Arrange my own car finance or go through dealer?

exponential

Hi guys.

Just a quickie.

Which would be more beneficial to me as far as interest rates etc are concerned.

Would it be advantagious to have my car finance in place before I go to look at a car or do dealers have more options available to them as far as arranging finance?
Do dealers like the fact you have arranged your own finance or do they prefer you go through them as they get a cut of the interest??

Any hints or advice woyuld be greatly appreciated.

Also, who are reputable as far as car finance is concerned?

Any help with this??

Mike.

SeanG79

It ultimately all depends on your credit profile as to what the best option is going to be.

Obviously the dealer wants to arrange the finance because they earn commission on the deal, however ultimately they will want to sell the vehicle so should accept the sale irrespective of who arranges the finance.

It then also depends on whether you are looking for a personal loan (unsecured) or vehicle finance (secured on the vehicle), the amount of deposit you have and how the vehicle values up...

Cycrow

of course, the cheapest option is to stick to a car you can afford and pay it outright

exponential

Cycrow wrote: »

of course, the cheapest option is to stick to a car you can afford and pay it outright

In an ideal world yeah, but unfortunately, having a few grand in cash sitting in my bank for a car isn't doable after paying all the bills and feeding my family.
The only alternative is finance i'm afraid.....

Alexd52

See which gives you the better deal, for instance, I recently got 0% finance from the dealership (backed by the manufacturer)

iolanthe07

Just beware that dealers have a nasty habit of quoting Flat Rate interest without making it obvious. APR is the rate you need to know, and APR is approximately twice Flat Rate

exponential

Alexd52 wrote: »

See which gives you the better deal, for instance, I recently got 0% finance from the dealership (backed by the manufacturer)

Going to look into this. There are a few places that are doing 0% finance deals at the moment.
Its just finding the right car........

exponential

Just an update . . . . .

I've had my eye on a particular car for a while now so I rang to arrange a test drive for this saturday.
I was unsure if I would pass a credit check so I decided to ask if the dealer could do a check on me over the phone.

I didn't want to drive 30 miles to test drive a car, do all the usual checks on it, decide I want it only to fail a credit check at the end...

Now I don't know if that was such a good idea or not as I know that having too many searches in a small space of time is harmful to your credit profile....

Nevertheless, he rang me back a few hours later (much more enthusiastic than our earlier conversation) to tell me that the checks had all come back ok and that I would be eligible for the finance.

The finance is with Close Motor Finance and the APR is 13.5%.

Is that a good or bad rate??

Also, when I go on saturday, if I don't like the car, would I have just wasted a search or not?
As far as I see it, I now know that Close Motor Finance will accept me as a customer at a particular price band and thats a good thing right?????

Apples2

Did he say the Apr is 13.5% or did he say the interest rate was 13.5% ?

exponential

Apples2 wrote: »

Did he say the Apr is 13.5% or did he say the interest rate was 13.5% ?

He said over the phone that the baseline was 6%.

He then gave me the monthly payment which was £152.

I then worked it out myself over 60 months so....

£6750 for the car.

6% baseline.

60 x £152 = £9120

13.5% APR.

Is that right??

SeanG79

exponential wrote: »

He said over the phone that the baseline was 6%.

He then gave me the monthly payment which was £152.

I then worked it out myself over 60 months so....

£6750 for the car.

6% baseline.

60 x £152 = £9120

13.5% APR.

Is that right??

Those figures appear to all add up, however if you have passed the credit checks with that bank you will be able to bring the rate down, with out more searches. The dealer will be getting the funds cheaper than the 6% flat...negotiate on the finance rate he is quoting