best place to get auto loan?
 

I have a co signer but my credit age is not that good. fico is 730.

thanks... what's acceptable rate with co-signer???

Depends on your co-signer and where you get credit from. I'd finance through a credit union and not a bank, especially with not having a long credit history.

I've found Capital One to be nice, pretty good rates and they have a nice "blank check" that they send you that's good for any amount up to your limit and that way you can write the check for whatever the price ends up being.

I'm in the same boat, but my score is probably around 650ish, yet I have around $8,000 cash hoping to have 12-15 thousand when the car comes out.

How would I go about getting a loan? Would I tell them I have x amount for down payment on a loan?

also if I were to get a co-signer, only person I would want to co-sign for me would probably be my grandfather, only thing is he's retired but has a long history of excellent credit. Would they approve me? Do I need to ask for $25K and put down the money I have as down payment or ask for the amount I would need, 10-12k. What's the best option, sorry for the noob ass questions.

The way it works with my credit union, you fill out a loan application for the amount you want and the length of the loan. Then the rest of the application is just a way to verify your income and history. If you have a co-signer, they also fill out their info. Then they file it and tell you if you're approved or not for the amount you requested. Usually they tell you your rate right off the bat.

The way capital one works, I think you tell them what the car is worth, and how much cash you are putting down. They will give you a better rate with a higher down payment because you're collateral (the car) for the loan will be worth well above the loan amount, reducing the fear that you'll go "underwater" and owe more than the car is worth, and if they need to repo it, they know they won't lose as much on the whole ordeal and would be able to get more of their money back.

Try out local credit unions. If your credit age is at least 2-3 years and your score is what you say, they will deal with you better than big banks.

But what if you're a full-time student and have minimal income?

Then you shouldnt be buying a new car with a loan.

If you are worried about qualifying for a loan, now is the time to check into it.

Go to a local credit union or a bank you are comfortable with and sit down with a loan officer and ask for a pre-approval. They will be able to take a loan application and run credit and give you a yes/no decision. If it's a "no" they should be able to tell you why, and offer some advice to remedy. You still have two months or more until the first run of BRZ's come in.. That should give you some time to make a positive impact on your credit score.

Some tips to improve credit:
1.) Pay off and clear up and collections or judgments. Sometime people have small $ value collections that show up and make a huge negative affect on their score. If you think they are bogus, file a dispute with each of the three credit agencies. The lender/collection agency bears the burden of proof and often won't respond to the collection agency inquiry, so many times they will go away. If they are small amounts, just pay them off and ask the agency to remove from your credit record entirely rather than simply marking them paid. Even the latter is still a step in the right direction.

2.) Make sure you're credit balance ratios are in check. Nobody knows for sure, but the running theory is that your balance to limit ratio's are marked in 20% increments. So, do what you can to get your balance ratio under that next 20% level. Example.. if you have a credit card with a $10,000 limit and you owe $8500, you are at 85% utilization ratio.. that is bad.. pay it down to $7900 to get under the 80% threshold. If you can pay it down to $5900, that's better yet.. $3900.. better yet.. (Again, the 20% intervals are theory based on my research and may not be exactly correct.. but I do know for sure that the lower your balance compared to your limit.. the better!). If you have any credit accounts that are at or over limit.. PAY THEM DOWN! Being over credit limit or right at it is death to your credit score!

3.) Do not take out any new credit accounts if you plan to buy the car in the next 3-5 months. Credit accounts are a two-edged sword. You need to have credit history to show that you are credit-worthy, so having open and current credit balances is helpful. But having brand new credit accounts actually hurts you. The agencies score you down if you've opened new accounts recently as they are concerned that you are expanding your credit risk more quickly than your ability to pay. If you have too little credit and need to open a line or two to help.. then make sure you do it right away, but don't plan on it being a big help until you've established those accounts for 3+ months and shown perfect payment history on them for that time period.

4.) Don't get your credit pulled more than once between now and when you wish to buy the car. You need to have it pulled once to learn your status and know how to fix it. But don't have it pulled again until you are ready to buy the car. That means, no rental application credit checks, no credit cards, no repeat pulls, etc.. having your credit pulled too frequently hurts your score.. the Agencies think you are preparing to abuse your credit-worthyness and will score you down. However, once you are ready to buy the car, you can shop multiple places in a short time period and that will not hurt your score. There is a regulation that states that you can have multiple auto loan or multiple mortgage loan credit inquiries in a short time period (one month) and they only count as one pull when evaluating score. This was done to allow customer the ability to shop lenders without adverse affect on their score.


For the record.. I was a mortgage lender for 6 years and learned these things through experience on the job. I am not/was not a credit councellor... these are just educated opinions that I've gained through working with 100's of customer and their credit situations.

And to the original question in this post:

To find the best place to financed.. shop around!

