When can I trade in my car that I'm financing?

I'm financing a 2012 Honda Civic with 30k miles on it for 6 years. I'm almost 20. The car was worth almost 13k but with interest of having new credit I'm paying 18k (240 a month). Am I able to trade in the car in like 3-4 years? What are my options for that. Please explain

FMV minus current loan balance is pretty much the ONLY thing that matters.
you won't pay 18k total if you pay a little extra every month.
you should have some equity after a few years, which will make it much easier to change to a different car.

With such a loan, and loan balance, your balance on the car is far larger than is the wholesale value of the car, so to trade it you would have to pay that difference in cash to the car store.

Even if you sold the car and got a full private sale value for it, your loan balance to be paid off would still likely be higher than the sum that the buyer pays you, and you'd have to pay that off, in FILL, before you could get the title to the car, and then transfer the title to a new owner of it.

You should have explored other finance options, such as a bank or credit union. Perhaps you can get the loan refinanced, such as to lower the interest rate. In any case, being a buyer at age 18, you should have bought a used car for cash.

Some auto dealers will pay off your trade even when your upside down in it… You could look for something like that… Or finish paying it off and then sell it.

You mean you've had it for 4 years already, not 6. You can trade any car in, some dealerships have a limit of 5-6 years if it goes back on the forecourt display if older it will possibly go to auction and they will probably pay less due to mileage and age. Hope this helps.

Your best bet is to get a second or third job and retire this debt. Never finance cars, it's just dumb.

Financing a car for such a long loan term (6 years) will almost guarantee that you will be upside down for almost the entire loan period, which means you won't be in a good position to trade or sell without a big chunk of cash to add to the deal. You can speed up your exit from being upside down by paying extra each month on your loan.

With long loans, you are paying mostly interest in the first years and very little toward paying down the principal. Meantime, the value of your car is depreciating -- faster than the rate at which your loan balance is reduced. All of which keeps you in negative equity for all except possibly the last year. In 6 years, your car will be 10 years old and will likely have lots of miles and problems.

Worry about it in 3-4 years. You should be able to by then if you don't be late on your payments.