Checked with my leinholder and basically my car loan is showing paid through bankruptcy so any payments I make at this time are voluntary and will not show up on my CRs. If I surrender my car there will be no negative ramifications on my CRs.
I went to one Ford dealer and they were like oh no don't surrender your car it will show up as a repo and you might as well keep your car and be stuck with your payments. I was extremely upset 
so the next day I called my leinholder to figure out what my options were. Customer service was outstanding, all my questions were answered quickly and completely. As mentioned about there will be no financial or CR hit if I surrender my car. 
So I reached out to a car salesman who had made it clear that once my bk was discharged he would do battle on my behalf to get me into a new car. And I checked on Yelp and his customers had nothing but praise for him. One customer described how he was being ripped off by another dealer and how this salesman went with him to that dealer and got his downpayment back that day.
So I have got the process started and I sent him a copy of my most recent pay stub and note explaining why I declared bk. So I am crossing my fingers and hoping for lower payments and higher gas mileage. I'm shooting for a 2016 VW Golf TSI S model 2 door or 4 door with an automatic, this car is around $20-21,000 and VW is running some great deals.
Another CR fico score jumped another 30 points today so now I have two scores in the 560 range and one score still at 480. Wow, just got an alert from myfico and all my score are in the 500 range. My Transunion score just jumped 52 points to 533. So exciting.
Just an update and a few thoughts.
First off I got financed for a new car on Nov. 29th, 2015. YES!!!! Honda financed me for a 2015 Honda Civic Coupe LX cvt, I went to my local Honda dealer after a salesman reached out to me. This car had been on the lot for more then 45 days so they wanted to get rid of it. I got a good deal, for someone with my CS, plus gap insurance and Honda Sentinel Warranty on the car. I am so happy, now my credit will only go up after this. My payments are slightly above my Kia Soul but BUT I will be able to refinance through my CU in a year of on time payments. Whereas with my Soul I was $3,000 underwater, no way was I going to be able to refinance.
This was after going to VW, Ford, and Kia, they either wanted to not finance me or charge me super high interest on a used car or a used car with super high mileage.
It was frustrating and at times discouraging but for anyone in a similiar situation, just keep trying. Especially since I was never late with my previous car loans.
I reached out to my leinholder about taking back my Soul and they told don't worry, a local company will call me in 24 hours but it is been 4 days and still haven't heard anything. I guess I will need to follow up with my leinholder about this situation.
I think I finally got all my CRs cleaned up and now I need to wait till I get a few payments under my belt and then start applying for some CC's to further rebuild my credit.
@Anonymous wrote:Just an update and a few thoughts.
First off I got financed for a new car on Nov. 29th, 2015. YES!!!!
This was after going to VW, Ford, and Kia, not one of them wanted to either finance me or charge me super high interest or a car with super high mileage.
It was frustrating and at times discouraging but for anyone in a similiar situation, just keep trying.
I reached out to my leinholder about taking back my Soul and they told don't worry, a local company will call me in 24 hours but it is been 4 days and still haven't heard anything. I guess I will need to follow up with my leinholder about this situation.
I think I finally got all my CRs cleaned up and now I need to wait till I get a few payments under my belt and then start applying for some CC's to further rebuild my credit.
Typically when you default on a loan, the lienholder is more than happy to take your soul! 