How to Be Successful in Your Next Pre-Owned Vehicle

If you’re in the market to buy a pre-owned car, truck, or SUV, you’ll want to check out these handy tips for being successful in your car loan and vehicle ownership.

Don’t Buy More Vehicle than You Need

If you have bad credit it can be prohibitively expensive to try and “keep up with the Jones”.  The fancier the car, the higher the payments, and the higher the payments, the harder it is to make them each time.  Instead, buy what you need and can afford, even though it may be less than what you really want.  You can buy what you want once you get out of the rut of bad credit.

Buy from a Dealer Concerned About Your Payment-to-Income Ratio

Some dealers will let you bite off as much as you agree to, figuring that you’ll either find a way to make the payments or they can keep your down payment and payments, get the car back and sue you for the balance.  The better plan is for the payments to be affordable, something you are sure you can pay without everything in your budget having to go exactly right.

Make Sure There is a Legitimate Service Warranty Plan for when the Vehicle Needs Repairs

Cars are mechanical and when you are buying a used vehicle you need to understand it has had prior use.  A good, reputable dealer like Integrity Auto Finance will check a vehicle out and recondition it ahead of sale, but that only addresses problems known ahead of when you buy and use the vehicle.  As you use the vehicle additional issues may come up, maybe a fuel pump or an alternator or a starter.  These items would be covered by the Heartland Service Plan available from Integrity Auto Finance, and can save you from unexpected expense that might make it difficult for you to make your payments on time.

Schedule the Payments According to When You are Paid

Your car payment is one of the very most important payments you have.  Budgeting is hard and there are a lot of demands on your income.  Don’t put your car payment at risk.  If you are paid bi-weekly (every two weeks), ask to have your payment set up bi-weekly for the day after you are paid.  If you are paid twice each month (semi-monthly), ask to have your payment set up for the day after you are paid.  This will help minimize the temptation to spend money on something other than your car payment, and will help you fix your bad credit.

Pay On Time to Avoid Late Fees

Most finance companies have late fees that are charged if you pay more than ten days late.  These late fees add to your cost and are a signal to you that you are not fixing your bad credit and because interest continues to accrue on the payment that is late you actually have to pay more interest, making it harder to succeed.

Enroll in an Automatic Payment Program

Most reputable dealers like Integrity Auto Finance will have an automatic payment program where you can have your payments made for you automatically each time they are due.  At Integrity Auto Finance we have an AutoPay program that so long as you are enrolled can permit you to lower your interest rate by one point for each year you remain enrolled, subject to a minimum.  It also enables you to earn “AutoPay Rewards” which are funds that can be used for repairs, routine maintenance and trade-in value.

Plan for the Related Costs of Vehicle Ownership

When you are deciding what to buy keep the secondary costs of ownership in mind, including the cost of auto insurance, licensing the vehicle so it is legal to drive, gas economy, and the cost of routine maintenance.

Buying a vehicle is usually a happy experience of accomplishment.  You want to keep that happy feeling as long as possible.  Buying a car you can afford and setting up payments that you can make automatically will help you avoid the worries that come with getting behind and paying late, and in the worst case, getting repossessed.  It doesn’t need to be hard.  You just need to be careful, check out who you are doing business with and discipline yourself to remain true to your budget and your goal to establish better credit and have fewer worries in life.