I've been in the market for a Ford F150 pickup truck. Recently, I noticed that Ford Motor Credit was offering Zero Percent APR for up to 72 months on select new F150 trucks. That was enough to attract me to my local dealership today!
First, of course, I did my homework online to find out what dealer inventory was available in my area. Ford dealers routinely post very useful links to the window stickers of new vehicles for sale, which provides lots of information for advance research. Cargurus, Edmunds, KBB, and other sites allow you to determine the Fair Market Value of particular vehicles. I especially like Cargurus Car Values page, which allows you to simply enter a VIN number to get a rough estimate of market value.
The trucks I found had MSRPs of about $52,995. But the estimated market values were much lower, around $44,500. I first visited my local dealer, who proved unwilling to negotiate; they wouldn't go lower than $48,100 with 0% financing. The sales manager there told me I'd never get both Ford rebates and 0% APR. "I've been in the business for 20 years," he said. "And I've never seen that. You get either 0% APR or discounts/rebates on the price, but never both." The problem was, I told him, I want both! And I wanted to put no money down as well!
I left there and went to another dealer 30 miles away, where they proved far more flexible and interested in making a deal. After lots of negotiations, including a couple of phone calls to the General Manager, we settled on a sales price of $44,495, which included significant discounts and Ford rebates. Both the dealer and Ford Credit pulled each of my FICO Auto 8 scores (TU: 762; EX: 722; EQ: 751). I thought that was excessive, but didn't mind the triple pull in return for approval of 0% APR financing for 72 months. The downpayment turned out to be irrelevant to the deal; after all, why would you want to put any money down if you're getting 0% APR?!
The moral of this story: Automobile dealers are willing to bend over backwards on the last day of the month/year! And, yes, it's perfectly possible to get discounts, rebates, and 0% APR in the same deal at the same time.
Update: The inquiries by the Ford dealership and Ford Motor Credit did not affect my FICO scores. However, today when FMC reported the new account, my EX FICO 8 score dropped by 9 points and my DTI rose from 16% to 18%, as expected.
Fortuntately, score decreases like this are temporary and will recover as the account ages. The magnitude of the drop and how quickly it recovers depends in part on the "thickness" of the credit file.
Wut?
That's not how I've seen the auto inquiry scoring described before. Can I get a second opinion?
That's not how I've seen the auto inquiry scoring described before. Can I get a second opinion?
@iv wrote:
@ridgebackpilot wrote:Update: The inquiries by the Ford dealership and Ford Motor Credit did not affect my FICO scores.
Remember, the inquiries are buffered from affecting scoring for 30 days... if they HPed you on NYE, you wouldn't see the effect (if any) on your scores until the end of this month.
Interesting; I wasn't aware of this buffering. When I saw the HPs report with no change in my scores, I figured I was home free. But maybe not?! Time will tell, I suppose...
Here's a recent thread on the subject of HP buffering and affect on credit scores. Thanks!