Options for Auto Refinance other than DCU and PenFed?

[Anonymous]

Hi All!

I have a loan for my 2015 Honda Accord that I am trying to refinance. While I love NFCU, I don't love my 16.59% interest rate. My credit has improved considerably since getting approved with Navy -- FICO 09 went from 665 to 747. They won't internally refinance until has been a year but that's a lot of money thrown away if I wait.

I applied for one through DCU which was approved but then taken back because they said they couldn't open a checking account for me due to something in ChexSystems . PenFed won't finance more than 110% and I'm at 1.16%. Capital One gave me a preapproval for an APR of 10% but I feel like I can probably do better but I'm trying to avoid running my credit up the whazoo to find the best deal.

Any suggestions? My EQ is my highest score which is why I tried DCU and PenFed first.

[Anonymous]

Any chance of paying the .06% to bring you down where PFCU would take you at 110%?

[Anonymous]

@ttulaw I would be open to it, it would be about $1300 if I did it in the next 14 days. I'm just wondering if the rate PenFed would give would be so much better than Capital One. I've been looking on these forums and seeing that others have gotten much better rates than mine with Cap1 but I'm sure my profile is much different from theirs. 

[Remember0]

If PenFed approves, I would personally guess your rate would be a lot less than the 10% COAF gave you. I might bite the bullet on this if you can afford to pay it down to 110%.

One suggestion you could try without impacting your credit is Clearlane by Ally. I've never tried nor known of anyone else who has, but Ally is a reputable auto lender and they claim no credit score impact.

[Anonymous]

@Remember0 So I decided to go ahead and apply for the 110% with PenFed and they came back with 9.7%. Wondering if I should try to recon? I'd much rather have my loan with them than Cap1 but since I'd be coming up with the other 0.6% it would be nice to have a rate that's a little lower.

[Remember0]

Hmph. Sorry to hear that frankly, I would have thought they would be lower with a 700+ FICO. Like you, I hate having too many inquiries even though they don't hurt your credit score all that much.

I guess you could try recon, can't really hurt right? Worst they say is no. I'd try to do it today / same day as approval so they don't pull your report again (they technically use same pull for 60 days, but sometimes are not consistent).

Worst case, you can refi to CapOne (10% with no need to paydown is better than 9.7% imo) and in three months go back to NFCU.

Edit to add: Oh and by the way, CapOne is a perfectly fine lender. I mean I haven't seen any horror stories for folks who pay on time and I think they have sufficiently outgrown their subprime image, but your decision at the end of the day.

[Anonymous]

@Remember0 yeah I was pretty bummed about. I’m not sure why I keep getting high interest rates on car loans. I do have one 30 day late from 2 years ago but jeez how long are they going to penalize me for it.

I sent a secure message to PenFed for recon so we’ll see how that goes. If they don’t come down considerably then I’ll just go with Cap1. The dicey part of the whole situation is that Cap1 is the original lender for the loan I’m trying to refinance.

Do banks get petty when you start refinancing often?

[Remember0]

Maybe a small CU or bank would get "petty" but trust me it's just business for the big guys like PenFed or CapOne.

I used to work at Capital One -- and I'm 99.999% sure no part of the algorithm says "well this loan was initially with us and he re-fi'ed away so we don't like this customer." Now, maybe average age of account plays a factor so indirectly has an impact but it would be pretty small. In other words, don't worry at all about them holding anything against you if you re-fi often but pay on-time. Now if you burn them or are significantly late that is a different story.

As to why you get high rates on auto unfortunately that late is likely one of the key drivers. Stinks, but I think after this one you'll get a decent rate with 700s at a place like NFCU in 3-6 months.

[Anonymous]

@Remember0 That’s very helpful thanks for the information! I’m just overthinking it like I do most things lol. I will go with Cap1 and hope that I can get a better rate in the near future. I don’t want to bother trying a 3rd bank because it looks like I’m stuck in the 10% range. I’ll let you know if PenFed budges but like you said that 30 day is hurting me so I’m not holding my breath. NFCU has been good to me thus far so I’ll try to refi with them in a few months.

[Anonymous]

@Remember0 hi there! Just wanted to give you an update that I received a Risk Based Pricing Notice after applying for the refinance. After reviewing it I realized they used an old score/report from when I applied for membership back in January. I asked them to pull a new report and score since my FICO 09 is 757 and they came back with 7%! Not a bad rate considering I'm paying 16.9% now.