@Anonymous wrote:
Hello. I am looking into buying a new car, within the next couple of months. after some mistakes and bad judgement several years ago, my husband and I have been working hard to rebuild our credit, and are now at 630 and 680.
Since I don't know for sure that we would be accepted by just any auto financing company, I would rather have an approved loan in hand when we go to the dealership. I have been looking into Capital One Auto.
They do not have the Blank Check program any more. Now, you get your pre-approval online, then take your award letter to the dealer. The site says that you then fill out a dealer credit application to complete the financing.
Has anyone done this? The scenario that comes to my mind is that Cap 1 will approve us, we will walk in confidently, pick out our perfect car, only to be laughed at by the financing office, while they lay out all the reasons why we don't meet their requirements. This is precicely why I want to be approved before going in...I have some anxiety about asking for approval in person.
Would an approval award letter be the final say? Or do you think that filling out this "dealer credit application" could then deny us later?
Thanks!
I haven't had experience with their new auto finance process. From what I can tell, the award letter is usually a conditional approval. Which means, you're approved so long as you have paperwork to back up info on your application (such as proof of income), and that the car meets collateral restrictions (not too old, not too many miles, and LTV is within acceptable range). You should probably contact cap one directly to confirm if nobody replies.
In my opinion, Cap One forcing you to apply with the dealer's finance office is nonsense. Although you might want to, I would not want to be forced to. I would suggest you trying several credit unions. When I purchased my car, I applied at cap one, other big banks, credit unions, and the captive lender (honda finance). Cap one came in at like 8-9%, honda came in with like 3.9%, and the credit union initially 5%+ dropped theirs to 3.85% to beat the dealer and then offered auto pay rate discounts so I ended with 3.4%. My main point is that cap one finance, although can be easier to be approved was a lot higher in rate. Almost 3 times higher! At least this was my experience. For reference, my scores were around 660, low DTI, and I had previously had an auto loan on my reports.
