Hi folks.
15-20 years ago, I applied for a Honda car loan.
That loan was characterized by the bureas as a sub-prime/sub-optimal/whateverTheCorrectTermIs loan that dragged down my FICO score (a bit) for a while.
We are now buying a (new to us) Mazda. I'm considering a decent enough financing offer available through Mazda's Certified Pre-Owned arm (my Auto FICO8 is 826 / FICO2 is 790).
Might anyone know how that Mazda CPO loan would be categorized by the bureaus (i.e. - a 'normal'/'good credit' loan, or a 'sub-prime' loan)?
The lender on the prior loan was Honda Financial.
Here's the thread I started almost 5 years ago:
https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Consumer-Finance-Account/m-p/5538749
Fun fact -- my Bankcard 3 score today is the same as it was then - 775.
My (EX) FICO8 today is marginally higher, but both still between 810 & 820.
(EQ & TU scores now closer to 850 than 800.)
@pizzadude wrote:
@expatCanuck wrote:Hi folks.
15-20 years ago, I applied for a Honda car loan.That loan was characterized by the bureas as a sub-prime/sub-optimal/whateverTheCorrectTermIs loan that dragged down my FICO score for a while.
We are now buying a (new to us) Mazda. I'm considering a decent enough financing offer available through Mazda's Certified Pre-Owned arm (my Auto FICO8 is 826 / FICO2 is 790).
Might anyone know how that Mazda CPO loan would be categorized by the bureaus (i.e. - a 'normal'/'good credit' loan, or a 'sub-prime' loan)?
You'd be purchasing through Mazda Financial Services ? I'm pretty sure this would show up as a regular auto loan, and not be classified as Consumer Finance.
Who was the lender on your prior loan, and you're sure it was classified as a Consumer Finance account ?
MFS is handled by TFS. I have no idea if my Lexus loan is showing as a CFA unfortunately.
Thanks, @Brian_Earl_Spilner.
Post #5 in this thread suggests that TFS reports as an auto loan
https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Auto-Loans/Toyota-Financial-Approval/td-p/6478896
And, @pizzadude, agreed. I'm not terribly concerned about a clamitous FICO fall -- just want to know what to expect.
Not expecting my score to stray from dark green. Certainly not for long, anyway. Livin' the dream within my means ... .
@expatCanuck wrote:Thanks, @Brian_Earl_Spilner.
Post #5 in this thread suggests that TFS reports as an auto loan
https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Auto-Loans/Toyota-Financial-Approval/td-p/6478896
And, @pizzadude, agreed. I'm not terribly concerned about a clamitous FICO fall -- just want to know what to expect.
Not expecting my score to stray from dark green. Certainly not for long, anyway. Livin' the dream within my means ... .
CFA is a hidden tag. The only way you would know it's there is if you receive a denial, for example, and it listed the CFA as a reason for denial. At that point, you'd have to look at your reports and track score changes with report changes.
I've seen it mentioned that Toyota was reported as a CFA. But another user was unable to find anyone other than me saying it. Another thing to keep in mind is if a lender does report CFA, it won't report for every loan. We have plenty of datapoints where Honda reported as CFA, but we also have other datapoints that it didn't.
It may be a hidden tag, but (at least in my case) sometimes the presence of a 'Consumer Finance Account' is specified as a reason for a lower score.
@expatCanuck wrote:It may be a hidden tag, but (at least in my case) sometimes the presence of a 'Consumer Finance Account' is specified as a reason for a lower score.
Like I said, that's the only way to know if you have one. Now you'd have to go through your report to figure out what is tagged as a CFA.