Yes. You borrowed a certain amount of money and signed a contract to repay it in full. Making an assignment of your vehicle title as security simply reduced the lender's risk of being left empty-handed should you fail to repay according to the contract. The repossession of the vehicle does nothing at all to eliminate or reduce your obligation to adhere to the terms and conditions of the loan contract. Upon repossessing your vehicle, the lender's only obligation is to make a good-faith effort to dispose of the vehicle at a fair market price. Upon doing so, they must apply the proceeds of the sale toward the amount owed on the loan contract. They are generally still entitled to accrue interest and late fees according to the contract. If the proceeds of the sale exceed the amount still owed on the loan, including interest and fees, the lender must remit the excess to you. However, if the sale of the vehicle does not cover the remaining balance on the loan, you are still liable to pay IN FULL the amount that exceeds the proceeds of the vehicle sale. So if you owed $5000 on the loan, but you trashed the car and the best the lender can get for it is $200 as salvage, you still own $4800 and interest and late fees apply. Also note the the key words "good faith effort" and "fair market price". The lender is not required to, and generally will not, attempt to sell the car the same way, and for the same price, you might as a private party. In most cases, the lender will contract with a used auto broker, who will either purchase the car at wholesale for his own inventory, or will sell it at auction. In either case, the proceeds are still considered to be "fair market price" even though it will almost certainly not be as much as you might personally be able to obtain through a private-party sale. The law recognizes that banks and other lenders are not in the auto sale business. They may not, however, sell it for $5 just to be rid of it, but neither would it be in their interest to do so. You've already demonstrated that you can't make the required payments on the loan; it is in the lender's interests to recover as MUCH of the balance as possible as quickly as possible. Addendum 10/10: your state may have specific "consumer rights" laws which limit the extent to which late fees and interests charges can accrue. The main point of the answer was to make clear that, contrary to what many people believe, a repossession of the vehicle does NOT in and of itself wipe the slate clean as far as the loan is concerned.

This vehicle should have all ready been sold. It's been five monthes. It's depreciating. It's being driven by a lot person w/ a dealer plate !. You would think the lender would be concerned with getting the most out of the car. They really don't care when they just write it off, is what I'm assuming. There has to be consumer protection for these things, regardless. BBB ????