The following post originally appeared on our RoadLoans blog, The Open Road.
We get all sorts of questions and comments in our e-mail.
Let’s face it, auto financing can be a confusing subject. Auto loan refinancing even more so, since most of us don’t hear much about loan refinance unless it’s a home mortgage. At RoadLoans, we handle both finance and refinance agreements for borrowers seeking vehicle purchase.
(Most people don’t even realize they can refinance a car loan much like their home mortgage loan.)
Recently we received an e-mail which stated the following: “A dealer promised me that I could refinance this (RoadLoans agreement) if I make all my payments on time for the first year.”
“We often have customers asking us to do this because a dealer ‘told’ them we would,” said Keenan Goodman, assistant vice president. But SCUSA “does not refinance our own loans.”
A SCUSA loan refinance requires at least six months of good payment history with your current lender.
Generally, though, financing is simple: fill out an online application and wait for a reply, which comes in minutes. Then, you are ready to go car shopping immediately with your pre-approved loan documents. Vehicle dealerships love it when you show up to shop for a car or truck with a loan approval in hand.
Refinancing works the same way – with a simple three-step process for applying, although the required vehicle information is a little different, since you own the vehicle you wish to refinance.
Perhaps the most important factor in the approval process of either financing or refinancing is your Fico score, or credit score, available from credit reporting agencies. RoadLoans considers a credit score over 700 “prime,” scores between 620 and 699 as non-prime, and scores under 620 as subprime.
Having a non-prime or sub-prime score doesn’t mean you won’t qualify for RoadLoans funding – many of our loans fall into those categories . It’s just that the terms, such as payment amount, interest rate and length of the loan, will be different from a prime loan.
So don’t be confused, contact us by phone, e-mail or on Facebook with your questions.
