So in the middle of May, I unfortunately found myself in a position where I needed to replace my vehicle. At this point I already had started looking at reparing my credit and I was about 1 month into the journey. I recall my credit scores once being around 480. At the beginning of May my FICO Auto 5, 4 & 2 were: 633 TransUnion, 624 Equifax, and 555 Experian. When it came time to look for another vehicle, with those scores I figured I might be able to get an auto loan to help me work on my credit, traditionally I have always just purchased a vehicle outright.
My credit report has my student loans on them (missed a few timely payments over the years), and 2 accounts that are negatively reported that I am working on.
I submit an application to a dealership just to see what it was like going through the process, since I had never done it before. He came back and told me that my FICO Experian v2 was at 518. Experian is my worst record because some of my student loans have never reported to Experian.
Today, my FICO Auto 5, 4 & 2 are: 659 Equifax, 681 TransUnion, 577 Experian. I believe, if my math checks out, I am at a 12% debt to income ratio. I have a cosigner available to me as well, which I did not leverage on the initial vehicle application.
I make about $37,000 gross annually and have been employed for 3 years at that location, I work in veternary medicine.
Any advice here? I know I need to get the negatives off my report, and I am working on that.
