Fico Auto 8 and 5 Score Models

[StartingOver10]

From my unscientific POV and anecdotal evidence of postings here, many of the smaller lenders and CU's use mortgage scores or older models if you are going for an installment loan.  

But the best way to determine is to ask the lender directly what model they are using. You may have to go to a supervisor if the front line CSR doesn't know.  You can pull many FICO models here in the 3B reports and it is a SP. That way when you seek out the guidelines from the lender, you know up front what the score will be - only if it is one of the models here.  To me, it is worth it to pull my own scores here and check with the lender first before 'blind apping' for any type of installment loan.  JMO. 

Here is an explanation of various FICO scores available to us as consumers here:  http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/The-many-flavors-of-FICO-Editions-version...

[Anonymous]

After my surprising FICO 5 pull, I certainly wanted to find out what each potential lender was going to pull before I actually submitted an app to them. Honestly, I was pretty disappointed with the specifics, or lack thereof, I got from all of them. I have a few contacts in banks and credit unions so I thought it would be pretty easy to find out what specific score model each of those lenders use, but I was wrong. I couldn't get one lender to tell me anything more than the CB they would pull and a most (maybe all) didn't even know themselves which score model their institution used. I'm not trying to say that no one at the lender knew which model they used, but none of the people who you will actually ever talk to knew. I sat down with the branch manager of  the bank where I have all of my business accounts to try and pick his brain about it. I had already sent him all of the info before I met with him so he could see what he could find out for me. He was surprised himself at the lack of info he could get from his institution regarding specific score models. He told me that their lending "higher ups" would only tell him that they pulled EQ, but nothing at all about which EQ score they would use. He told me that he even started calling some of the other branch managers that he knew to see what they knew and some of them didn't even know what he was talking about when he mentioned various score models. He thought that was pretty funny. It seems like that probably isn't the exception, but rather the rule for almost anyone customers like you or I would speak to at any lending institution. The same held true for at least 3 other credit unions and 2 other banks that I checked out. One of those credit union sources was actually my dad who is on the board of a CU, so I'm pretty confident in that source. Just like the branch managers my bank guy talked with, my dad knew basically nothing about score models and which ones his CU used. 

I realize this info isn't all that helpful, but I just thought I would share what I found out with you guys since there aren't many (any) other people I can think of who would care. Also, I think it's important for people to know that even when you find out what CB a potential lender is going to pull, you still may not have a good idea of the score they will actually base your interest rate on. This is especially true when you have 100 point variations between score models from the same CB like me....

[bsal]

Clitityclack your post was very useful thank you

[nycplayboy78]

Google Search - Credit Bureau Pull Database

You should come up with CreditBoards/dot/com simply type in your lender and click your state it should come up with at least which CB they are pulling from but it doesn't tell you the scoring model used. I hope this helps out some....

[Slim1Der]

I'm a Sales Manager for the largest Honda dealership in San Diego. Honda, as well as most of our lenders exclusively use Experian AUTO FICO V8 scoring model. This wasn't alwasy the case. We switchsed from AUTO FICO v$ about 2 years ago. Some lenders like CHASE use Transunion. Hardly none of our lenders use Equifax.

The V8 scoring model seems to be more liberal than the V4 model. I have seen more 800+ scores since we switched to the V8 model.

Hope this was helpful

[vegastim13]

It almost seems like some lenders don't want to swtich to v8 so they can justify giving us higher rates. My 05 and 08 vary a lot like everyone else here, and its frustrating not being able to get a decent rate because it appears to me that theyre all pulling the old version which is no where near the rest of my credit scores.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

After my surprising FICO 5 pull, I certainly wanted to find out what each potential lender was going to pull before I actually submitted an app to them. Honestly, I was pretty disappointed with the specifics, or lack thereof, I got from all of them. I have a few contacts in banks and credit unions so I thought it would be pretty easy to find out what specific score model each of those lenders use, but I was wrong. I couldn't get one lender to tell me anything more than the CB they would pull and a most (maybe all) didn't even know themselves which score model their institution used. I'm not trying to say that no one at the lender knew which model they used, but none of the people who you will actually ever talk to knew. I sat down with the branch manager of  the bank where I have all of my business accounts to try and pick his brain about it. I had already sent him all of the info before I met with him so he could see what he could find out for me. He was surprised himself at the lack of info he could get from his institution regarding specific score models. He told me that their lending "higher ups" would only tell him that they pulled EQ, but nothing at all about which EQ score they would use. He told me that he even started calling some of the other branch managers that he knew to see what they knew and some of them didn't even know what he was talking about when he mentioned various score models. He thought that was pretty funny. It seems like that probably isn't the exception, but rather the rule for almost anyone customers like you or I would speak to at any lending institution. The same held true for at least 3 other credit unions and 2 other banks that I checked out. One of those credit union sources was actually my dad who is on the board of a CU, so I'm pretty confident in that source. Just like the branch managers my bank guy talked with, my dad knew basically nothing about score models and which ones his CU used. 

I realize this info isn't all that helpful, but I just thought I would share what I found out with you guys since there aren't many (any) other people I can think of who would care. Also, I think it's important for people to know that even when you find out what CB a potential lender is going to pull, you still may not have a good idea of the score they will actually base your interest rate on. This is especially true when you have 100 point variations between score models from the same CB like me....

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This was my experience exactly today. I am searching for a lender for an auto refinance and spent literally all day calling banks and credit unions and getting no where. No one knows or is willing to say which credit scoring model they use as part of the application process. The poor people that answer the phone are COMPLETELY CLUELESS as to what I am talking about. My model scores have 25 pt + differences so you can imagine my frustrations. 

Good luck to all

[reneasworld]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Everyone uses Auto 8 its the most recent. 

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Not really. I just purchased and Benz Financial used Auto 5 for Equifax and the other one for Transunion. My Equifax Auto 5 was lower and my Transunion Auto was higher than 8. Go figure. I wish they would switch to FICO 9 because my only bad things on my credit report are medical and with the new equations my scores are so much better.