Thanks for your insights. I'm not so ignorant that I thought "the world would open up", but over the last two years in trying to repair my credit it had been drilled into my head that "if your score was just XYZ..." so yes, I was disappointed to learn that still didn't help me much. I'm not 18, the main problem with my credit is I've been trying to recover from a bad business dealing my ex husband had and have had to just wait it out on some things that were reporting.
I didn't have a trade, so negative equity or trade value wasn't an issue. I did think of trading in my paid for 2003 Highlander with over 200K miles, but since I have two teens about to be driving I decided the better bang for my buck was to keep it rather than worry about trying to get them a vehicle in the next year.
I understand enough about the car business to know that when you have less than stellar credit they assume they've got you cornered and you'll take what they give you, and folks like me are often the perfect person to dump that car they can't get someone with more options to take.
My complaints about the dealers/F&I (especially the one with the "guesstimate") is they all avoided giving me concrete numbers until it was time to sign. Got a call that said "We've got the deal done, this bank, this rate, this payment, come sign" and THEN when they've got the car spit and shined and I'm about to sign they tell me the interest rate/payment is $50 more than they said it would be just an hour earlier? I understand that on a Saturday night when banks are closed, not on a Tuesday morning. And yeah, $50 isn't a big jump except that I'm taking on a new payment and since my priority IS improving my credit, I was not about to go $50 over what I felt (and told the dealer) I was absolutely certain I could pay on time, every month, regardless of other circumstances that may occur. Which brings me to the vehicle with 95K miles...not about to take on a car payment for a vehicle that had pretty good odds of needing some chunks of money put into it over the next year or two. (And I'm aware that some vehicles go 110 or 120K before that occurs...that's another subject. Point is it wasn't a chance I was willing to take.)
If nothing else, I was just surprised that after the years of hearing that if I could get over the low 600 hump I'd have a lot more options, I really didn't.
