News @lemmy.world jeffw @lemmy.world 7 mo. ago

The rise of the scammy car loan

www.vox.com The rise of the scammy car loan

How much is too much to pay for a car?

69 comments

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- Love this comment because you actually read the article, unlike some other commenters…
- My jaw dropped when I got to that part too! That’s a 4x value payment on a 5/yr loan! Beyond disgusting tactics needed to get someone to in go for that. It’s absolutely predatory.
  
  Aaand it’s gone. The whole comment. It’s gone.
  
  Yeah but ‘just be financially literate bro. It’s your fault if you get taken advantage of when buying something you’re almost required to own’. Goodness that felt gross to write.
This article pisses me off. Back in late 2020 I went to a dealership to buy a new car, very high credit score, 1/3 cash down, and qualified for a 0% interest deal that was going on at the time.

The dealership came at me with the most bullshit offers, tried to get me to take dealership financing at 4%, then 3.5, then 3% at a longer loan duration and acted like they were doing me a favor the whole time. Finance guy was being such a dickhead about it even the sales guy started getting pissed at him.

Took nearly 6 freaking hours to close the deal. Finally got my 0% offer and expected financing/cost because it was 20 minutes to closing time and I was like “fuck it, I’ll go check out your competitors tomorrow,” keys in hand, walking out the door. Sales guy literally chased after me and stopped me at the car to say the finance dude finally caved.

Fucking scumbag stuff. Dealership changed their name a year later and I don’t wonder why.
- And then you kept walking because fuck those guys?
  
  Nah, I bought it because there wasn’t going to be a better deal, I did my research for weeks and months prior and that 0% popped up in the middle of reviewing options.
  
  I think they tried the push because it was the last day I could get it before the deal expired. The zero % financing was via the manufacturer, not dealership.
- 0% interest rate is usually given in lieu of a cash back offer. So, you could get like $2500 cash back and a 4% interest rate or a 0% interest rate with no cash back.
  
  My strategy would be to take the cash back, take the dealer loan to reduce friction, and then refinance immediately when you get home at a lower rate.
  
  0% was a brand-wide deal (manufacturer, not dealership) to get rid of previous year stock, there was no cash back option on it. Plus, there’s no lower rate than zero, and best I could get with a different loan was 2.5%. Though I did reference said pre-qualification during negotiation when they made the crap offers. Made it clear I wasn’t walking out with a dealer loan.
  
  How do you refinance? I was always curious about that. I’ve checked banks and my credit union but they always came in significantly higher than dealer loans, even if I chose the cash back
- All Carsalesmen Are Bastards.
  
  Defund the dealerships.
- No fan of Musk, but this kind of shit and other scams are driving me towards companies like Tesla that are using a direct sale model.
  
  Subaru dealers lied to me about the engine I was getting, said the head gasket issue was fixed. Turns out it was fixed, just not for the model of engine that was in the specific car they were selling me.
  
  Then a different dealer did the head gasket job, thousands of dollars, and now they're telling me it needs to be done again four years later for another 5k.
  
  A local Chevy dealer was screwing over their employees with wage theft by agreeing to give raises and then quietly taking them away later.
  
  Fuck them all to hell, small business my ass. If you have to spend millions lobbying your state government to make direct sales illegal, I'm going to do everything I can to avoid giving you my money.
Preapprove loan in the range you want from your bank.
Agree in writing on car price.
Get loan from bank.
Pay for car
Pay back bank.

Edit: to be clear, when i say Bank I only mean Credit Union.
- You say that as if banks are on your side.
  
  Banks aren't credit unions.
  
  True. The banks are at least marginally more on your side than car dealerships though.
  
  I've only ever banked at credit unions.
  
  True. The banks are at least marginally more on your side than car dealerships though. And I've only ever banked at credit unions.
  
  True. The banks are at least marginally more on your side than car dealerships though.
  
