Preparing for separation-Vehicles

I am planning on buying a cheaper vehicle at some point and have a question. Is it better to trade down now for the savings or wait until after the separation? Would I be better off having this debt as my own during the separation settlement? If there is nothing to be gained, I’ll trade down now instead.

If you trade the car in now, the new car will be marital property. It may be cleaner to wait until you have a full settlement before you buy a new car.

I was actually looking at doing the opposite-trading for an older, much cheaper car.
Would it be better to keep the newer car debt as leverage during the separation?

Likely, however I cannot say for sure without a full understanding of the entire marital estate and a complete financial analysis, which is beyound the scope of this forum.