When you have poor credit in Los Angeles, it isn’t always easy finding a dealership that can help you get financed. If you’re in the market for a car, but aren’t sure how to improve your chances of getting approved when your credit is bad, we have some tips to help you.
5 Tips for Buying a Car With Poor Credit
Because you have poor credit, you aren’t going to be able to just walk into any local dealer in Los Angeles and get approved for an auto loan. If you want to successfully get financed, you need to do some preparation ahead of time. These five tips can help you get a car loan with bad credit:
Know where your credit stands – You should know where your credit currently stands and what’s on your credit reports. Most lenders look at your auto-enhanced FICO score, and if your bank or credit union doesn’t offer a free FICO check, you can pay a small fee and view your FICO scores (including your auto-enhanced FICO score) at myFICO.com. For your credit reports, you’re entitled to a free copy every 12 months from the three major credit bureaus – Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion – and you can request a copy at www.annualcreditreport.com. Make sure everything is accurate, and dispute any information that isn’t correct immediately.- Be on top of monthly payments – You can improve your credit score over time by keeping up with your monthly payments. It’s also important to be able to handle multiple lines of credit. If you struggle to pay your current monthly bills, you may want to reconsider taking out a car loan.
- Budget ahead of time – In addition to keeping up with your current bills, you should budget for your upcoming auto loan. You can use our Car Loan Estimator and Payment Calculator to get an estimate of how much vehicle you could afford. Keep in mind that our calculators don’t include tax, title, insurance, and license fees, so make sure you add these into your calculations. With an estimated budget, you can research and compare models, which gives you a better idea of which car you should be looking into.
- Try getting pre-approved – If you have a good relationship with your bank or credit union, you should try for a pre-approval before you apply for a bad credit auto loan. Banks, credit unions, and other online lenders may be able to pre-approve you, and you can compare the rate and terms you get to other offers. Even if they can’t pre-approve you, it gives you an idea on where you stand and what you can expect when you visit a special finance dealership.
- Consider getting a cosigner – Some subprime lenders that operate in Los Angeles require bad credit car buyers to have a cosigner in order to approve them. Even if a lender doesn’t require one, it doesn’t hurt to have a cosigner on hand just in case. With one, you may be able to qualify for a better interest rate.
Find a Bad Credit Car Dealership in Los Angeles
It’s no surprise that finding financing in Los Angeles can be difficult. Between the traffic and multiple neighborhoods, where do you even begin to look? At Auto Credit Express, we take the stress of finding a dealer out by doing the searching for you.
We’ve been helping consumers in LA and across the US get the financing they need for over 20 years, and we want to help you! To get started, simply fill out our free and easy auto loan request form, and we’ll get right to work searching for a local dealership to match you with.
