Hi All,
I just purchased a new 2011 VW GTI and had some interesting experiences that I wanted to share with the group. First, I'll give you some history on my situation. I have moved quite a bit for work over the past 6 years and my first move really screwed me up. I accepted the position with a rather low salary for chicago style cost of living and managed to get rather in debt in my time there. When I was promoted and moved to MN I got a nice pay bump and started to get myself reestablished, but in the mean time I had 7 accounts go into collections that I was not aware had gotten that serious. The day it slapped me in the face was when my only high limit card cancelled me. I called to ask why and they ran me through my credit report....I felt like my stomach might leave my body through my mouth. Since then I have been actively working on it and have made some real progress with the support of this forum. I started in the mid 400's and am now at EX: 597, EQ:587 & TU:587. These are not true FICO scores, but are from the USAA credit monitoring service.
Now on to the current scenario. I've been in the market for a new vehicle for awhile now, but was unsure of what I wanted. I wanted something sporty, but up until now have needed an SUV for work. Now that I've gotten promoted again I no longer need to haul stuff like I used to. I choose the VW GTI and used the USAA car buying service to get a base price to shoot for when negotiating. After I found the car I wanted we negotiated the price of the car and didn't even talk about financing. They were very adamant about running my credit but I told them there was no point because I wasn't going to buy a car if the price wasn't right. After we agreed on a price they ran my credit and of course found a few "issues". VW came back with an auto enhanced score of 654 and an 8.9% rate. I told them it was fine and that I wasn't concerned because my credit is being repaired and in the next 6 months I expected my score to raise 50-60 points and i would be refinancing. They then had me speak to the finance manager and I ran through my credit, how I got there and what I am doing to get out of it. He called VW and explained my situation and came back and said that he was able to get 5.75% because VW would rather keep me as a loyal customer than loose me to refinancing
The point of the story.... negotiate the price of the car and have flexibility in your payment. Be confident that you can refinance of you don't like the rate and then tell them that.
Cheers!
I already know which one I want: 2 door, blue, DSG, with sunroof and touchscreen radio