Private Party (Used Auto Loan): PENFED, NFCU, DCU

[Anonymous]

Hey everybody,

Does anyone have experience with a used auto loan from a private party with PENFED, DCU, or NFCU?

I wanted to know if i were to get approved, how long would the "approval" last until the offer expires for a private party sale? I suspect that DCU is for 30-45 days (not sure which), but not sure about PenFed or NFCU and whether there's a difference between a dealership approval and a private party approval.

Also, with these used auto loan private party approvals, how exactly does the financing work? Do the CUs approve you for a certain amount and just give you a blank check with the seller's name/info on it? Do they deposit the full loan amount into your account and make you responsible for the rest?

What about the registration/tax fees I'll have to pay (buying a car for $6000, but there will be around $500 in sales tax/registration fees at the DMV). Would I ask for $6500 or would they only give me $6000 and expect me to pay the rest?

Thanks a lot for any help you guys can offer.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hey everybody,

Does anyone have experience with a used auto loan from a private party with PENFED, DCU, or NFCU?

I wanted to know if i were to get approved, how long would the "approval" last until the offer expires for a private party sale? I suspect that DCU is for 30-45 days (not sure which), but not sure about PenFed or NFCU and whether there's a difference between a dealership approval and a private party approval.

Also, with these used auto loan private party approvals, how exactly does the financing work? Do the CUs approve you for a certain amount and just give you a blank check with the seller's name/info on it? Do they deposit the full loan amount into your account and make you responsible for the rest?

What about the registration/tax fees I'll have to pay (buying a car for $6000, but there will be around $500 in sales tax/registration fees at the DMV). Would I ask for $6500 or would they only give me $6000 and expect me to pay the rest?

Thanks a lot for any help you guys can offer.

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You should really pick one credit union to work with and allow them to answer these questions so you operate from a position of first hand information.  My experience on private party car loans is they will approve you for the amount you designate in advance but the rest of the process depends on the lien status of the car.  If the car has a lien from a car loan than they are going to make the check out to the lien holder and if their is a remaining balance then they will make out a seperate check to the car owner.  Penfed has a worksheet to walk you through the process you submit once you have identified a car you intend to buy, you submit the required information and they go from there.  They are all concerned about issues of sellers having negative equity and how that will be cleared up so you really want to ask those questions upfront.  The last time I was shopping private party the guy owed about 20k on a car I was wiliing to pay 13k for but he didn't convince me he had the ability to pay the other 7k to get the lien released so I passed.  What I asked him to do was to make that 7k payment first but he kept telling me stories.  Those are the ones you have to worry about.  Most good private party sellers don't have the negative equity situation so that is something to ask about right off the bat.  Of course easiest deals are where they have title in hand, in those cases they will almost always advertise that fact.