  I've only ever banked at credit unions.
- I'm looking to buy a new car, went to the bank for a loan, they said they'd only do a car loan if I bought a car that was less than 3 years old. Are you kidding me? My current car is from 2004, I'm hoping for an ~$8k 2012 or something....
  
  My last car purchase I was thinking similarly, I ended up with a '14 with 80000km on it. Bank said "we can't give you a loan for that, but we can up your line of credit and you can use that" ...
- Additionally, if you can get your down payment/trade-in to get your car off the lot with equity then you’ll get a lower interest rate. When my ex and I bought her new car a few years ago we incidentally did that (total value between the down payment and trade in was something like 10k on a 23k purchase) and we were pleasantly surprised to see a full percentage point lower on the loan.
The rise of

Reading the article, it sounds like the exact scam that was parodied in GTA V almost 15 years ago. I imagine this is not a new problem. Maybe the rising interest rates made it even worse?
I recommend that anyone buying a car that they'll have to finance bring in a laptop with an amortization schedule up and ready to go to the dealership. Dealers don't want to talk about the total cost of the car. They only want to talk in monthly payments. They'll sometimes offer cashback in order to get you to agree to a higher interest rate. If you don't have an amortization schedule handy, you're not going to be able to do that math and figure out if you're getting a good deal or getting scammed.

If you don't know what an amortization schedule is, then Google it and play around with one before you go in to buy a car. You only need to plug in a few variables - purchase price, number of months for the loan, and interest rate. That will allow you to see your monthly payment and what you're paying in interest.

If you can't do that simple thing, then don't finance a car.
- you don't even need a laptop for that nowadays; you can pull up such a thing directly on your phone.
  
  True, but in my experience a laptop forced you to take your time a bit and see the bigger picture. Also it lets the dealer know that you are not fucking around.
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- Probably the most valuable thing I learned in school was how to build amortization schedules. I've used it on vehicles, student debt, and mortgage. It's really helped me win the "stop paying unnecessary interest to others" game.
  
  Same here. I've forgotten probably 90% of what I learned in school, but amortization schedules have stuck with me because they're such a necessary part of life.
- In response to an article about how poor people are trapped by loans… you recommend that? Really?
  
  Absolutely. Did you read the article? The people interviewed explicitly say that they don't know anything about interest rates and how financing works. One guy had a 75% interest rate because he apparently had no idea what that meant he would be paying , which is several times the price of the car.
  
  If you're going to finance a car, you need to arm yourself with the tools to figure out what that is going to cost you. Go in prepared. Don't count on the dealer telling you the numbers, because they are not on your side. They are trying to hide that information from you to get you to agree to something for their benefit.
  
  And what would be better recommendations for the poor individuals trapped by loans?
Are they just talking about the predatory "buy here, pay here"-type used-car dealers that have been around for a while, or are new-car dealers getting into the scam now, too?
- The whole article was just anecdotes and heresay, so who knows. I know there is a ton of predatory b/s involved with buying cars but these examples seem like outliers. I think the Tik Tok lady was lying about her car payment(s) though just to go viral and it totally worked.
  
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I automatically think less of anyone who doesn't buy Toyota at this point. Used or new, no other maker comes close to the value. I don't even like their cars but I'd never claim that my personal flavor is better than Toyota's offerings outside of my own niche interests (and I've still got a Corolla I drive most days in the summer). $1,400 a month for a fucking Tahoe is ridiculous and I have a hard time having any sympathy for someone stupid enough to make that their "dream car" or worth taking out a $84,000 loan for.
- I did the math for the interest rate since they didn’t bother to in the article. The article says she had paid $1400/mo for 3 years and had only paid 10,000 toward principal. Assuming that’s 36 months of payments, the interest rate would be around 15.5%. The payment term would have been 10 years and total payments would end up being $168k.
  
  Predatory lenders and financial illiteracy; a perfect match made in hell.
  
