topic Re: BMW Credit Tiers in Auto Loans

BMW Credit Tiers

Anonymous — Wed, 05 May 2021 16:47:15 GMT

I called and spoke to a Finance Manager at a local BMW dealership here in Georgia but I'm not really believing what he's telling me as far as BMW credit tiers are concerned. He said the following: 740+ Super Elite, 700-739 Elite, 675-699 Standard, 640-674 Standard Plus and 601-639 Progressive. I asked if it was FICO Auto 8 or 9 scores. He said, no it's your actual credit score and they use Transunion (which happens to be my lowest score). I thought for car buying, all dealerships especially captive lenders used the FICO Auto 8 or 9 scores. Does anyone have any experience with BMW credit tiers? I've googled and read on this forum and it seems to be all over the place about the actual credit tiers that they use.

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

Anonymous — Wed, 05 May 2021 20:50:56 GMT

Most captive lenders keep any official documentation on their tiers limited to internal staff. I have never financed with BMW financial, but the breakdown of tiers seems pretty accurate. Most brands the top tier is 700+, but I know Ford has a Tier 0 that is only for 740+ with previous history with Ford credit, so the "Super Elite" could be similar to that. There are a lot of auto lenders that do not use auto enhanced versions, so I would imagine it is very possible that BMW financial does not.

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

Loquat — Wed, 05 May 2021 21:43:04 GMT

I'm not sure what model BMW uses but you can use Cap One's navigator to at least get an idea of where you'll land as far as interest rates. If you get something at least favorable from them then you can always make the dealer work a little harder for your business.

Best of luck as you move forward in the process.

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

Spider07 — Thu, 06 May 2021 16:02:05 GMT

I can speak for me. I financed a new BMW last month (April 2021) with a score of 675 and I got 2.49% rate. Which was their advertised rate. The BMW dealership here (Houston TX ) pulled Experian.

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

Anonymous — Thu, 06 May 2021 19:21:30 GMT

@Spider07 @thank you. I'm hoping the dealership will pull my best score which is Experian. My transunion is not so great.

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

Spider07 — Thu, 06 May 2021 19:27:26 GMT

Good Luck!

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

twosense — Thu, 06 May 2021 22:02:07 GMT

Just wanted to thank you for your real life example.

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

4sallypat — Sun, 09 May 2021 14:22:47 GMT

BMWFS rewards you if you have done business in the past with them.

Those credit tiers are "official" numbers but it comes down to the dealer and BMWFS for your rate.

When I first started with my first BMW (2006 328i AWD), I was young and didn't have a great score (low 600s) but they still financed me at an OK rate and I still had to put down 20%.

Then as the years passed and I moved into a much pricier X5 gas, then X5 diesel and X5 PHEV; my scores were in the high 600s but BMWFS still approved me for their best base MF lease rate with ZERO down.

4 years ago, I bought a CPO BMW 528 and even with a score of 690, I got into their 0.9% best rate.

The reason: the dealer backed me (I got over 6 cars from them) and each time with BMWFS.

It's amazing how much pull a dealer has on your rate!

If you lease, don't put any money down - only use MSD for lowering your MF.

Now that I am in the mid 700s, I am considering the new all electric BMW iX

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

Anonymous — Sun, 09 May 2021 14:44:45 GMT

@4sallypatthank you for the insight. I definitely think the dealer can push me through to tier 1. Right now I would probably qualify at tier 2 but I'm trying to get the 1.9% financing deal on the x4. I've never owned a BMW before so this would be the beginning of my relationship with them...fingers crossed.

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

4sallypat — Sun, 09 May 2021 15:47:44 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@4sallypatthank you for the insight. I definitely think the dealer can push me through to tier 1. Right now I would probably qualify at tier 2 but I'm trying to get the 1.9% financing deal on the x4. I've never owned a BMW before so this would be the beginning of my relationship with them...fingers crossed.

Yes, the dealer has the ability to bump you up tiers if they want to.

You may need to shop around for a dealer willing to help.

Remember, when you find the dealer that treats you well, you should remain loyal to them.

That's how I have been able to get the best rates thru BMWFS.

1.9% is a very good rate on a new X4.

Best of luck to you!

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

ridgebackpilot — Tue, 11 May 2021 18:00:12 GMT

@4sallypat wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@4sallypatthank you for the insight. I definitely think the dealer can push me through to tier 1. Right now I would probably qualify at tier 2 but I'm trying to get the 1.9% financing deal on the x4. I've never owned a BMW before so this would be the beginning of my relationship with them...fingers crossed.
Yes, the dealer has the ability to bump you up tiers if they want to.
You may need to shop around for a dealer willing to help.
Remember, when you find the dealer that treats you well, you should remain loyal to them.

That's how I have been able to get the best rates thru BMWFS.

1.9% is a very good rate on a new X4.

Best of luck to you!

Agreed. That's how I get the best interest rates from dealers. Most auto manufacturers value relationships and returning customers, and are willing to reward you with tier bumps and lower rates.

If one of your scores is lower than the others, you can always lock that report. That forces the dealers to use your other scores, which are higher. That's what I did this week when car shopping at Ford and Toyota dealers. I kept my EQ report locked (for some reason, it's about 20 points lower than the others) but temporarily unlocked the other reports. That forced the finance companies to use my TU and EX scores, which they were happy to do. Neither of them asked me to unlock my EQ score, probably because they don't typically pull EQ here anyway.

