I'm just curious if this sounds right to everyone:
I have 806 credit, just given the report at the dealership.
Credit util is under 29%.
All I have are normal student loans.
Income is close to 200k.
I have a small LOC on my home (no real mortgage) that I only pay 1200/mo on.
I was offered a rate of 8.99% at lightstream and 7.5% at the dealer. This sounds extremely high to me given my credit profile. If I don't qualify for prime rates, who does?!
I ended up buying the car in cash as I couldn't choke down these rates.
Am I missing something?
Current Auto Loan Rates?!
byu/Dont_Judge_this-Book inpersonalfinance
Posted by Dont_Judge_this-Book
9 Comments
Go to a local credit union for the best rates.
My credit union is offering 3.99
Used car rates are higher than new car, you didn’t say which you bought, nor did you mention the term, you’ll pay a lot more for an 84 month loan than a 24 month one.
When I buy cars I use PenFed unless there’s a factory promo.
https://www.penfed.org/auto
This in line with current lending rates, source, I’m a lender but not retail. Edit, adding below.
If anyone else is in this boat take out the note and make sure you could pay off early or make extra payments without penalty. I’d take the 7.5% and call it a day if you want to the easy route, sure there are better rates out there but what’s your time worth.
That’s about right, the national average for super prime for used cars is 7.5%
Is your 806 score an actual FICO score or something else?
Remember than many banks and captive financing arms use an “auto” score rather than a standard FICO score, so if you don’t have a previous auto loan history you may not qualify as “prime” by that scoring model.
As longs as your DTI isn’t out of whack, you should still be able to get an auto loan directly through a bank or CU for under 5% for a 60 month or shorter term, and under 6% for a longer term.
> If I don’t qualify for prime rates, who does?!
Was this for a used car? Here are the average auto loan rates as of about 5 days ago. This is broken out between new and used, and by credit tier. Looks like 7.7% is about average for a used car loan with “superprime” credit right now.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/auto-loans/learn/average-car-loan-interest-rates-by-credit-score
>Credit util is under 29%
Dang dude what are your credit limits on your cards? Are you paying your statement balance in full every cycle? I’d see about increasing them BUT DON’T START SPENDING MORE ONCE YOU DO.
Anyway, used cars have higher rates. Longer term loans have higher rates. Larger amounts loaned have higher rates. 7.5% doesn’t really surprise me but you could have checked a credit union too.
I just got a small loan for my credit union… 6.25%.. a bit high because the car is a 2011…. Newish cars are 4.99% with good credit.