Auto loan help

[Tech2410]

We live in an RV and travel full time, we have a 2013 Chevy suburban. While we're not overweight, our suburban is having a hard time pulling through the mountains (we're from Oklahoma). We have decided to stay put until we can get a new truck (ideally a 1 ton diesel). With the insane costs of used trucks, we've been looking at new. So far we've been approved with a credit union for up to 75k but with 20% down. 

Taxes show income at $88k a year, bank statements show Income at $135k a year. Self employed and have been for 3.5 years. 

Average age of credit is 1y11m

Discover 1 - balance $1429.83, limit is $1800

discover 2 - balance $313.68, credit limit is $500

credit one 1 - balance is $232, limit is $400

credit one 2 - balance is $297, limit is $700

capital one auto - owe $22k, highest trade offer we've gotten is $12k

RV loan - Balance is $33,413 originally got the loan for $35k in January 

unsecured signature loan - balance is $4852, originally got the loan for $5500 in December 

I have 2 derogatory items, both medical bills. One should fall off sometime in July. The other I haven't made payment arrangements on. 

I have about $5k-$6k a month I can save or put towards debt. Ideally we're back on the road by end of July.

Any advice? We don't have to have a new truck, but if we're talking a $60k truck would definitely prefer new vs a 5 year old used truck. 

EQ is 645

TU is 648

Experian is 659

Fico auto 8 is 648

fico auto 2 is 622

[Mdowning30]

Save yourself thousands of dollars, get a good reliable used vehicle with a clean carfax. Pay off your card balances AZEO or let them report >9% you scores will go up quite a bit.

I have a 2015 Toyota Camry XSE V6 with fairly low miles that I'm still paying off I'm happy with it and plan on not having another car payment after it, unless the monthly payment and APR is very low lol

[bigseegar]

Your current credit UTL across the board is sky high. Over 95% with the 2 loans and you're at least $10K upside down on the SUV loan. So to get much better loan terms and lower DP you need to get your credit UTL WAY down, especially your credit card UTL which is at an astounding 70% down to under 10% if you can first. Then after 30 days or so you should see your FICO's go up quite a bit and possibly lead to better loan terms and APRs.

[Tech2410]

Used truck prices are insane. Unless you get a truck with over 200k miles they're easily 50k+ used. 

[disdreamin]

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@Tech2410 wrote:

Used truck prices are insane. Unless you get a truck with over 200k miles they're easily 50k+ used. 

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They've actually come down quite a bit recently, compared to where they were last year. The thing that is striking me is the disparity between claimed income and what your bank statements show. I'd be surprised if that additional income would be considered, and I'd think a loan the size you'd need it to be would be challenging without a substantial downpayment. The CU deal sounds ideal, perhaps take the next few months to plunk $6k per month into a savings account while you await a special ordered vehicle. That way you aren't paying for anything you don't need on the truck, like you might if you purchased one off the lot. Good luck, and happy trails!

[Tech2410]

Okay. So I've paid off/down some credit cards and gotten my credit up to 680 (two fico auto scores are 631 and 669. I also paid off a collections account that should fall off anytime (it was medical and I paid it off directly through the hospital not the collections agency)

went to try and get approved for a $50k loan with $5k down today and got denied unless I had $15k down. 

I feel like the personal loan I have (in OP but posting here too, original loan $5500, balance is $4000 rn) is really screwing me. 

any input on do I try and save for a down payment or do I pay this personal loan down? I was hoping to leave Utah by the end of the month but that's not looking like it's going to happen. 

[disdreamin]

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@Tech2410 wrote:

Okay. So I've paid off/down some credit cards and gotten my credit up to 680 (two fico auto scores are 631 and 669. I also paid off a collections account that should fall off anytime (it was medical and I paid it off directly through the hospital not the collections agency)

went to try and get approved for a $50k loan with $5k down today and got denied unless I had $15k down. 

I feel like the personal loan I have (in OP but posting here too, original loan $5500, balance is $4000 rn) is really screwing me. 

any input on do I try and save for a down payment or do I pay this personal loan down? I was hoping to leave Utah by the end of the month but that's not looking like it's going to happen. 

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Sadly not surprised about the large downpayment requirement, as I mentioned upthread. You mentioned in your original post that you had $5-6k per month to work with. I'd pay all cards off completely and work on doing AZEO with them. Over the next month, I'd probably focus on paying that personal loan down under 9%. Those two things might give you a nice score boost which should help.

Once that's done, I'd check scores again and re-evaluate. If the jump was large enough, you might be able to go straight for a loan. If not, coast for a month (somewhere without significant grades!) and plunk another $5-6k in savings towards that downpayment. Worst-case scenario, at this point, you're no more than three months away from the vehicle you mentioned since you already had the $5k to put down.

Edited to add:I rethought this and, if you need to get into that new vehicle soon, you might be better off with the larger downpayment than paying down the loan. I'd await input with more first-hand experience at approvals.

Also, where in Utah? We love the national parks there, but probably the most interesting place we visited was Goblin Valley State Park. If you haven't done that yet, it's well worth the trip. We stayed in one of the yurts there, and the night sky is amazing.

[Tech2410]

NE Utah. It's just freakin hot here lol. We're by dinosaur National park. 

Right after I made this post I lost one of my contracts so only had $3k last month, I picked up a new contract this past Tuesday that should bring me to an extra $4k to $5k a month (about $500 a week). 

We got approved through a CU for 20% down (side note this CU is GREAT, it's campus credit union in Wichita, KS), our personal bank only wants to do $30k, CapOne I got preapproved back in may for $35k but they had strict mileage and year limits tried to renew it and they said I had to call to verify info. 

[disdreamin]

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@Tech2410 wrote:

NE Utah. It's just freakin hot here lol. We're by dinosaur National park. 

Right after I made this post I lost one of my contracts so only had $3k last month, I picked up a new contract this past Tuesday that should bring me to an extra $4k to $5k a month (about $500 a week). 

We got approved through a CU for 20% down (side note this CU is GREAT, it's campus credit union in Wichita, KS), our personal bank only wants to do $30k, CapOne I got preapproved back in may for $35k but they had strict mileage and year limits tried to renew it and they said I had to call to verify info. 

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Oh darn, that loss of income (even temporarily) definitely puts a bit of a kink in the plans. Glad to hear you've been able to pick up a new contract, and hopefully you're able to get underway soon.

And yeah, so, so hot. I planned a ~2 week road trip in southern Utah with a rented RV but when we went to pick it up the AC wasn't working properly. It was July/August and I was like yeah no, that's not gonna work. All other trips we've just done hotels with camping sprinked in for the places at elevation where it's usually nice and cool at night.

Any chance of coaxing the Suburban into heading a little further north for the cooler weather? Also, have you looked into ordering a new truck to see if captive financing might be possible?

[Tech2410]

We have 2 a/c's, set them on 60 by 9am, they don't stop running and by 2 or 3 it's almost 80 in our trailer lol. It's crazy. 

we installed a transmission cooler but my husband doesn't want to chance it which is annoying because that's $500 we spent for nothing. It was ROUGH getting here. It took us 6 hours to go 90 miles (pre trans cooler) because of how frequently we had to stop because the transmission would get hot. The cooler has had the trans base temp 30 degrees cooler and we've been overheating by about 20-25 degrees so in theory we should be able to go further north but we don't wanna get stranded. 

We honestly thought about renting a uhaul truck (the regular pickup trucks are Chevy 2500s) LOL. But no one in our area has them, the closest place is 100 miles away so it'd be 100 miles there, 100 miles back to where we're at, and then however many miles to get further north.