Try one or two local credit unions, a couple local banks, the Subaru/Scion dealership, and perhaps a large national credit union. Rates can/do vary... some places will run specials that are very attractive.

I use PenFed Credit union. Anyone can sign up through a small donation to an armed forces benefit ($25 i think).. They currently have 1.9% for 48 months and 2.49% for 60 months.

You might have a local credit union that can meet or beat that rate.

You never know what Subaru will offer.. they might have competitive rates. Tell the dealership what you can get elsewhere and tell them they can have your business if they can match it.

If the dealership is close (say within .25%) I'll go with them.. the convenience of having it financed in-house is great.. makes the transaction nice and smooth!

If you are sure you can afford the payments, I would suggest a co-signer and as generous of a downpayment as you can manage.

:bonk:THIS! :slap:

For your own good, look for something cheaper.

You'd only finance what you needed. The dealership can handle all of that for you and hunt for rates.

With that credit score you are looking at ~6.5% if other factors are pretty good, but up to ~15%.

To calculate your payments I'd estimate 10% just to have a "close enough" number to judge whether or not it'll be affordable for you to purchase the car.

With such a low loan value it may be worth the extra money in interest to quickly rebuild your credit though.

To the OP, that credit score is considered very good/excellent assuming that's really a FICO score, so depending on other factors (job/home history, DTI ratio, length of credit history, etc) you may be perfectly fine.

Generally good advice here, I'd only suggest being cautious in having your credit run. If you'd have 2 or so inquiries in the past year or so already having that third one run can affect your score when you do it for real in a few months. Most pre approvals are good for 45 days then they will need to rerun your credit. Instead I'd just bring them your score/report (print a copy), and tell them your other info that they ask for to see if they'll give you an estimate.. I avoid inquiries as much as possible and only have people run my credit when there's an actual need.

My credit union is awesome.

I just financed a new Prius at their best rate, and actually went through a program (Autonation Direct) to get -3% off of MSRP.

It was one of the best car buying experiences I've had.

And it's one of the reasons I'll wait probably until next year to buy the FRS/BRZ (among other financial reasons).

I obviously don't have anything against financing, but if you need a cosigner and/or don't have the credit to buy a new car, it's probably not the best idea. Wait until you have the cash saved up (even then you should probably save it), a decent job, and some good credit history under your belt.

I think it's a question of if there's any doubt in your mind that you won't get a loan, or think that you'll get a high rate, then you probably shouldn't take one out.

+1

Definitely live within your means.

Even if you get a loan, you will probably be paying more in interest and will be effectively paying more for what you thought you bought the car for. Car payments are part principal and part interest. If you take a $27,000 loan and put 10% down with 2.49% APR financing for 5 years, you will be paying $5,173.84 a year.

Interest paid is as follows:
Year 1 - $553
Year 2 - $436
Year 3 - $317
Year 4 - $195
Year 5 - $70

Assuming that you are a freshman, I do not think this would be the best choice as you are literrally giving money to the bank for no reason and you probably need it for other college activities. :happy0180:

$553 for a fresman is a hefty chunk of change in my opinion.

Hope this helps!

yep my credit age is almost 3 years :)
Thanks will do.

I always find it amusing when people say live within your means while they are financing a car. Doesnt within your means imply you're able to fund it yourself?

Cars and Houses, seems like once you get those two things paid off, making 30k/year after taxes really isnt too bad. It's when you're still trying to acquire those major assets that you think fuck, I need to make more money now!

Could and willing to are different things. Some people would prefer to keep their liquid assets.. well liquid. Some would prefer to gain higher returns than they would pay in car loan interest (which is my situation).

You could say the same for a house but very few people go and buy a $200,000 house in cash.

IMO living within your means is defined by being able to do whatever you want without incurring loads of 'bad' debt, which I define as revolving debt accounts, not as installment accounts.

If your willing to make other sacrifices, Its up to you how you spend your money.


http://www.hark.com/clips/sgkztcypxp-live-for-excess

Baconator, EXTRA BACON!

+1. Hit it right on the head. I love having financial freedom to do whatever I want when I want; more so, then having depreciating tangible assets like cars/toys/etc. A person should have a mindset of if I make a dollar how can I make it into 2 or 3 dollars. Or a person can get a car they can afford while still living at home with parents and eating top ramen.

To OP: Credit Unions seem to be the best places to get loans. Shop around for the best rate and then take it to the dealership. They or Subaru might even offer you a better rates because they want your business.

Which credit unions do you think I should check out around here? There's a Vons credit union and the SoCal credit union not too far that I know of.

Also, according to the credit report from credit karma, I'm in good standing (forgot what the "score" was, but it was in the mid to high 700s.) Also, the only debt I have are deferred student loans. My credit cards are always paid in full. Any more tips that I should take a look at?

