Shopping for used auto loans at dealerships is never easy. This is especially due to the way most customers deal with the car shopping experience. Most customers go into a used car dealership and test drive a car. Once they have test driven the car they are very excited about buying a car…they have made up their mind that they will buy a car. However, most customers are sure that they've seen a cheaper car someplace else. This is rarely the case…but the salesmen know that if they walk out of the dealership without securing the used auto loan through them, they will secure it from someone else and they will buy a car. Studies show that most people will buy a car 24 hours after they first test drive any car. Why? Because they get into a buying frenzy.
Because of this fact, many car dealers have developed ploys to deal with these wishy washy customers that are sure they've seen a better deal elsewhere. For example, some dealers will pretend to lose the client's car keys after they've checked it out for potential trade in value. Their goal-by forcing the customer to stay in their dealership, rather than run around to other dealerships to "shop around" until they exhaust themselves-is to get them to get their used auto loan from the dealership they actually did the test drive in. If you have an extra set of keys with you, you can leave when you want to. However, if you make sure that you return to dealers that give you good service and are willing to work with you, you will help keep many car dealers from being tempted to lose other customers keys in the future.
Another thing that many dealers will do will be to give you a take it or leave it financing deal on term financing at a certain interest rate for your used auto loan. They will often tell you that because the car is a certain age, you can only get approved for a certain high interest rate at a certain term in your used auto loan. You can solve this little problem by securing a used auto loan before you go to the dealership in the first place at either a bank or credit union. Once you've got your used auto loan out of the way, you don't have to worry about used car dealers jacking up the interest rates a couple of percent above what the bank is actually willing to give you.
With a little bit of preplanning and forethought, you can get a used auto loan that fits what your needs are.
