It seems like all the topics on the forum are the opposite of what's going on with me. I have a membership with myFICO and I'm seeing that my auto scores are much lower than my actual FICO 8.
I am in the process of selling my leased Mercedes back to the dealership. They are offering my payoff so thankfully I will break even. I don't like the vehicle and I'm simply just needing more space in a car than what it offers, will be doing a lot of road tripping during the spring & summer as well. During the beginning of the pandemic, I was furloughed and started deferring payments. Took another job with less pay/lower bonus structure thinking I could swing it and quickly got even further behind resulting in a handful of lates. The car was the only thing late, I prioritized my rent first and foremost, credit cards were on autopay lol. Finally Took ANOTHER job beginning of 2021 with a very comfortable salary and caught up and even got ahead a few months. Granted, I understand my FICO auto scores are because of those lates, however my regular FICO scores are apparently fine...at least I would think so as I just opened my own Delta AMEX a few weeks ago. While at the other Mercedes dealership seeing if they could beat the other appraisal, we looked into a couple of certified pre owned options they had on the lot (Audi, Lexus). I tell the salesperson, my auto scores are awful so if they have another lender that would look at non auto scores that would be great. I really liked the Audi Q5 and was willing to trade in for that honestly. They understood and said they'd see what they could do. They pulled credit and of course the main ones they send off is a EQ/TU auto enhanced which are terrible. I live in NC if it matters.
My regular FICO 8
TU 657
EX 632
EQ 611
I just paid off some retail credit cards I had high balances on- some months I'm great about paying off CCs other months not so I should see a little bit of increase in score.
FICO AUTO 5,3,2
TU 584
EX 497
EQ 491
FICO Auto 8
TU 610
EX 587
EQ 565
FICO Auto 9
TU 603
EX 559
EQ 595
I could understand if the lates happened like last week, but it's been a year. My scores should have recovered at least some by now. they haven't budged. Fortunately I have until the end of this year on my lease so I'm not in NEED of a car but I do want to take advantage of the fact that a dealership is willing to take my car, pay it off and I can start clean. And the fact that I have a laundry list of reasons I need an SUV, SOON. I do need another option squared away before I make it official with the Benz dealer.
I know some people have mentioned that in the Midwest they primarily use TU, would it be worth reaching out to dealerships up there? And yes I'm willing to travel out of state for the right deal and a dealership that will actually help. I was looking into 4Runners, Honda Passport, Audi Q5 (probably preowned), Lexus NX, Wrangler or Grand Cherokee...anything with high resale that if I hate I can dump in a year if I need...Any advice for dealing with Honda, Toyota, Audi, Jeep.
A portion of my income is from bonuses however I made about 85k last year and expect to make the same this year. My base is 65k. I have a side hustle but I don't include that income in loan apps, so yeah income is not the issue. Again, don't know if that's relevant since most don't check POI.
Any advice??