Thx y'all !

Any local credit unions your dealer most likely can check for you when you are buying the car. Check penfed, if you aren't in a military family or other qualifying group you'll need to support one of a couple of organizations to be able to use them but they do have good rates.

When I got a loan for my motorcycle the interest rate my credit union offered me was actually worse than some competitors, they couldn't afford to loan out at such a low rate. I went with them anyway for the connivence of doing business in one spot, ease of transfers ect. I don't regret buying new and financing the bike, I think the only thing I'd do differently for the BRZ is take the absolute lowest rate I can get as long as there are drawbacks to paying off the loan early.

I'm a member of Schoolsfirstfcu.org If you go to CSUF, I think you can sign up to be a member, know a family member that banks there, or work in an educational field in OC.

Some credit unions are insular like this, and others are more open. I can only speak for schoolsfirst as I've been a member for over 10 years and they've been great.

Search google for credit unions in your area, and see what comes up and see what will work best for you.

Just for the people that aren't aware, currently savings are also a depreciating asset in the United States.

So are homes it seems (dependent on location I guess).

www.moveyourmoneyproject.org has a search tool to find local lenders. They will surely have loan rates posted on their respective websites.

Read up on "gap insurance." With the down payment you've got, this optional add-on is not nearly the necessity your salesman will portray it to be.

It is easy to tell someone else how to spend their money. What is most important is that you make an informed decision for your particular situation. Don't let anyone (including the lender) push you in to something that makes you uncomfortable. And remember -- it's not rocket science, it's a car loan!

Best of luck.

PS Save some money for the Hanzo shirts we are about to release. :cool:

Hmm...

Maybe Americans think differently then Canadians, but if you need a cosigner for a 20k car you really should consider purchasing another vehicle.

Heck... I'm a 20 year old student who will have enough saved to hopefully pick this car up finance free & still pay off University tuition.

I guess my family values not being in debt, Americans might not care 2much. Duno,

Wow, my neighbor to the north paints with a broad brush. :D

Plenty of Americans dislike car loans; plenty of Canadians are neck-deep in debt. Each choice has it's merits.

Almost forgot: Welcome to FT86Club!

How can I have 10 years credit history? If I just got my ssn 3 years ago. LULZ

So I need a cosigner. so you are from rich family after all, glad to hear that. We know.

When it's a business, it's normal practice. When it's a young person buying a car, suddenly it concerns people.

Do what's best for you. The important thing is we all enjoy these cars and share fun experiences. :happy0180:

I DO go to CSUF :) I'll check it out, thx. Googling also showed up a TON of CU's around here. Will check 'em out during spring break next week.

What shirt?????? I still have the grey 86 shirt and it's getting lonely in my closet :)

I say credit union... When I bought my current car I did not know jack
I am currently financed at 5.5%... my so call score was high as 800 and low
as 770... If I only knew what I know now ... I would of secured my own
$ from a credit union n went in with X amount of $...

i am sorry to say this, but loans ruin lifes.

if you cant afford something right now save up for it and buy it few years later. or just dont.


you cant afford it for a reason. dont force yourself and work extra to pay more for the car.

loans ruin everything.

A tad off topic, but how do most people even afford houses then. ~_~;

I personally think loans can be useful, just make sure you can pay off the targeted amount. Pay a bit more early so you have a two-three month buffer, etc. I wouldn't make such a blanket statement.

I'm sorry to hear that a loan killed your dog, but really you have no idea what you are talking about. Every person's situation is different, so you can't generalize.

Back on topic: My local credit union has the following rates for loans:

2011 and newer up to 36 months up to $125,000 2.19%
2011 and newer 37-63 months up to $125,000 2.49%
2011 and newer 64-75 months $18,000 - $125,000 3.14%


I'd be hard pressed not to take one of these loans because my cash can make more than 3% in investments rather than being in the car. Also, extra liquidity is a good thing sometimes.

Loans don't kill. Leverage kills. 0% down on a home mortgage = infinite leverage. What you're doing is also leverage. Your 3% more than car loan APR is not risk free. So, in essence, you are increasing your risky bets on stock market/whatever, while increasing your fixed APR debt. So you're leveraging up. The reason "hey, my stock portfolio/investments yield more than car loan APR, so I'm turning down free money if I don't finance" is a bad reason to finance.

To OP: I'd finance it through CU even if their rate is slightly higher than the one offered by some giant bank (say, capitalone, or Chase/Subaru for that matter). The reason: documentation at banks is currently in such neglect that they can try to collect from you even if _they_ owe you money, so by keeping it local and maybe paying a few extra basis points on your loan you'll avoid the headache when the bank screws up your paperwork. This doesn't mean local CU can't screw up, but in that case you'll be able to track down someone who can fix it in person instead of being bounced around different 1-800 numbers and fed BS.