Good luck with the BMW. BMW Financial Services has been decent to me in the past. But I've stopped buying BMWs due to their universally poor reliability. I ended up paying as much each month in service charges on used BMWs as I would have paid to buy a new one!

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

LakeLife — Tue, 11 May 2021 17:36:47 GMT

In 2010 I had a ~690 FICO and was able to get their 1.9% advertised financing on a Mini.

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

NoMoreE46 — Tue, 18 May 2021 16:30:02 GMT

DW financed through them last month. She is 'super elite' and got 0.90% at 36 months We got a $500 loyalty credit too.

Other banks (WF) were like at 2.49%.

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 23:45:51 GMT

@Spider07 wrote:
I can speak for me. I financed a new BMW last month (April 2021) with a score of 675 and I got 2.49% rate. Which was their advertised rate. The BMW dealership here (Houston TX ) pulled Experian.

Was that 675 your FICO 8 or an auto enhanced score?

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

Gladius — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 17:30:45 GMT

@Spider07 wrote:
I can speak for me. I financed a new BMW last month (April 2021) with a score of 675 and I got 2.49% rate. Which was their advertised rate. The BMW dealership here (Houston TX ) pulled Experian.

How many months?

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

belastebury — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 16:48:24 GMT

That's awesome! Congratulations!!

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

belastebury — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 16:53:57 GMT

Wonderful story. Thank you for sharing your experience.

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

DarkKnight_Credit — Thu, 09 Sep 2021 02:44:38 GMT

I'm looking to purchase a BMW, which they done a factory order for me around July, so my car should be here either this month or next month. So I can share my experience. I allowed the dealership to go through my scores just to see where I'm at. T.hey do check all of your scores if one isn't high enough. I forgot the one they check for first. They usually use the highest score and go with that.

When they checked my credit report, this is what they had in July:

665 EQ FACTA BEACON 09 - AUTO

675 Ex FICO AUTO 8

692 TU FICO AUTO 8

My salesman told me that they would go with TU, since that's the highest out of all my scores. I've been told I would be in a Tier 3 and I can potentially reach to a Tier 2 if I get more points in a few months. But he doubt that I would ever get to Tier 1 in a short amount of time.

Around last week, my santander auto loan, which I had 3 late payments and a repo (that happened 4 years ago) just got removed. So my points jumped a whopping 65+ points with FICO scores! I just checked my Experian Auto 8 score and it's around a 743. So it's really good timing! Hopefully the BMWFS can get me to the super elite level, especially if I'm looking to put nearly 50% down for the car.

I hope this help others who's looking to finance with BMW.

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

Anonymous — Sat, 11 Sep 2021 03:39:16 GMT

@DarkKnight_Credit wrote:
I'm looking to purchase a BMW, which they done a factory order for me around July, so my car should be here either this month or next month. So I can share my experience. I allowed the dealership to go through my scores just to see where I'm at. T.hey do check all of your scores if one isn't high enough. I forgot the one they check for first. They usually use the highest score and go with that.

When they checked my credit report, this is what they had in July:

665 EQ FACTA BEACON 09 - AUTO
675 Ex FICO AUTO 8
692 TU FICO AUTO 8

My salesman told me that they would go with TU, since that's the highest out of all my scores. I've been told I would be in a Tier 3 and I can potentially reach to a Tier 2 if I get more points in a few months. But he doubt that I would ever get to Tier 1 in a short amount of time.

Around last week, my santander auto loan, which I had 3 late payments and a repo (that happened 4 years ago) just got removed. So my points jumped a whopping 65+ points with FICO scores! I just checked my Experian Auto 8 score and it's around a 743. So it's really good timing! Hopefully the BMWFS can get me to the super elite level, especially if I'm looking to put nearly 50% down for the car.

I hope this help others who's looking to finance with BMW.

Crazy because my santander loan that was repoed almost 3-4 years ago just got erased. They went through some lawsuit so they were forced to fix everything for all the predatory loans they gave out. Pretty awesome my credit score jumped alot too! But back to the topic at hand. I was approved for a 2022 M3 Competition with a 677 score for their Standard Tier. Im now at a 702 experian auto so i should be able to get elite since i havent take. Delivery of the car yet. Waiting on an allocation.

Re: BMW Credit Tiers

DarkKnight_Credit — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 15:37:22 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Crazy because my santander loan that was repoed almost 3-4 years ago just got erased. They went through some lawsuit so they were forced to fix everything for all the predatory loans they gave out. Pretty awesome my credit score jumped alot too! But back to the topic at hand. I was approved for a 2022 M3 Competition with a 677 score for their Standard Tier. Im now at a 702 experian auto so i should be able to get elite since i havent take. Delivery of the car yet. Waiting on an allocation.

That's good news! I didn't know that they went through some kind of lawsuit. But that's good that it happened. I was wondering why Santander late payments fell off from my credit in the span of 4 years, rather than 7 years. The interest on those kind of loans they gave were ridiculous. And I was a first time car buyer at the time that had about 24% of interest. I'm sure dealerships like BMW will not list Santander for loan approvals. And congrats on the approval on your car! They should give you a much better interest, given your boosted credit score.