I am 20 years old... when I turned 18 my dad co-signed on my first car and I paid about $280 a month for 13 months before I traded it in. Now I have a $350 co-signed car payment and am wondering how long it will take me to do this on my own.
In your case, age is not a consideration. Your're over 18. A loan officer will qualify you {or decline you}based on income, debt ratios, employment status, credit rating, etc.
Is the amount of the loan a huge factor as well? I know an old friend of mine got a car loan for $5,000 when he was 19... the interest rate wasn't like 25% or anything either, I think 12-13. The guy at the car dealership back in October kept telling my fiance and I it didn't have anything to do with our Fico / beacon scores, just our previous car history. We both had been paying 280+ a month for over a year and we still did not get approved.
Well, that guy is bs'ing you. I remember when I was 18, I went to a major dealership and bought a two year old car for $7,500 and I was had never had a car before and had only turned 18 3 months before and I didn't need a co-signer. Better yet, I only had an interest rate of 10%. Not bad for a newbie. I don't know why they are making you have a co-signer.
I haven't experienced this myself, personally, but there have been quite a few posters that mentioned when trying to get financed for an auto loan- they were told due to a lack of any auto loan history or POSITIVE auto loan history, they needed a cosigner. If you've already financed 2 cars with the cosigner, I'd say you should probably be able to get the next one in just your name. Loan amount certainly is factor- they look at your take home wages and figure if you can afford the projected payments. If someone is bringing home $300 a week, chances off them getting financed for a Mercedes ML320 are pretty slim. Most the of the "big name" auto financing joints (FMCC,GMAC, Chrylser Credit, etc) do seem to care more about past auto credit than anything else.
OK- I read your post again. How many years of timely payment history do you have? 1 on each loan or 2 altogether?
