Price Is Right Car Winner Says, “I Didn’t Want the Nissan Versa, So I Traded It For A Toyota RAV4, But Now My 'Free' Car Comes With A $400 a Month Payment”

What anyone should do is if you don't like the car take the money. Price is right should give you the option to take cash instead of the car.

The way cars deprecate though, you would probably lose more than the interest. You would want to do the math carefully, checking rates and depreciation history for similar models to figure out which path is optimal. I doubt there is one cut and dry answer for all situations.

Toyota has higher reliability ratings, isn’t on the verge of bankruptcy and maintains a higher resale/trade in value for a significantly longer time. She made the right choice. And god forbid is it happened to be an automatic transmission Versa…she would have had transmission failure to look forward to as well.

Why is there so much name calling and downright nasty comments? Maybe she is not stupid? Maybe not as knowledgeable as some about cars, but that doesn't make her stupid.

I don't know much about cars either, but that doesn't make me stupid.

Nissan better than Toyota??? This the only car news you know huh!? Nissan won’t even make it to 2026! They shutting down bc their “better built “ cars are so poor quality !!!please educate your self in the topic

Hey dummy? Toyota engines are far better than nissan due to longevity and efficiency. You’re purely going off performance, which is hilarious bc most ppl dont give a damn how fast the car goes, just how long the car will last. What a bold yet still incorrect statement.

According to Consumer Reports , Toyota and especially a Rav4 has a much better rating than any Nissan.

Nothing is free... I know a guy who won a Corvette on the Price is Right and he still paid over $35,000 because there is a win tax he said and it's a lot higher than sales tax. You also have to consider the fact it's in California which the cost of living for EVERYTHING is much higher.

Idk why y’all men think yall don’t think emotionally. Nothing yall decide have logic behind it. Men and logic should never go together

Hey you, that's a very sexist thing to say, and it doesn't make for a strong opinion. Both sides are reasoning out their views here, with numbers and dealership experiences. Please do the same.

I'm a woman. As soon as I read the title I said to my husband this was a dumb decision. Don't assume we're all emotional- I don't give a shit about anybody- except my husband - dollars make all my decisions

UNREAL how you said this about being a woman ❗️❓❗️

She should have bought an American built car.

She should of sold the car and put on down payment for a house,or but it stock market.

My take: if anyone had ever given me or had I ever won a brand new vehicle I would’ve been extremely happy to pay the taxes, and driven it joyfully off the lot! No car payment? That’s a no brainer. I’ve had a lot of car payments in my long life I was always relieved and happy when the payments stopped. I’m from a different generation.

I would have kept the Versa. Doesn't make financial sense to me.

I would have kept the versa. I've owned one and it was a good car. I sure she's young because FREE is better than with a FEE any day.

She made the right choice if she can afford it. I would have kept the Versa bc I don't want a more.

Ultimately, the choice was hers. Based on your story it sounds like her husband was involved as well. So I'm sure the two of the made the choice of what to do together. Even if she was acting alone though, I don't think it's fair to attack her on a personal level just because of her gender. That's a real bad look man, I mean you're entitled to your opinion, but it really makes you look like an ass.

As someone who generally could be considered a car enthusiast I'm not up to date enough on the average Nissan or Toyota to say whether Nissan is producing better engines these days than Toyota. I find that claim extremely suspect though as Toyota has long had a reputation for quality and was the first car maker to employ statistical quality control methods (aka Sigma Six QC methodology) into their automobile manufacturing processes. Which earned Toyota a pretty solid share of the automotive market in the US starting back in the 1980s or possibly even earlier. While that doesn't mean that Nissan isn't (or isn't capable of) producing higher quality engines now, in 2025, Toyota still has a very solid reputation for building engines and cars that will last for a very long time. But the way I see it, she essentially had the option to either get a $20,000 car for only the cost of dealer fees and taxes or the option to subtract $20,000 off the price of a car of her choice, or presumably, the option of taking the cash value of the Nissan, paying the taxes, and going home with what was left of the cash.

But, assuming she did what the article implies - which was to use the value of the Nissan to take $20,000 off of the cost of the Toyota, which is what she actually wanted, and financed the difference for 48 months, assuming she looked at her finances and felt confident she could afford the extra $13,000 she spent (or, based on the article, financed for 48 months at $400/mo), then that is absolutely her prerogative.

We don't know everything about her situation. Maybe her and her husband have three or more children and need more space then the Nissan Versa, which I'm guessing is a compact car rather than an SUV. The only real thing that may have been worthwhile advice for her or for her to at least take into consideration, is the possibility that interest rates may go down Within some reasonable amount of time and it would have made sense to wait a while before cashing in her $20,000 coupon. That also assumes that both her and her husband had reliable vehicles currently, such that they were not going to continue to be inconvenienced by only having one vehicle or only having one reliable vehicle. I mean, first and foremost what anyone does with their money or other assets is up to them, some of us may look at their actions and say well maybe that wasn't the smartest move, but it wasn't our money nor our situation therefore who are any of us to call her or anyone else out for the decisions they make? If they had asked for advice, then sure, someone could have said well maybe assuming that you don't need a new car right now or a second car as soon as you can possibly get one it would be better to try to wait for interest rates to come down. If it would have been me, and I were handed a $20,000 coupon towards a new car, I would have likely gone to a Mazda dealership and bought a new Miata with an fashioned clutch and manual transmission. And I would have likely ended up having to finance somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000 depending on what options I wanted on the car. I would have likely opted for a retractable hardtop and whichever version had the most powerful engine. However at the same time, if I could have saved money by opting for cloth seats/interior over leather or something similar I would have probably done so. However, my situation is different. I'm single, male, and have no children. So a two-seat car with great handling for under 30 grand brand new would have been my first choice. Apparently her requirements for a vehicle necessitated more than two seats and possibly something that would be able to travel in snowy weather without too much issue. Which a rear wheel drive Miata would not have been very capable of doing.

The responses here are very emblematic of everything that seems to be going wrong in this country right now. Everybody seems to think their point of view is the only correct point of view, and anyone with a different outlook is wrong. I may be getting a bit off topic but, the bottom line is she did what she wanted and none of us have any right to judge her for it. We, of couse, can say what we would have done personally in the same situation - realistically, it would probably have been best for me, in all honesty, to pay the taxes and come home with the rest of the cash because I have a car that, at least as of right now, is reliable, although it is not new. While the US Constitution does Protect free speech, in my opinion it is not the place for any of us to put her down, and it is in extremely poor taste to say that she made a bad choice simply because of her gender. When you or I win a car on The Price is Right, then you can do what you want to do, whether you are male, female or something in between.