Subaru BRZ future owner (fingers crossed)
 

I have been a fan of Subaru since i had my first car (subaru svx). Even since the BRZ was released i wanted to get it but i couldn't since it i had no credit history.

Now my credit is stable (750-800 as per fico) i think i might have a chance to get the car sometime before this summer of 2015.

My Plan is to put 4k-5k down and finance the car for 60-72 months.

Based on your experience is there a chance for me to be approved for a 30k loan with my current credit score?

I wanted the BRZ 15 Series Blue (in world rally blue color) but im not sure i there is going to be any available by the time im ready to buy it.

Would Subaru launch the BRZ 16 Series Blue this year? Should i get that instead?

I currently drive a Celia GT 01, im thinking on selling for about 3.5k, what would be the best and fast way on selling it?

Im really hoping everything works out as this car it's been my goal since i was in school

Any advise/Suggestions will be appreciated.

Good Luck and welcome (hopefully)!!!

You're approved. Banks love to lend money ... Goodluck with the purchase.

It depends on your income and current expenses as much as your credit score. Not enough info given.

Try State Farm bank they have really good interest rates at the moment. Im currently working with them to get a BRZ as well. If you open an account bank account with them they'll take a 0.25 per off your interest.

Your score is good you shouldn't have any problems getting loan.

Income is decent, credit utilization is less than 15%, i have 4 credit cards. The only thing that might give problems is that my credit history is only about 6 months.

wow you got 750-800 out of 6 months in credit history? D:

Best advice to you is to pay off everything before purchasing. Credit utilization of 0% helps greatly as it looks like you'll have nothing to pay off and you can have all the money for the car. With a credit score like that I'm sure you'll be fine. You won't have a super low apr since your history is new but you'll be able to get financed easily. Especially with 5k down. You should look at around $400 a month depending on what trim you get.

First time car buyer will make it harder as well. If you can, get a co signer. Makes everything 5x easier.

I don't think theres anymore Series blue. I was looking for one before I bought my BRZ and they said each dealer only gets about 4. Once they sell out, they're out for good.
I also don't think they'll make a 2016 release of it again :( Makes me sad since I love the seats and wanted to make my BRZ look exactly like that since they first released. Oh wells.

P.s. Use truecar.com to try and get a good deal from dealers around you. I forgot to use it so i skimped on some money :/

It is also depends on your income and credit history. I had 700 but no credit or income history. It took the dealer tried 9 institutions and 1 approved my loan. however I put $12k down.

Well I was about 740 score when I applied for mine. Had income of about 45k a year, short history and about 10% credit card utilization. I put down only 2k (essentially the tax) and took out a 30k loan (extended warranty and maintenance plan included). 1.9% apr for 48 months. I'm happy with it.

Grats. Worth every pretty penny. Good luck with everything!

Thanks for all the positive comments everyone.

one of the comments makes me wondering if subaru is going to release the series blue for the 2016 models or not.

My goal was to get the series blue (i just love the way it looks with blue and black rims)

Im really hoping subaru release something similar for the 2016 models

Yeah I basically buy stuff with my credit card (less then 20% of my total credit limit) and then just pay it off in the same month. That seems to have help to increase my credit score a lot.

$400 or less is what I'm looking to pay per month. I will be paying around 250$ for insurance (insurance is high in jersey)

Im really hoping Subaru releases a Series blue 2016. If not i will be unsure to get the car :S

tldr; Scores aren't everything, "free" scores arent always accurate. You'll probably get the loan you need, but the interest rate might suck (6%+)

Not to be a pessimistic ass, but where did you get your score from? Free credit score places (like creditkarma) use their best guesstimate of the official score calculation algorithms. Sometimes they come close to your real scores, but sometimes they could differ by a lot.

I pay for monitoring through myFICO to get my real scores and the difference between that and CreditKarma ranges from 5 to 50 points sometimes. CreditKarma gives you a good ballpark value and some helpful advice though, so its not totally useless.

Also, it's not all about the score, they'll see the length of your credit history as well and consider it on its own.

