FICO vs Car Dealership

[Smooth_J]

I checked my score very early this morning and it was 670, it used to be better, but I am now in a DMP so I am in a rebuild stage to over 700. Anyway the reason for the checkup was to help my wife co-sign for her car. So the dealership ran the credit application, and it came back 590. This was via TU and I don't understand the drop.

Can anyone think why this would happen?

[Anonymous]

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@Smooth_J wrote:

I checked my score very early this morning and it was 670, it used to be better, but I am now in a DMP so I am in a rebuild stage to over 700. Anyway the reason for the checkup was to help my wife co-sign for her car. So the dealership ran the credit application, and it came back 590. This was via TU and I don't understand the drop.

Can anyone think why this would happen?

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Is it possible the score you checked was not a FICO score but a FAKO?

It's also possible the car dealer pulled an auto-enhanced FICO which could be different from your normal FICO.

[Lel]

Like O6 said, the most likely explanation is that the lender pulled an auto-enhanced FICO score.  Another possibility is that they may have used a newer version of the Transunion FICO score.  This site and the transunioncs.com website sell the TU 98 version, whereas many lenders are now using the TU 04 version.

[Smooth_J]

The score was from myfico, so it could of been tu 98. Anyway to get the newer one?

[MattH]

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@Smooth_J wrote:
The score was from myfico, so it could of been tu 98. Anyway to get the newer one?

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Ypu can only get the auto-enhanced FICO score through a dealer.  In general, though, people in a position to compare scores pulled here with scores pulled by auto dealers say they are usually quite similar unless a person's auto loan history has been substantially better or worse than that person's non-auto loan history. I gather the main difference with auto-enhanced scores is they give more emphasis to auto loan history. I believe there may also be a credit-card-specific version which again we cannot pull. The scores pulled here are what mortgage lenders typically use.