subject: Shopping For An Auto Loan With Bad Credit. [print this page] Steps You Should Take Before You Start Shopping For An Auto Loan With Bad Credit!
If your looking for a good used car, just finding a reliable car can be a challenge in itself. Now if you are looking to finance a car with bad or no credit, on top of finding something reliable, now that sometimes can be a real challenge! Finding a good deal at a local car dealership is not so hard to do. It's finding a dealership that will not try and pull a fast one on you and add in other aftermarket products and services that will wind up costing you a lot more money in the long run, that you should also be careful about!
If you have some sort of bad credit, it can be a nightmare when your car dealer or bank gives you an extremely high interest rate on your auto loan. It makes you feel like it is impossible to get a good deal with a low credit score. Sometimes this is true, but not in most cases.
At times this can be the case but one thing to remember is that car dealers need to sell cars. Don't be afraid to walk away and try your chances at another dealer if you feel you are not getting a good deal. The message I will try and get across to most readers of this article is what to do to prepare yourself to get a good deal when shopping for a bad credit car loan.
One thing that you should do ALWAYS before you step foot inside a car dealership is, get your credit score. If you know exactly what your score is before entering the dealership you will have better negotiating power when the time comes. The majority of people go find the car they like first, then then speak to a salesman at the dealership, then the salesman breaks the new to them that their credit history is very poor and they managed to push the deal through with the bank but it has a high interest rate. In this case you have set yourself up to get overcharged on your loan and interest rate, which will wind up costing you literally thousands of dollars more over the life of the auto loan.
Your first step should be to go on the internet and find a company that offers credit reports with FICO Scores. Get a credit report with scores from al the three major credit reporting agencies such as trans-Union, Equifax and Experian. All three credit scores will vary a little bit but you can use the highest score of the three to your advantage if you have to! Also remember that if you contact the credit bureaus directly, they offer you a free credit report once a year. This is something that everyone is eligible for., and is very important if you want to get a good deal on your next bad credit auto loan.
Lenders use the FICO score as one of the single most important factors for determining credit worthiness. Credit scores usually range from 400 to 900 with anything over 700 being considered as good credit. If you walk into a dealership saying you have bad credit and they run your report and see that you have a 690 credit score, the dealer may consider offering you a higher interest rate simply because you thought your credit history was extremely bad, when in essence it was better than you expected. You must remember that car dealerships have to make a certain amount of money on every car they sell because they have a very large overhead. So it is expected that they try and charge you more when they can. That is just how this kind of business works. But I am a true believer that a deal has to be fair for the dealership as well as the customer. I feel that no one should be taken advantage of!
