Car Insurance

If you’re looking for a new car, you want to be as
prepared as possible and have your financing in place
before you hit the car dealer. Buying a new car is a big
decision to make and you’ll want the entire process to
be as smooth and stress free as you can make it. One of
the first things that you can do before applying for a
loan for your new car is to find out what your credit
rating is.

Once you know where you stand with your credit you’ll know
your limitations for applying for a car. If your credit is
good, you’ll have no problem walking into your bank or to
the car dealer and qualifying for a car loan. However,
if your credit report leaves something to be desired you’ll
need to be prepared to fight for a car loan and you may
have to accept unfavorable credit terms in order to
qualify.

Having a bad credit rating does limit your options for
getting a car loan but it doesn’t leave you completely
out in the cold. There are some options for you, and
things that you can do, to get closer to having your new
car. The one thing that you should do is make sure that
your financing is in place before you go to the car
dealer. This is because you’ll have much more
credibility with the dealer if you have financing instead
of applying with them for a loan and being told that you
don’t qualify. Yes, this means that if you can’t find
financing for you new car that you should stay off the
car lot until you do! Otherwise they may give you that
car loan at a high interest rate and might not give you
the best deal for the car than if you had arrived with
financing.

Talk to your bank about your low credit rating and see
if they are willing to negotiate with you. If you already
do banking with them they may be willing to give you
some type of loan term since they have access to your
financial records and know your spending habits. If
your bank turns you down you can look on the Internet
for loans that are available for people with a bad credit
rating. Keep in mind that if you qualify for a bad credit
loan that you’ll be paying a high interest rate since
you’re considered an un-secure risk.

The most important advice if you have a low credit
rating and want to buy a new car is to have as much
money to put down on your new car as you can. This
way you lower the amount of money that you need for a
loan which may make creditors more apt to take a
chance and give you your loan.

There are very few things more satisfying than buying a new car.
There is great pride of ownership and a feeling of accomplishment
and pride as you drive around town in your new vehicle. For most
of us, that new car excitement lasts until we must make our first
payment or until we get our first parking lot ding. For an
unlucky few, they wish these were the only negatives that they
had to worry about.

These unlucky few are the people who find themselves with an
automobile that will, after much frustration and exhaustion on
the part of the owner, be classified on a lemon.

So just what is a lemon car? After all, we’ve all had the
occasional breakdown of some part of our car. And no matter when
it happens, it is extremely inconvenient (and often quite
expensive.) When does “regular wear and tear” flow into the realm
of having a true lemon.

Typically a lemon is a new vehicle (or in some states a used
vehicle under certain circumstances) that has had a large number
of repair attempts on a single defect or an overall large number
of repair attempts overall. It can also include just a single
repair attempt on a portion of the car where failure could be a
life threatening situation. Each state has their own lemon law
warranty act and each of them defines what will make a vehicle a
lemon. For instance, in California, a lemon automobile can be
summarized as follows:

Vehicles Covered by California Lemon Law - California lemon law
covers any new motor vehicle used primarily for family, personal
or household purposes. It also includes the chassis portion of
motor homes.

Repair Interval / Coverage Period Details - To be considered a
lemon law vehicle in California , the vehicle must either be out
of service for 30 calendar days or have 2 repair attempt for a
defect that could cause death or a serious injury or have 4
repairs for the same defect. The coverage period is for 18 months
or 18,000 miles, whichever occurs first.

(Lemon law summaries and the statutes for all 50 states and
Washington DC can be found at the Lemon Law Resources website at
http://www.lemonlawresources.com.)

If you believe your car is a lemon, it is very important that you
have proper records to show this. That means that each time you
go to your service center, it is very important that they record
exactly what you believe the problem is in the car and specify
what they did to try to solve the problem. You need to do this
for two reasons. First, you will need these records when making a
claim for restitution. Second, for these “mystery” problems,
dealers will try many different things and it may not be clear to
an adjuster that they were all related unless you ensure this is
the case on the receipts.

Once your car has passed the state hurdle to be classified to
become a lemon, you must take actions to get restitution. Each
state has a different procedure you must follow. Some states
require that you send a letter to the manufacturer to give them
one last chance to repair the defect. Other states have
arbitration panels you must deal with to get restitution.

No matter what method the state has in place for you to seek
restitution, you always have the option of working with an
attorney if you do not feel the issue was solved to your
satisfaction. You should consider an attorney as a last resort as
not all states allow you to be reimbursed for your legal fees if
you win. (And of course if you lose, you would not get
reimbursed.) So as frustrating as this situation may be, it is
best to persue all state sponsored remedies before seeking legal
help.

