Consumer Car Buying Advice Blog

Today, Thanksgiving Day, is the official start of the holiday season. It’s quite appropriate, since four inches of snow fell last night in Michigan. Over the next month and half we will all be pre-occupied trying to find gifts for everyone on our Christmas list.
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When it comes time to buy a car, people with bad credit often opt for a used car because they believe used cars have lower monthly payments. There are, however, other factors to consider in addition to the payment such as the total cost of ownership, lender rates, and the cash down payment amount required to get approved for financing. (more…)

Over the past few years’ auto dealer’s profits, especially those of domestic car dealers, have been declining. It’s quite common these days for automobile dealers to sell a new car for the invoice price just to move the unit and please the factory. When auto sales are slow, dealerships look for ways to sell more cars. One of the ways to sell more cars is to get more people with bad credit approved.

With that said, many car dealers jump into the bad credit auto sales arena without the proper training and, quite frankly, many of them make a mess of it. With bad credit auto sales, the car dealer has to do more work than they may be used to; for example, it’s a good idea for dealers to verify employment and income before they finalize a bad credit auto loan. (more…)

A few years ago just about anyone could file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. With a Chapter 7 bankruptcy all of your debts are liquidated. This type of bankruptcy made it easy to rack up a bunch a debt, charge it off in the bankruptcy, and get a fresh start auto loan a few months later. Apparently this process allowed too much abuse and, late in 2005, Congress passed stricter bankruptcy laws.

Now, before filing bankruptcy, people have to prove they are broke, and they have to attend credit counseling through an approved agency. If they pass the means test, that is to say, they prove they are broke, and attend the credit counseling sessions, a judge could still insist that the person file a chapter 13 instead. With a chapter 13 bankruptcy, the debts are not liquidated; rather, they are paid off over a period of years. (more…)

Bad Car Credit History Loans

Getting a car loan with a history of bad credit is more common than you may think. The type of car loan you end up with, however, depends on the items listed in your bad credit history.

For example, if a majority of your bad credit history is from non-applied for credit items, the car loan you receive will most likely be at better interest rates and terms than people with a bad credit history from applied for credit items.

Non Applied For Credit History

Sometimes items show up on your credit history that are not credit items at all, they are bills that went unpaid, or other amounts owed, that ended up at a collection agency. Common non-applied for items include: (more…)

Bankrate.com Quotes Auto Credit Express Vice President George Hrisoulis Jr.

“The credit application, your credit history and the down payment are among the items auto lenders consider when providing financing to a car buyer.These factors illustrate “the three Cs” of lending: capacity, character and collateral, says George Hrisoulis Jr., vice president of field operations at Auto Credit Express Inc.”

Read the article on Bankrate.com

We recently expanded our Canada bad credit car loan service. Now, Auto Credit Express is able to help people with bad credit all across Canada buy a car; our Canada car loan service is available in every province. (more…)

If you have bad credit chances are that when it comes time to buy a new car you will start first start by visiting used car dealers, either online or at the lot. I’m not sure why this is the tendency. The fact is that if you have bad credit you are more likely to get approved at a new car dealer that specializes in bad credit financing, than you are at a used car dealer.

The main reason for this is that most of the national sub prime auto lenders only partner with new car dealers or very large independent used car dealers. So if you visit a franchised car dealer more often than not you will have more lenders competing for your auto loan, and as the saying goes, when lenders compete you win. (more…)