Buddy needs a car!

April 3, 2008 10:04 AM

Reputable company to get an auto loan for first time buyer with slow credit?

Hey my buddy is trying to buy a car through an independent seller, and he needs a small loan. $4k to be exact. He has no major reposessions or anything like that on his report, but the stuff he does have has been all slow pays from back when he was young and dumb.

Does anyone have any suggestion for how he can get a loan for this amount?

posted by ZackTM to work & money (7 comments total)

(By the way, this is in Wilmington, NC if you know any one local)
posted by ZackTM at 10:05 AM on April 3, 2008

I would suggest a local credit union. If he can get a co-signer that's probably going to be a big help.
posted by mkb at 10:16 AM on April 3, 2008

How long ago was his "young and dumb" phase? I don't think anyone is going to look at the 'speed' of his repayment. What they are going to look at is if he makes his payments on time. If he's been doing that for a few years, his credit might be pretty good by now. (on the other hand, if he doesn't have any active credit cards, that could be a problem too)

You can get a credit report with a score for a reasonable fee. He might want to try doing that to find out what his actual score is.
posted by delmoi at 10:18 AM on April 3, 2008

Credit Union.
posted by unixrat at 10:18 AM on April 3, 2008

Thirding a credit union.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:32 PM on April 3, 2008

Slow credit = a lot of 30s, 60s, 90s (he did not make his payments on time at all). Probably some chargeoffs. Sadly everyone cares about it. I don't know the specifics of his report personally.

Are there no internet loan companys that do this sort of thing anymore?
posted by ZackTM at 2:40 PM on April 3, 2008

Nthing a credit union, but if he's already tried that to no avail, I know of two p2p lending groups online: Prosper and Zopa. (There's a third, IIRC, but the name escapes me entirely.)

If his current income situation is good, and the late payments are WELL behind him, it might be worthwhile for him to proactively mention direct account deduction for his car payments. Also, if I remember from my last car loan, I got a slightly better percentage rate by doing that.
posted by epersonae at 3:14 PM on April 3, 2008