What happens if you win?

If your vehicle is determined to be a lemon under your state’s
law, you are entitled to a refund or a comparable replacement
vehicle. A comparable vehicle most be identical or a reasonable
equivalent of your current vehicle. A refund will include your
purchase price, taxes and any other options installed in the
vehicle minus a usage fee based on how much you used the car. The
terms will very a bit from state to state but this is generally
what you can expect.

What happens to the car after the manufacturer takes it back?

The manufacturer will generally recondition it and put it back
for sale within its network. Depending on the state where the
problem occurred, the title may or may not be stamped with a
phrase like “Lemon Law Buyback” when it is returned to that state
for resale. However, not all states require this and if the car
was transferred from one state to another, the information may
not follow on the title issued from the new state.

Used car buyer beware!

While lemon cars are only a very small percentage of the used
cars that are sold, this issue with titles not always conveying
the true history of the car, it shows the importance of doing
research on any used car purchase. If you are buying a used car
from a dealer, you should insist on a Carfax lemon check report
and if you are buying from an individual, you should do one
yourself at carfax.com. It is a very reasonable price to pay to
be sure your car has no hidden defects.

Bad-credit car loans may not be easy to find, but if you need a
car, they are worth it.

Bad-credit car loans carry a higher risk to the lender, so the
borrower must pay a higher than usual interest rate. You
probably will need to apply to more than one lender and give
more documentation. Still, a bad-credit loan is worth the
trouble because it not only lets you get the car you need and
want, but can also help improve your overall credit rating.

Getting a Car Loan with Bad Credit: 4 Steps

1. Contact Equifax, Consumerinfo, or TrueCredit online for your
credit score or to make sure there are no errors on your credit
report. You can usually dispute the incorrect information
online or over the telephone. If you have correct unfavorable
information, you can write a letter to the company that
reported the unfavorable information, asking them to remove
that information or make a note that your accounts are now in
good standing. Usually they won’t do this, but it doesn’t hurt
to try.

2. Determine your credit score (also called a FICO score).
There are simple online guidelines for estimating your credit
score yourself. Still, to get a truly accurate score, you need
to purchase it from the credit bureaus.

a. Note that each bureau may have a slightly different score
(and possibly a very different score if they have information
the others do not). There are online credit-monitoring services
that will provide you a single report with all three reports and
credit scores.

b. A score of over 680 out of 850 will get you a low-rate auto
loan. Under 680 will mean a higher rate but a loan is still
quite likely. Bad credit begins around 650 and lower. You will
be charged high interest no matter where you go, and may not
qualify for as large a loan. But it will still be a loan
nonetheless.

3. Look on the Internet for names of lenders that specialize in
bad credit car financing. They can be private lenders, car
dealers or any website offering this type of loan help. Compare
the rates and terms with what your own bank offers. Make a short
list of lenders with good rates and terms.

4. Call up the lenders and ask them about their credit
guidelines. They will often be reluctant to state a single FICO
score, but you can sometimes get them to tell you a range. It’s
important to make sure you have a fighting chance at approval
before applying. A bunch of rejected loan applications will
look bad on your credit report–creating a vicious cycle that
makes it even harder to get a loan.

Bad Credit Car Loans: A Typical Story

Stephen got a credit monitoring service to provide him with his
reports from the three credit bureaus, as well as their three
FICO scores. He was shocked to find his credit score was 560.
He was reported as having defaulted on one of his students
loans, which was incorrect. He was able to get that removed
quickly. But his credit rating was still well below 650.

What should Stephen do now? Of course, Steven should work to
repair his credit rating:

• Pay all bills on time.

• Stay at the same address and the same job for a few years if
at all possible.

• Contact the lenders who reported negative information to the
credit bureaus to see if they will remove it or amend it to
emphasize that his accounts were eventually returned to good
standing.

But in the meantime, Steve needs a car loan. His job isn’t a on
a bus route and he can’t pay cash. After careful research on the
internet, Steve finds he could get a high-interest bad-credit
auto loan. The loan will also give Steve another chance to
restore his credit.

To take a bite out of the interest, Steve gets a friend of his
who’s a mechanic to help him find an inexpensive but reliable
used car—which means a smaller loan and therefore smaller
interest payments. He also dips into his savings and 401(k) to
pay as much up front as he can, since the interest on the car
loan will outpace the interest he could earn on these accounts.

Five years later, Steve’s credit rating is as good as gold and
he trades his used car in for the car he always wanted.

What will you be driving in five years? If you plan well and
get the best deal possible on your bad credit car loan, you’ll
go far whatever you’re driving.

