. My son was afraid to tell us about the purchase and didn't admit to it until almost a month later (he doesn't live at home, and when I saw the bike the first time, he said it was a friends at the University that he was keeping for him). While I was out of the country in Costa Rica, he admitted to my wife that he had bought it, and showed her the terms and conditions of the loan. She freaked out, and decided it would be better to get a low interest student loan to pay it off, so she called the finance company and got the $12,000+ payoff figure. I have no idea what the exact terms were, if it was a pre-payment penalty, total loan interest, or what.. only that in order to pay off the roughly 1 month old $8,000 loan, it would now cost over $12,000. So that's what she did. To top it off, in order to get the student loan, she had to co-sign on it. It's one of those low interest loans that he doesn't have to start making payments on until after he graduates in two years.. but the interest keeps accruing. I'm guessing that by the time all is said and done, it will cost in the neighborhood of $14,000 for that bike. She dumped good money after bad. And of course, I only found out about all of this _after_ I got back into the country and it was already a done deal.
I guess had I found out about the purchase and terms in the beginning I would have just told my son to stop making payments, let them repo the bike and take the credit history hit. He already has a credit card, so he can build his credit back up slowly, and it would be a constant reminder not to jump in head first without a good long look at exactly what you are getting into. Either that or make such a stink, including legal, that they would have taken the bike back with a small penalty. Guess we will never know now.
My wife says she has 'learned her lesson', as has my son.. we shall see. It's not the first time either one of them has made an impulse decision without first thinking it through, and I doubt it will be the last. It's just a shame that it's such an expensive lesson all around.
Cheers,
Brad