I just bought my BRZ last week, so here was my situation:

(I'm making my numbers here a bit more vague so I dont give out a ton of personal info)
Scores: 720-760
Total credit age: 4-5 years
Average credit age: 1-2 years
Debt: 15-30k in student loans
Credit utilization: <15% across quite a few cards

And I was pegged as a "Tier 3" borrower by Chase (the actual lender behind Subaru financing). That got me the loan I needed, but the rate was like 5.7%.

The financier at the dealer called the bank for me and managed to get me bumped up to "Tier 2." She put the phone on speaker so I could hear it all happen, so unless they orchestrated this from the beginning, it wasnt just a sales trick. Anyway, this got me down to 4.09%.

The next part was sketchy, the woman said she could drop me down to 2.9% if I agreed to buy some additional theft insurance for 1.5k (it would give me up to $10k in addition to what my normal insurance would pay out if I needed to replace a stolen car). Refused to give me anything lower than 4.09% without it. She admitted that this was because they needed to make some money off me since the car itself was so cheap. And that my "tier" gives them a range of interest rates to choose from and give to me on their own discretion.
So in the end I ended up buying the insurance and getting 2.9% rate, monthly payments of 500 over 60 months after 2.5k down payment.

EDIT: Didn't realize you lived in the same area as me. AFAIK only the Ramsey NJ dealer has a Series.Blue car right now. I personally didn't find it worth the extra price, cause if you think about it, you could use that price difference and just make similar mods to the car but to your own tastes. Unless you're seriously in love with that blue stitched interior, the rest can be added to a normal BRZ afterwards.

OP see if you can find a 2014 (or even a 2013) BRZ. You might get a lower interest rate plus a lower purchase price since dealerships might be trying to get them off their lots.

I use credit karma and the capital one free credit report application (i think it pulls it from experian) and both number seem to be in that range. Now, i must say that i bought my current celica for 6k in 2012 and paid it off in 1 year. Im not sure if that help to boost my credit score as i don't see that history in my record (at least not in credit karma or capital one app). I have no student loans, and the only pending balance is currently less than 15% of my total credit utilization.

Anyways, I have checking/saving, and two credit cards which chase, and chase is going to be my first option to look for the car loan. (hopefully they hook me up for being customer for so many years???) I need to get a 3% APR or lower to be in the range where my budget is for monthly payments ($400 or less), Im hoping to get similar numbers as you for the APR.

I live in the Bergen county area, i went to Liberty Subaru in Emerson on november 14, and they had the series blue brz (in rally blue color), i did not buy it at the moment because i want the winter to be over and also need to sell my celica to put the money as down payment.

Hmm, not sure why the Celica loan wouldnt show up on your report. Was it entirely signed by your parents or someone else? If you were at least a co-signer, it should show up on your report. It might be worth inquiring about.

It sounds like your credit is good otherwise. The only issue is the short length, because 6 months is reaaally short :\

I think my income may have helped get me bumped from a Tier 3 to a Tier 2 borrower.

Oh and I guess that dealer was just outside of my search radius. I'm not familiar with the different parts of NJ lol. Just hopped on google and cars.com when I started searching.

Anyway, good luck! Be sure to post some pics when you get the car ;)

It was finance entirely by me. I had no credit history back then, but some car loaner was able to finance the car because i had a pretty good income. How can i inquire about my celica loan to credit agencies?

To be honest, I don't know the exact process. There are actually probably guides on CreditKarma that would help.

You'd need to have proof of all this though. And if it was a personal, off the books loan from a random person/small company, it might not be helpful at all.

Inquiries are usually for errors one way or another. If someone just never reported your loans and payments at all (so THEY could avoid taxes maybe) then I think you'd be out of luck :(

thats what I did too but my credit didn't increase that fast D: lol

Most likely it'll be $400+. Probably won't be lower. Think of every $5000 on your loan as about $100. You put $5000 down it'll only be at $25000 on a limited BRZ. So you have about $500 left per month. Increasing your finance term would make it less but I'd say about $420-$460.

I really doubt they will to be honest :/ especially after one year. Maybe a different version. I'm saving up just to buy the STI lip kit and all.

