Have you spoken to the independent dealer to see if they have any finance resources or would be willing to do an in-hose contract? Since you mentioned all three credit scores I am assuming you got them from a credit monitoring service and not the TU and EQ FICO scores available on this site. Your FICO scores may be vastly different (better or worse) than those.
You may want to also try one of the peer to peer lending sites like Prosper or Lending Club. Although I believe they both have minimum credit score requirements. Barring any of those ideas then your only option is to find a friend / relative that will write a loan on a promissory from you.
Starting Score: 500's
@urbex wrote:No, I haven't talked to anyone about it. At this point it's just something I was thinking about, and am hesitant to talk to the dealers until I'm ready to pull the trigger on something, as I didn't know if I would just be wasting my time and inquiries on my credit report trying.
Most lenders have an age limit on vehicles they're willing to finance, and that old is going to be tricky. Maybe someone can offer a suggestion on a lender, but they're going to be few and far between.
How much cash do you have laying around? The math I'm seeing is this: you gross $3000/mo, and for sloppy math let's just say that equates to $2000 post-tax (which I know is low), so you have $1700 in free cash flow / month, minus utilities, food, and gas. If you don't have cash saved up, start immediately. Heck, rent a truck if you have to in order to continue working, but you're likely going to have to finance things on your own.
If you can come up with call it 3K, you could get an unsecured junk loan (130% APR) for $2600 from Cashcal or similar provider, and then put your entire monthly earnings other than the exceptions mentioned above, towards paying off the loan in 2-3 months at worst assuming your financial model. It's not ideal, but on a short-term basis, when you just need to get it financed to continue working in your credit strata, there's worse ways to go... namely not being able to continue working.
Those are really the only ideas I can come up with unless someone has a lark besides the already mentioned family loan financing if you can get it.
@urbex wrote:I would think I'd be far further ahead to buy an older private sale vehicle for 2-3K than to take a horrendously overpriced cash loan like CashCall or similar. Or just go with a $500 junkyard engine in the current truck, and hope it holds out for a few more months while I can save up a few more thousand. Mine isn't completely down yet, so I still have some time to figure things out, so it's not like I need to do something today or tomorrow. I've got a couple thousand in the bank now, but I didn't really want to empty my savings out for an older vehicle, and leave myself without a backup plan in case of an expensive repair popping up right away.
I think at this point, I'm just going to hold off for a month or so, see what happens with my current truck, and continue to save up. Maybe if I'm lucky, it will hold for another 4-6 months, and I'll have the cash available at that point to buy something newer outright.
If this works out obviously it is the best scenario in your situation. And also continue your credit rebuild efforts for the time after next when you will be auto shopping. By following the proven strategies here you could be on the forums crowing about the great interest rate you got after coming out of credit hades.