The credit crunch, already putting a strain on homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages, is also having an impact on that next major purchase, the automobile. Vehicle repossessions are on the rise.

Like the fragile housing market is forcing many to banks and foreclosure, some vehicle owners are struggling to protect their investment on wheels.

"I think it has to do with the housing market,” notes David Jacobs, owner of Ambassador Industries. “People not so much in new houses, but people who have been in their houses whose mortgage rates have escalated, interest rates go up."

Jacobs says right now his staff has to find 500 vehicles that banks want back. "We take cars from an awful lot of really nice people. It's not something that's really fun to do, but somebody's got to do it."

Jacobs adds that the reasons for repossessions are as varied as the vehicles and owners themselves. Still, something is different about this wave of repossessions.

"A little bit more common is the fact that the first payment defaults, which is basically a situation where the customer doesn't make the first payment. They've had the vehicle for two to four months."

Once the vehicles are taken, customers have to personally contact the bank. Many are contacting bankruptcy attorneys like Howard Duncan of Duncan & Davis.

"Their options to protect the car when they're gonna get far enough behind that it's going to get repossessed are really to consider filing a Chapter 13 bankruptcy."

A serious choice, your credit or your car keys, but Duncan makes it plain. "If they're really needing the vehicle to go to and from work and it's a critical item for them to keep, they have to decide which is more important, their credit or keeping the vehicle."

One of the main reasons people end up losing their vehicles, according to experts, is their failure to answer calls from banks.

Ambassador Industries has those 500 cars to repossess, and that's just this week alone.

How do the numbers stack up to last year's figures? Ambassador Industries has seen a 20% jump in repossession requests from banks, compared to 2007.