Not sure about all the credit stuff, as I am Canadian. However in my experience, Subaru typically doesn't do special editions for more than one model year. That's not to say in another model year they may release a different special edition car, but in the example of the Series.Blue, it's unlikely it will go beyond 2015.

Heisenberg,

You're uncertain about this?

Get rid of 3 of your 4 credit cards. Better chances of approval with a lower rate if you dont have the potential to rack up 4 credit cards full of debt at any given time.

I just email a guy that i know at a Subaru dealer asking if he has any insights about a 2016 Subaru BRZ Series blue. We'll see what he says (if he know anything)

I heard that closing a credit account hurts your credit score somehow (not sure how accurate that is). Anyways out of my 4 credit cards, only 2 are in used with very minimum utilization.

Closing the card hurts you. The idea is to keep the card open with a low balance. The ideal balance you should have on the card is 5-10%. Keep in mind the credit card companies make money off of interest. If you have a "0" balance on the card you aren't doing anything for them. If anything just hit the internets, there are plenty of articles regarding this.

Should be interesting. But considering we are only 10 days into 2015, it wouldn't surprise me if they don't have any knowledge of what's happening in 2016 yet.

Not true. I'm not a personal banker or financial advisor ;) . I would never personally carry 4 credit cards. The more sources of debt you have the less likely you are to get for an approval whether there is a balance or not. Don't beleive me? Go get 5 more credit cards and then try to apply for a mortgage :)

Anyway.... OP good luck again with getting the subaru. If you are concerned just get serious with the dealer and ask them to pre approve you. It will involve a credit check but you are going to buy the car anyway

If you do it within a short timeframe it hurts. In the long run it helps, the more cards you have the better. As long as you use them ~10% and never pay late

I just spoke a guy in a Subaru dealer on the phone. They had the BRZ '15 series blue (in rally blue color). I made an offer for 27k, he said 29k is the lowest they go.. (back in November another Subaru dealer offered me the same car for 28k)

Anyways, i also did ask him about any ideas about a 2016 BRZ series blue this year. He mentioned that its too soon to tell what Subaru is going to do for 2016 BRZs. He does not except a new 2016 BRZ to be release for another 8-9 months.

I got mine for 27,500. Another guy in our little group got his for 27,350. Tell them you'll take it for 27,500, the Series.Blue they got had to be on the lot for at LEAST 2-3 months. They might give in closer to month end.

I feel like 27,350 is the lowest you can get it without some family discounts or whatever.

It doesn't hurt your score. In fact, as the others have said, closing them WILL drop your score because it affects the average age of your credit.

Lenders want to see that you have a diverse credit history with different types of debt and the ability to pay it all on time.

They're not worried you'll instantly hit the credit limit on all of your credit cards because they can see from your credit history that you're unlikely to do that.

Also, even if you were right about lenders being worried about a borrower maxing out their credit easily and instantly, the NUMBER of cards doesnt matter. You can have 20 cards and a credit limit of 1k overall lol.

I have 4 cards, a total of around 22k credit, and one of my cards makes up more than half of that total. It didn't hurt me during my loan negotiations. What did hurt was the student loans that I haven't started paying off yet (since the repayment schedule hasnt even begun) and my overall short average length of history.


EDIT: I got my 2015 BRZ Limited for 25.5k (before the taxes/fees/etc) so 27.5k for a series.blue sounds reasonable.

That was a good price you got for the limited! I will look around for other series blue brzs around my area. Either way i still have to sell my celica to use that money as part of down payment.

I believe that is wrong. My credit history is based off of 1 credit card with 300 limit and nothing else except student loans. That means no phone bills or any other bills. Just that one card and loans. The loans that I haven't made a single payment on got my score up to ~740. Don't ask me how because I don't know

Partly true and partly untrue.

Closing a credit card hurts you short term. They will see you closing a line of credit which triggers an "uh oh, why is he suddenly not wanting to borrow money?" but then they realize over long term that "he didn't need it".

