Minimum credit score for Toyota finance?

Before you do anything, you should think about the complete picture.

Say you finance 24,000 for 6 years at 10.34%, you payments will be roughly $450.

In the end you will wind up paying $32,300 or $8,300 in interest...if you are lucky the truck will be worth around 10K at that time so you will be spending or losing $22,000 over 6 years...that hurts.

And will be upside-down the entire life of the loan so you could never sell it for what you owe on it.

 

You might want to get your free credit report

ftc.gov and search for free credit report
or
direct link
http://www.annualcreditreport.com/

See if there is some old lingering items that you could take care of. You might have to wait 2 or 3 months befor you can buy but if you can save on the rate it could be worth it if your purchase can wait.

 

I'm sure the OP knows the REASON for lower credit, which is not my concern here.

As others have posted, you either A) take a loan at a "pound me in the ***" rate, or B) try to fix your credit then get apply for a loan and hopefully get a better interest rate.

IMO, I would look at fixing your credit first. Yes, its take time, but in the long run I think its worth it. If you are desperately in need of a vehicle right now, maybe look at getting a used vehicle. Or a cheaper new vehicle. Yes, used car interest rates are typically higher than new, but in your credit situation its going to be terrible regardless.

And having a higher credit score overall will help with other aspects, such as credit card interest. IMO the credit card interest rates are suuuper critical, as those are daily compounding interest rates.. not simple interest loans like fixed term car loans or mortgages, etc. Paying off other debt first should be a priority before delving into a massive financial purchase like a car.

After college I was in a buttload of student loan, and moderate credit card debt (less than $5 grand). I was making decent money, and instead of going ape shit and taking on a $500 car payment, I bought a used corolla for $4,000 and slammed down my debt. In hindsight I'm glad I did what I did, since I have the debt monkey off my back, my credit is 750+, and it leaves me a lot of options with regards to home financing, or new car financing.

Just my rambling $0.02.

 

if your Debt to incom ratio is low, roll your extra money every month against the principle. Your payment is looking to be about $475/mo if you finance 20k. If you can afford it, pay a grand/mo. you'll pay off the 6 year loan in 2 and a half years and you wont get destroyed by the compounding interest.

My rate is pretty high as well and my minimum payment is 518 but I always pay at least 900. I want the truck paid off in no longer than 3 years.

 

If your score really is under 600, that's pretty shitty.

Is this truck necessary? I dont see if it's new or used. But from the credit, I'm guessing used? How much?

Maybe it's a good idea to think if it's financially responsible to make a large purchase. Odds are, with a rating that low, you guys probably still have some outstanding debt right?

 

dude, dont get the car until you can really afford it. if you screwed up in the past and have a bad credit score because of it, the extra cost of the high finance rate would not bother you if you were really able to afford the car. wait until you are ready financially to buy this or else get a car thats in your budget or else you might never get a better score if you default

 

If your credit score is that low- You need to fix that before you try to get anything financed...Get a "good enuf" car that you can afford for now- Worry about financing later.

 

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with all the above opinions. I speak from experience, I had a score a little lower than yours at one point, also due to past issues and some unemployment. Once I was back to full time work and actually making money I needed to finance a car and had to settle for a high interest rate, but I knew I could pay it off no problems. Financing that car helped my score increase more than anything else, so if you know you can make the payments without any problems, I'd say go ahead and make the deal. After a year or maybe 2 of making your payments on time your score will be MUCH higher than now and you might even be able to refinance or sell that one and get a better deal. Really the only way to repair your score and bring it up is to get credit, use it, and pay it down again.

 

You are absolutely right on the mark here. I went through the same experience.

 

I should also mention that refinancing for a better rate is pretty easy. My girlfriend bought a used auto with a 12% interest rate. Six months later her score skyrocketed and she refinanced it down to 6%. This was through a local credit union; took less than ten minutes.

 

Em, maybe I'm a dick... but have you considered that maybe you can't afford a new truck and should look at something else?

 

HI guys....well we did it - we bought the truck. We had enough money to pay down that our payments are around 500 a month and got a brand new 2011 TRD long bed w/jbl. I just want to set the record straight - FIRST Im not a dude....SECOND YES my husband and I can definately afford the truck...we both have very well paying jobs and we make over 80,000 combined a year and Im not going to broadcast exactly what we make...anyway....THIRD YES our credit is F*&%^$ up right now and that is simply because when we first got out of college, making good money, then got married we went ape s*^% and bought ATVs, cars, credit cards, blah blah blah....we blew our money and our credit and STILL PAYING FOR IT! KIDS DO NOT GET CREDIT CARDS UNLESS YOUR TOTALLY RESPONSIBLE!!! HAHA. Anyway....thats it in a nutshell....so we can afford the car....we just have not financed anything in a while and I didnt know what the new rules were for what your credit score had to be etc....anyway we feel good about it and hopefully within the next year we will refinance OR better yet save up enough to just pay it off! Boom!

 

Enjoy the truck, try to pay it off early...

 

I recently just purchased a new FJ. I had a 715 score and applied to USAA and Toyota. My debt to income was roughly 7%, and I literally brought my credit score up 200 points in a year. The biggest thing is to keep track of your credit report and dispute anything that is false and to keep your bills paid on time. Don't let anything go in collections. It takes 7 years to get off your report, and if you have stuff in collections make sure you pay what they want to make it a satisfactory pay off.

So I was offered 4.85 through USAA and 6.5 through Toyota. Your best bet if you can't wait to get a vehicle is to sit down with the Toyota finance person and see what they can find for you. Don't spread your credit inquiries out over 3 weeks or they will probably be hard pulls and hurt your score even more.

I would recommend sacrificing for now and fix your report. Go through Equifax as most lendors use their report and usually is the lowest score of the 3. Get the score up over 700. You will be a lot happier in the end.

 

And yeah we have already upped our score 30 points in a month just by getting things paid off that we had and taking care of business....which its a long story but we had a hard time doing that til recently.....

 

Fine, be annoyed. If you have to take a 6 year loan, you can't afford the vehicle.

 

Actually we switched to 5...and plan to have this paid off within 2 years. Thanks for asking though!

 

If you need a 5 year loan, you still can't afford it.

You do things your way, and ill continue to have no debt at 24.

 

Good for you! I mean seriously its awesome to not have debt...this truck is our 2nd to only debt now. We just sold our other truck so had to have another...this is what we choose...but their is no reason to be snide about it! Chill!

 

Ive heard car dealers would rather loan someone with bad credit and history to show it , instead of someone with NO credit? I have never owned a credit card , nor do I get any offers in the mail its weird. I try to do creditcheck through experian , equifax etc and nothing comes back is it because ive never had a card?