First off, I owe a HUGE debt of gratitude to the FICO Forums. Researching and reading for the past year here has paid huge dividends with the purchase of our own house and understanding how FICO scoring works and effects our finances.
Anyway, we traded in our 2011 GMC with only 17,000 miles for a 2012 Honda Odyssey. Better gas mileage and a little more space inside. We only needed to finance $9,500 and we wanted to take advantage of 0.9% financing through Honda. We were approved with no problem...probably due to the huge down payment that came with the trade in - we got $26,500 for our GMC.
They pulled Equifax for me - 678 - no baddies, only a year of history but a lot of inquiries.
My wife's score was 690. Pretty much the exact same history that I have.
The finance guy told me that the minimum score you need is 680 for the 0.9% financing and our scores averaged out so we were fine. Just thought I would share and to encourage those who are rebuilding to keep plugging away. It pays huge dividends to have good credit! Especially when it comes time to borrow money.
