Poor credit auto loan

[Anonymous]

I was in the same position a few years ago.  I suggest working with a credit union, they are almost always going to be your best rate and walking into the dealer with a preapproved loan will put you in a much better position in terms of negotiating with the dealer.  Generally subprime customers get poor treatment from dealers because they prey on your need for the loan and often times mark up the APR to get their kickback from the lender, in some really tough credit situations they end up paying the lender to take the loan because of the risk, when they do this they will pass the cost on to you.  Point is you can avoid all of this if you can bring financing to the dealer.  If you cannot get approved via a credit union or bank then you will be forced to work with the dealer.  Since your rebuilding you will be in a position in a few months to refinance.  I had to take a 12.5% loan when I first bought my wifes car but 6 months later was able to refinance to 4.29% with NFCU.  

Best of luck, keep working on that rebuild and it will make life easier.

[Revelate]

Unless it's changed, if I were walking into a Toyota (or Lexus) dealership I'd let them try to beat it anyway, and I'd also check with a CU as depending what model that FICO score is you quite possibly can do better.

Typically with auto lending on joint applications the higher of the two scores is used, with the combined income (unlike mortgage where it's the lower with said combined income).  

Don't sweat dealer inquiries: FICO will count them as 1, and lenders aren't stupid.  High inquiries is likely never an automatic denial (unlike high new tradelines) these days when it comes to the UW algorithms or the underwriters themselves.  Certainly on a new car, and likely on any used car where I wasn't in the top bracket already at a CU I'd let the dealer run my credit personally.