  While whoever did that to her really ought to be in jail, she does need to take some responsibility
  
  most people dont need such a big vehicle - clearly it will be expensive
  
  most people shouldn’t get the top end trim of whatever vehicle
  
  Unless she willingly went into this because she used to have higher income, I do t see how she could claim complete ignorance
  
  That kind of interest rate indicates she was a bad credit risk, either because she made the same mistake before, or she couldn’t afford it. If she’d already made the same mistake, will she ever learn? If she just plain couldn’t afford it, yeah, a lot of that is on the scummy salesman
- You mean Toyota, the same company that has spent years lobbying against emissions standards in Australia and dragging their feet on EVs?
  
  I don't see why it's a big deal that they're dragging their feet on EVs in classic Toyota style. This is what they do and why they're so reliable. Other companies jump headfirst into projects often with disastrous results.
  
  Not to mention Toyota was first with the hybrid and hybridizing a good chunk of their fleet so its not as if they're selling a bunch of gas guzzlers like Dodge/Chrysler.
  
  I don't agree with the other guy that people are stupid for buying any other brand, but Toyota is consistently the best bang for your buck in most categories.
  
  If you're a financially strapped consumer looking for a car, you'll find no better deal than one of Toyota's models, excepting some special scenarios. Their slow progress towards EV adoption doesn't negate that.
- Toyota has raised their prices inline with inflation since 2021 (~24%). Nissan and Suburu have been under inflation in that period (~20%). Stellantis (Dodge etc.) have raised their prices ~50% in that period and Kia/Hyundai have gone up ~40%. People should look at which companies have been price gouging and avoid them.
  
  Sticker price is only one part of the equation. Toyota cars are more reliable (read: consumer friendly) than any of their competion and have been for several decades now. If you want to save 4%, go for the car that's almost garaunteed to blow a head gasket within its first 120k.
- It's the big 4 Japanese brands for me: Toyota, Honda, Mazda, and Subaru.
  
  Mazda's been on a roll recently, I'll admit, but Subaru has had issues forever and Honda cars are overvalued to hell.
- I do own a Toyota, which I am happy with, and I still think that's a shitty attitude.
  
  So congratulations, you got me to think less of you.
- Blind loyalty to a brand is extremely dangerous.
  
  It isn't blind. As soon as Toyota breaks their decades-long streak of making the best valued cars, I'll never recommend them again. But for now, recommending people concerned with money/value buy only Toyota is based on current facts.
- I've been very happy with Mazda over the years. I had intended to get a Toyota at one point, but the local dealership by me was scummy and kept trying to force me into buying specific models I wasn't interested in which pissed me off. I went to the nearby Mazda dealership as my second choice and I've never regretted that decision.
  
  I was very happy with my Mazda 3. It just didn't work once I moved out to the country. The thing is like 3" off of the road.
- I automatically think less of anyone who doesn’t buy Toyota at this point.
  
  It's almost like some people have different needs for their cars than you do? No, that can't be it. They must be dumb for not choosing what you like.
  
  I guess I'll go buy the small Toyota EV... nope, can't. I guess I'll go buy the small hybrid Toyota truck... nope, I can't. Or maybe I absolutely hate the entertainment system software that feels like it was designed 10 years ago.
  
  It's almost like some people have different needs for their cars than you do?
  
  Toyota has one of the most diverse product ranges out of any automaker. Notice I said the brand and not a model? They make cars to fit 99% of people's needs.
  
  I'll go buy the small Toyota EV...
  
  You can run a Prius in EV mode.
  
  I guess I'll go buy the small hybrid Toyota truck
  
  No you won't lol. If you're seriously concerned with that, get a manual transmission Tacoma (the only mid-sized truck with one) that gets better MPG than a hybrid Maverick. Then sell your Tacoma for 90% of what you paid for it and buy a hybrid truck when they're the first to make one worth buying in the first place. Otherwise, have fun being a beta tester for Ford/GM.
  
  Or maybe I absolutely hate the entertainment system software that feels like it was designed 10 years ago.
  
  Skill issue, iPad baby, etc.

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