My step daughter who is in college just financed her first car through Navy Fed. Her income is maybe $8000 a year with no other bills. She was instantly approved for the asking amount of $6500 on a 2010 Honda Civic. The car is worth $10,000 easy. Her scores are all mid to upper 700's. Her rate for 48 months is 3.49% with payments around $142 a month. Maybe that will give you an idea of what you're looking for.
@Gunnar419 wrote:I have excellent credit but a basement-level income. I've always had old cars that I paid cash for, but after the most recent one died I decided that if I'm going to get another car I want it to be something that won't be on the verge of breaking down all the time.
Here's my situation.
FICO8 scores are all in the low 800s. I don't know my auto FICO
My credit is ccs only, no loans of any kind
Cc utilization is less than 1% (total debt under $250)
No lates, no baddies, zero inquiries on all 3 CRAs, AAoA stratospheric
No mortgage, no car payments, monthly living expenses very modest
I own my own home
My total income is only around $12,000
I would like to get something like a lightly used Toyota Yaris or Honda Fit. A used Prius is also a possibility, or a Subaru. I just want something RELIABLE and with no more than 60-80k miles on it
I don't have a trade-in but could probably pay $2,000 downpayment.
Currently I have all three reports frozen, so before I unfreeze them, go to my bank, and start running up inquiries, can you good people give me some idea whether on my income I could qualify for enough of a loan to buy the good, late model used car I'm thinking about? Thank you!
Red Highligh@t: I thought I was living in poverty with around $22k income. 
But you know, if you trim expenses and watch your pennies & nickels, you really can get by comfortably with a modest income. For a car loan they will look at DTI - Debt to Income ratio. With no debt, that's easy for you. I recall that for a mortgage lenders want to see a DTI of no more than 25%. For a car it's probably higher, but let's be conservtive andf stick with 25% DTI. So with your income of $1k/mo., that means a car payment of no more than $250/mo., with your conservtive approach to debt I imagine you would want a payment less than that. My car loan for $10k taken out in Feb, 2015 at 1.99% for 60 months has a payment of $175.07, but rates have gone up a bit since then. EDIT: My small local CU posts their loan rates on their website. For A+ credit (725+)., for used car up to $15k for 60 months their rate is now 3.45%. So around 3.5% is about as good a rate as you can expect. I have an amortiztion calculator for Excel, a $10k loan for 60 months @ 3.5% would have a payment of $181.92.
Blue Highlight: Don't forget tax & title. I bought my 2013 Mazda 2 from Hertz in Feb. 2015 for $10k. My lender, a small local credit union, would loan the full amount up to the Kelly Blue Book value. Hertz's price was under KBB, so they loaned me the full $10k w/no down payment, but I had to pay Tax & Title of just under $1400. That's AZ state & county sales tax of 6.2%, and in my opinion, AZ car registration is crazy high. It's based on the car value, and for a $10k car the annual registration was $250!
Another consideration is that since you've been driving "beaters" you probably have just been carrying state minimum liability insurance? Any lender will require you to carry collision & comprehensive + liability, my lender allowed only a deductible of $500 - I usually go for $1k deductible, as my attitude is you only make an insurance claim for something you can't afford to pay yourself. I've been with American Family Insurance for home & auto for years, but they quoted me $427 for 6 mos. for the Mazda. Progressive quoted me $380. I went with Geico for $318.
I thought I lived in the boonies, but if the nearest Hertz rental is hours away for you, you beat me - I picked mine up in Tucson, about an hour away. Other rental companies sell their used rentals, I remember looking at Enterprise, but preferred Hertz for price & selection. You might try Autotrader.com, you can search by 50-100-250+ miles from your zip code, and their list of used cars include private sellers, dealers & rental companies.
Good luck!
- Your fellow frugalista.