Need some quick help

[omgtain]

Alright guys, my friend's car kicked the bucket and he just got a new well paying job, if he misses work tomorrow he is fired.

He has already called local CU's and got preapproved for a $9,000 car loan at 2.5%.

But theres a problem, if hes preapproved doesnt that mean they havent looked at his credit report yet ?

He has only one credit card (discover) and it is at 65% util, its been open for 4 months, the rest of his credit history is a student loan ($300 a month) and hes never missed a payment on it (hes had it for like 3+ years).

I've never bought a car before, and he hasn't either. I've read the threads but I still feel like this is going to be a big learning experience today lol. How do I prepare him or myself ?

[DevotionToU]

If he is pre approved then they likely ran his credit and approved him.  He probably gave them sufficient info over the phone and might just need to take documentation in to verify income/residence.  Best bet is to contact the bank/CU that he got that info from and ask them what he needs to do to get himself in to a car.

[Remember0]

You don't have to be in a rush to buy. Consider renting a car for maybe a week (or a day or two to get through the rest of this week, whatever works) if needed for breathing room?

[omgtain]

Well he kinda needed to (hes a live paycheck to paycheck type of person, so he had maybe like $50 cash), I'm sure in an ideal situation it wouldn't have been so quick.

Unfortunately he didn't get the car he wanted (required down payment) but he did find a nice little car that got covered fully with no questions about his utilization!

Thanks guys!

[Remember0]

What car did he end up buying?

BTW congrats!

[omgtain]

Hi!

He got a 2006 Ford Focus with 58k miles. It was about $6,500 or so with licensing and stuff.

He doesn't like it LOL. Was looking at a Subaru but they wanted a downpayment that he didn't have and I'm not keen on lending to friends..

But, it was better than what he was driving. More reliable and has better mpg especially cause he commutes. His car that died was an 87 honda civic with 300k+ miles, that he bought for $1,500 and has put over $3,000 into work on it.. so i'm glad he got another more reliable car (and wish he went that route in the first place, he was scared to apply for a loan/credit card and I think I pressured him into it haha). This way I hopefully don't have to rescue him for awhile!