Question about financing for current BRZ owners
 

Did your Subaru dealer have an incentive to finance through them? I don't see any special BRZ promotions on Subaru's website, and my dealer doesn't know of any special finance incentives either.

If there are no promotions for the BRZ, then I will finance with PenFed. They're currently offering 1.9% up to 60 months.

https://www.penfed.org/New-Auto-Loan/

I found this to be pretty helpful.

http://www.cars101.com/subaru/rebates.html#wrxsti

I doubt Subaru will offer 0.9% for the BRZ. In that case, everyone is probably better off financing with an external bank at 1.9%.

Hmm, do you need to be with the military to get the Penfed loan?

You don't need to be. You can do a one time donation of $20 and you're in.

Depending on your credit and qualifications, most dealership finance departments can probably match the 1.9% from Penfed. Give them a call, tell them you can get 1.9% outside and ask them if they will match.

I went with financing through my StateFarm agent.. they have a StateFarm bank deal where you can get 2.25% with free gap insurance included.. I thought that was a good deal plus I like my agent and wanted to give her my business.

If you are actually military, you can get 1.79% through NavyFed credit union.

Or civilian DoD employees, or their family (which I am). I'll give the dealer/Subaru a chance to match or give me an incentive to go through them before doing the NavyFed process, not sure if they will match the 1.79% though.

State Farm's website shows 2.59%, was that some special rate only available through agents?

Trying to avoid a ton of inquiries checking various banks :)

They have a 1/4% rate discount with autopay from a State Farm checking account. Maybe it winds up being 2.35% instead of 2.25%.. oops.

I set up a checking account with them and just have an auto pay from my normal chase account into the statefarm account. Then they autodeduct from the statefarm account to make the payment.. so it's really no extra work at all..

I'm not really sure what gap insurance normally costs.. but I think i've seen the dealer finance guys talk about anywhere from $10 to $20 a month or more..

The difference in payment between 1.99% and 2.35% is $4 per month for $25k loan for 60 months.

So I think it's good deal.


Anyone else have knowledge of gap insurance costs?

If they are all within ~30 days and are the same kind (like car loan) I think they won't affect your credit score any more than just one inquiry, provided you do end-up financing it.

Good point, I knew that at one point and reading your post made that lightbulb turn back on lol

Gap insurance varies, the cheapest I can recall seeing is 6-7 bucks a month build into the financing.

For others who aren't sure if they need GAP..
Whether or not it's needed depends on how much you owe on the car. The main risk is that first year, unless the values of these cars takes a nose dive (highly unlikely IMO), after that you'd likely owe less than the car is worth.

If the car is worth say, 80% of it's value after you drive it off the lot, and you put less than 20% down it could save you some money if something happens, if you put 20% or more down it's unlikely to ever be used.

-Dave

I've seen as low as $200 for GAP, that's around $5.50 a month on a 3 year. Always be aware that if you refi, you have to buy again. I'd always get GAP on domestic vehicles, but Japanese ones tend to not loose value nearly enough to be worth it in my opinion, assuming a proper down-payment like Dave said.

Still, personally I'm not giving the dealership a chance to match what I've got from my local credit union. I think all the extra quotes I'm gonna get through the dealer are much more likely to produce a lot more spam in the mail than a much better rate.

Are you sure? If this is the case I will keep this in mind as a backup if I get a crappy rate from the dealer.