Family Feuds·
THE CAR DEBT BATTLE
A father and son clash after a street-racing crash leaves an $8,000 loan, forcing repayment to become a test of responsibility, boundaries, and family loyalty.
Should he repay the car debt or let it go?
Be one of the first to vote.
The car was wrecked in a street race, and now a father is asking his 20-year-old son to pay back the remains of a loan that still has about $8,000 hanging over it.
Two years ago, when the son started college, the 49-year-old father helped him get a used car. He co-signed and put about $12,000 down on what he described as a "pretty reliable" vehicle. From the beginning, he says, he made one thing plain: it was not a gift. It was "more like a loan from me."
The arrangement was simple enough on paper. Once the son got a job, he would start paying the father back each month. The father also says he warned him that if he started driving badly, he would take the car back. "If he started driving like an idiot I would take the car back," he later wrote, summing up the boundary he says he set early.
Last weekend, that boundary collided with reality.
The son totaled the car while street racing with friends. The crash was tied to illegal activity, and the insurance company is now "pushing back," according to the father. With about $8,000 still left on the loan, he says he is the one left holding the bill.
The son does have a part-time job, but the father says most of that money goes toward partying and games. So the father told him to start paying him back: $300 a month until the debt is gone. If the son refuses, he said, he may take the matter to small claims.
That's where the fight exploded.
The son reacted angrily, calling his father heartless and saying he was "kicking him while hes down." He said the accident "traumatized" him and argued that parents are supposed to help their kids, not "treat them like debtors."
The father's ex-wife sided with the son. She said that if the father didn't want this outcome, he should have simply given the car away instead of treating it like a loan. "If I didnt want this situation I should have just given him the car," she told him, or words to that effect.
Some of the father's friends also think he should let it go. They point to the $12,000 he put down and say accidents happen.
But the father says this was no ordinary accident. In his view, the son broke the deal in a big way, and now he's the one stuck paying for it. He's left asking the same blunt question he brought to the forum in the first place: "AITA for expecting him to stick to the deal and pay me back?"