Financing your new smart-How's it going?

[smartcarlover]

rates are different in different regions and depend solely on the borrower. There is no "set rate" for all

[911k]

4.94% for 60 months with USAA financing the full amount on a Pure at $14448.61

[erobcollins]

I financed the whole thing. (It's a long story.) The Mercedes dealer gave me 4.8% for sixty months. My credit score was 825 or something.

[smarty.farty]

i got 4.99 on 3/28 (60 mo) at oregon community credit union.

[timhood]

I didn't bother asking the dealer for his rates. I filled out a loan request online with Capital One and was pre-approved for 5.11% / 60 months (this was back in Feb). I then took the check in when I went to pick up the car. Capital One lets you write the check for up to 120% of the price of the car (to the maximum that you are pre-approved for). I've purchased using them before, and it's totally painless (approval takes literally less than 1 minute), plus you are free to go car shopping wherever you want (not applicable in our case ;-) given the backorder of smarts). Another added bonus is it's easy to stop the add-on sales when you can say "Capital One won't let me finance extended warranties, window etching, rust proofing, insert your dealer-added BS option here". ;-)

[saronian]

I used the Capital One/Costco online auto loan which was 5.25% for me. Took it to the smart dealer and they didn't want to take it, saying it was too much trouble and they haven't seen a check like that in years. But it did help persuade them to offer a better rate through Mercedes-Benz Financing. So it was good to have the check with me.

[timhood]

Too much trouble? All they have to do is write the VIN number on the check, make sure the title shows Capital One as a lien holder (which they have to do with any financing anyway) and make sure the check isn't for more than 120% of the car's sticker price. It takes even less time because they don't have to send in for credit approval. And there's an 800 number on the check they can call to verify. I think they were just trying to push you into their loan to try to make more money. At least you were able to negotiate a better rate, though the dealer sounds unscrupulous to me...

[saronian]

Originally Posted by timhood

I think they were just trying to push you into their loan to try to make more money.

It was entertaining to see the process unfold. I also think this is their standard method for making more money on financing. Once it became clear they had to use it or beat it, the whole process went very quickly.

Old habits die hard.

[limey]

I have lined up financing from Capital One as well. Their current rate is around 5.2%, so I will be taking the check to the dealer and they can either use it, or beat it as saronion said. It levels the playing field in the negotiation quite considerably when the dealer knows that they are not your only financing option. Competition is good.

[DebbieKat]

Told me this week that they aren't currently doing auto loans for Smarts because they don't have enough history on the car to know value over time. They did say they would do a line of credit instead, but I'm guessing that it would be a higher interest rate than a typical auto loan. Just an FYI if you use them. And this could change by the time I actually get my car...