Also, some misconceptions here:

Paying off loans instantly doesn't build credit. Paying off prescheduled loan payments ON TIME ALL THE TIME does.

If I go and borrow $10k and then turn around and pay it back the next day, it doesn't help me as much as borrowing that money and then making my agreed upon instalments on time for the next 12 months. THAT is solid proof that this person will keep his end of the bargain.

This is why things like student loans, initial car purchases, etc. are such good credit builders since you are not likely to pay them off instantly.

DO NOT LEAVE A BALANCE ON CREDIT CARDS!!!

Speaking as someone with excellent credit, you DO NOT want to leave money on the credit cards each month. That's incredibly wasteful, unless you have a 0% card. Companies love lending me money because I pay them back. Credit card companies love me because they collect a couple percent on my purchases.

My scores are 730-745 for all three, obtained from myFICO. So yea, its a good score, but ultimately at this point my unpaid student loans are my barrier to a higher score since there is no history of payment yet.

Creditors basically have no idea whether or not I can actually pay those loans on time because there is no history of me paying them off on schedule and consistently.

People are usually confused and misinformed about how credit and credit scores work. CreditKarma, Mint, etc have good articles about how to properly build your credit.

Ultimately, creditors care about your history. The length, contents, and consistency of it.

[EDIT] I just saw that you were located in Canada, which quite possibly has a completely different structure when it comes to credit than the US does.

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about do you? Go to any credit building forum and they will tell you the exact opposite of what you are saying to do. Obviously you don't want to open 5 new lines of credit up right before you are going to buy a house, because that lowers the average age of your accounts on your credit report, plus the +5 injuries on your reports, plus the big hit from 5 new accounts under 6 months in age.

To the OP. Your chances of approval are highly dependent on what types of credit you've had. The free scores you get are often estimations and not the true scores lenders use when deciding credit. Furthermore, the scoring model used for vehicle loans is completely different than the one used for credit cards or mortgages.

Do NOT give out any personal information for credit checks when shopping around for your vehicle. Car dealerships are notorious for running your credit while you are out on the test drive to see what financing they can provide and if you decide to not buy that day you've gotten a inquiry on your report for nothing. My suggestion is to line up your financing with a bank or credit union BEFORE going out to buy and let them know you have your own financing. Saves a lot of hassle throughout the whole process and you'll end up with the least amount of damage to your credit.

It might be different here in Oz but if you have say 4 credit cards all with say $5000 limit and you go for a housing loan. The Bank will run the numbers based on you owing the max on all 4 cards and having to make minimum payment on a total of 4 x 5000 = $20000 debt even if you actually pay the cards each month and have next to no debt on them.

They want to see you have the capacity to service the max card debt possible plus your new loan, kind of sucks buy can see the banks point of view.

That's certainly not the case here in the US. Infact, its quite the opposite. If you have one credit card with a limit of say $5000 and go apply for another card, typically speaking they look at your history and almost without fail give you another car right around your current limit. This means that if you have a credit card with a $20,000 limit and no balance and apply for another one, they usually will give you the same limit. Obviously this is largely dependent on your income but available credit on credit cards is not looked at as a liability in the eyes of most american lenders, only actual debt. I know it sounds crazy to logical people, but this is one of the ways how people game the system to reach those crazy high credit scores. I highly suggest people head over to www.creditboards.com and read up if you want actual advice about improving credit scores.

Credit utilization is a significant portion of your score and if you have 4 credit cards with $10,000 limits, only use one and the rest are kept in a safe, and float a $1000 balance on it then your overall utilization is at 2.5% instead of the 10% if you only had one card. This of course is only a good idea if the cards you have have no annual fees and you are not retarded with credit cards and max them all out.

The credit system in the US is frankly stupid. If you get in over your head and make some bad choices and stuff goes into collections, there is no "real" incentive to actually pay that debt back. Paying off the debt doesn't remove the late payments or negative marks on the credit report and they stay there for several years. The length of time is dependent on the state that you live in. Some real change is needed or the US is going to face another financial meltdown once the interest rates start going back up and people who have been living off credit suddenly can't afford their skyrocketing credit card payments.