first car purchase

[Anonymous]

hey all im in poor credit standing but have been a forum lurking for a while. i just bought my first car, a 2014 honda civic si.

my fico is a 640 as my utilization is around 99% and i have one charge off from 2007(due to fall off mid 2015). i had gotten a baddie removed by contacting all burueas and asking for an early deletion for a collection due to fall off in early 2015. i make around 50k gross a year in a tipped industry. 

the story begins when my beater died and capital one blank check loan offered me 14% apr. i believed i could afford the base model civic because of my rate and the market price of the cars. after a month of dealing with dealers via emails i found out one claimed i could receive under 10% apr so that changed how much principle i could afford. 

i did a truecar application and got dealers emailing me. the true car price was roughly 22,000 msrp. i didnt want to put anything down and every salesman i talked with was awaere of this. i let about 4 dealers do a credit app on me but no one wants to give quotes on cars or aprs. i ended up in a dealership ready to pay 24,000 out the door fully financed at 10% apr...i get to the dealership and am immediatelt greeted by the salesman offering me a test drive. i take the worlds shortest test drive and get down to business. after talks of saying ive seen truecar at 22 can we get to 24 out the door nothing down fully financing tax titles fees etc the sales manager comes and runs bogus figures. im a finance student so im armed with my business analyst calculator and im doing calculations for annuities and this guys math isnt adding up. hes talking crazy numbers , first selling me on a payment . im firm with explaining i dont care about a payment i want a certain apr and a certain out the door cost... needless to say the manager asks me what calculator im using and when he sees its a texas instramnt business analyst he leaves and thats the last ive seen of him. oh he tried to offer me a hybrid 50/50 lease to own...i shoot everything down and am firm with only wanting to know apr and total present value of the car(what id finance)...so we agree on 24,000 at 10% apr 72 months...thats falls slightly above my budget of $400 a month...

the finance department

the worst place ever! good thing i read the first time car buyer sticky!!!! im a poker player, so i am an ice cold deal maker...i showed vey negative emotion and was never happy...even with the "man you stole the car from us, you owe us a filet at your restaurant" i wasnt appearing happy...anyways i was in finance for around 4 hours...at the sales desk i agreed to $24,000 8.99% and was thinking if i could get the finance department to 8.5% id win! the finance guy kept walking in and shaking his head and asking for money down. i never budged. i froze to death and stood like a rock. finally, they come in with the "we have good but bad news". they got me on 7% apr for 60 months and the cash price of 19,000 for the car. the total financed was 22,226. i immediately accepted.! i was thinking 24,000 10% apr...i now shaved my initially capital one loan quote in half and paid true cars msrp but for my out the door cost.....

i cant seem to feel i got ripped off. why do i feel like i won? i wanted 24,000 10% and they handed me 22,000 7%....why was that? did i do well? or did id get had? 

[0REDSOX7]

What was the sticker price on the car?

Who did you end up financing with?

[Anonymous]

i financed with honda financial. when you ask sticker price what do you mean? on my finance agree the cash price of the car was 19.xxK and i financed 22.2k. the car had actual stickers in the glove box saying 25,xxx msrp. i paid truecar's msrp price but for the total out the door price. just in life i feel when you feel like youve won you really lost...

[0REDSOX7]

I think you did good...

I mean, for one, you got in with Honda Financial, so, treat them right and the next time you go to finance, your prior history with them plays in a lot to the rate you get.

[SamsungHDTV]

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@Anonymous wrote:

i financed with honda financial. when you ask sticker price what do you mean? on my finance agree the cash price of the car was 19.xxK and i financed 22.2k. the car had actual stickers in the glove box saying 25,xxx msrp. i paid truecar's msrp price but for the total out the door price. just in life i feel when you feel like youve won you really lost...

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I'm glad you liked the first time car buyer guide sticky. I put a lot into it and its helped many here. Share it with others you find in a similar situation.

In my opinion, truecar is a referral ploy. I was able to negotiate a lower price than what truecar was giving me. Ignore the actual stickers in the glove box saying 25,XXX msrp. With that being said, I wouldnt trust truecar and I think its junk. The only real way to know you got the best deal is to have price shopped all the dealerships.

I don't want you to feel like you didn't win, but since you're asking. I think there was still room to negotiate the price of the car. I also think you could have received a better rate from what you have given about your profile. But I still think you did good on getting them to come down.

I think the reason why you felt like you won and lost at the same time is because you accepted the deal they came back with which was better than your expectation. Its best to go with no expectation. I had no idea or expectation on what I was going to pay for my car. When salesmen asked, what price do I need to earn your business? My response was simply, "The lowest price that I can find, I'm price shopping you with your competitor dealers". I went back and forth with dealers until the last dealer offered the best deal.

Wait until your baddie falls off mid 2015 and refinance after. Do you have any other baddies? Can you elaborate on how you called the credit bureaus to remove your baddies early? More specfically, I'd like to know the DOFD and the date they agreed to remove. Was it at least 7 years?

[Anonymous]

DOFD was around 6.5 years...i called and simply asked for early deletion. each bureau obviously had a foreign rep, who responded with "ok you want to investigate". at the end of the day it got removed. only other baddie is a charge off that limitations should end mid 2015. i have all my credit basically maxed. if my current fico was 640 what should i get my score to before attempting a refi.

[sccredit]

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@SamsungHDTV wrote:

 I wouldnt trust truecar and I think its junk. The only real way to know you got the best deal is to have price shopped all the dealerships.

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Having bought 2 cars in the last 60 days I can say that the pricing I received by using TrueCar dealers was much better than dealers that were contacted without.  IME TrueCar does work, and having bought 13 cars in the last 10 years I can say it is a great tool.  That being said you do have to compare everything, including dealers inside and outside their network.

[SamsungHDTV]

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@sccredit wrote:

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@SamsungHDTV wrote:

 I wouldnt trust truecar and I think its junk. The only real way to know you got the best deal is to have price shopped all the dealerships.

---

Having bought 2 cars in the last 60 days I can say that the pricing I received by using TrueCar dealers was much better than dealers that were contacted without.  IME TrueCar does work, and having bought 13 cars in the last 10 years I can say it is a great tool.  That being said you do have to compare everything, including dealers inside and outside their network.

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My point is that if I can negotiate a lower price than what TrueCar quoted me then there is no point in using it. This is what happened in my experience. Truecar will give you a pre-negotiated price and then you're basically stuck there. Yes it will be a better price than the first few quotes you get from a dealer. But its entirely possible to negotiate lower by price shopping all the dealerships. Its a great tool for those who don't like to negotiate and price shop back and forth. Which is a lot of buyers out there.