Buying a car is not like buying a radio; you cannot return it to
the store for a refund if you do not like it, or if it has a
manufacturing defect. In fact, for many years, if you purchased
an automobile that came from the factory with defects, you were
just stuck. You could try to get the dealer to repair the
problem, but if the problem continued and the dealer could not
repair it, you were out of luck.

In 1982, the luck of owners of so-called “lemons” changed for the
better, as California and Connecticut passed the nation’s first
“lemon laws.”

These laws, spawned by consumers who had waged tireless battles
against major auto companies, allowed owners of defective
automobiles to seek compensation or replacement with the help of
their respective states. These laws swept like wildfire
throughout the country, and now all 50 states have some form of
the lemon law.

The specifics of the lemon laws will vary from state to state,
but in general, they define a “lemon” as a vehicle that:

Has a “nonconformity” that affects the safety, use, or value of
the vehicle, and
The nonconformity has not been successfully repaired after a
“reasonable” number of attempts, and/or
The vehicle has been out of service for a total of a certain
number of days for repair of the nonconformity.

The length of the warranty period also varies; coverage typically
runs anywhere from one year or 12,000 miles to two years or
24,000 miles. As previously stated, the specifics vary from state
to state, particularly the number of repair attempts that
constitute “reasonable” and the number of days that the vehicle
must be out of service in order to qualify. In some states,
repairs that affect the brakes or other safety equipment need
only one repair attempt to qualify as “reasonable.”

Restitution is fairly consistent from state to state; it usually
requires the manufacturer to either replace the vehicle with one
of comparable value, or refund the purchase price, along with
taxes, registration and delivery fees. Some states leave the
option of replacement or refund to the manufacturer, but most
give the option to the consumer.

What should you do if you think you have a lemon? You should:

Make sure that you document everything relating to repairs of the
vehicle, including when and where it was repaired, who signed the
work order and what work was done.
You should contact the manufacturer in writing, alerting them to
the nature of the problem.
You should consult with your state’s Attorney General’s office to
learn how your state’s law affects you directly.

You may have to go through an arbitration process; this involves
both you and a representative of the manufacturer explaining your
respective situations to a panel that will then provide a ruling.
The arbitration ruling is usually binding on the manufacturer;
they will have no recourse should the panel rule in your favor.
Generally, if you don’t agree with the panel’s ruling, you still
have the option of filing a lawsuit in court.

You may wish to hire an attorney to represent you; there are
plenty of lawyers who specialize in lemon law cases, and they can
probably bring the case to a solution more quickly than if you
handle the case yourself. Be sure to contact your state’s
Attorney General’s office regarding the specifics of your own
state’s lemon law. You don’t want to miss a deadline, or you
could be stuck with your lemon for a long time.

E-Loan provides you with auto and motorcycle loans which will help you to purchase a new or used vehicle from a licensed dealer or private party reference). No down payment is required and E_LOAN’s vehicle loans allow the borrower to include any taxes or extras associated with their vehicle in the loan.

E-Loan offers simple interest installment loans for the purchase of new and used autos and motorcycles. It also provides for auto refinance. In the case of a used auto or motorcycle purchase, finance will be provided for vehicles that are purchased through dealers as well ss those bought from individuals or non dealers.

When applying for the auto or motorcycle loan, you need to specify the loan type which is loan for a new vehicle or used vehicle or a lease buyout. If the case of a used vehicle, you should specify if the purchase is from a dealer or an individual.

Here’s a look at how the E_LOAN process works. If you are interested in taking an auto or motorcycle loan, view the rate and payment detail for the loan in the E-LOAN website. You can use their rate and payment calculator to try different rates and term options. Once you understand your rate and payment details you can apply for the loan online. Applying for the loan will take you only a few minutes of your time. You will receive the loan approval within fifteen minutes.

After you have received an approval for the auto or motorcycle loan, you will receive a powercheck. A powercheck is just like a personal check, but it gives the power to buy a new or used car or motorcycle. You can use the powercheck to refinance you current car loan or buyout your lease.

The powercheck issued by E-LOAN will have your name and address printed on it. You will receive it within three to five days of the loan approval. If you refer to have your powercheck issued to you overnight, it can be sent to your home or business address for $15 fee due to the overnight delivery service. The powercheck can be used to purchase of any new or used car, truck, sport utility vehicle, minivan or motorcycle from any licensed new car or motorcycle dealership. Your purchase may include any tax, license, registration, credit insurance, extended warranty (service) contracts, and any other costs or fees normally associated with the purchase of a vehicle.