audimaestros

Hey guys, I wanted to know your take on applying directly on audi website for credit lease/finance. Is it better than going through a dealer and applying through their website for credit. Sometimes, the dealer is not honest about what response he gets from VW credit. If anyone with prior experience in applying online before going to the dealer, could share it, I would really appreciate it...

kobanna

If the dealer does your credit application they will shop it around to multiple lenders including VW Credit but it will only result in one hard inquiry on your credit report. If you apply yourself, each lender will do a separate hard inquiry which may have a negative impact on your credit score.

When I purchased my car, I was going to pay cash unless I was offered a rate under a certain percentage. It turns out that bank that held my mortgage and HELOC, before I paid them off, was more than happy to give me a very low rate regardless of the length of the loan. It was way too good of a deal to pass up.

I would go through the dealership and apply in person. They may be able to give you advise on how much to put down or other ways to get the lowest possible rate.

in2dwww

VW/Audi does not use credit tiers for scoring. They actually do manual reviews of your credit file and take into account other factors such as resale, down payment, and past VW/Audi loan history. Going through the website is not going to get you anywhere. Going through a finance punk at the dealer may also get you the run-around.

Here's what I would do:

1. Shop for a rate at a competitor bank.
2. Have the finance punk shop you around, but don't tell him you have approval.
3. Let the finance punk tell you what you were approved for. Ask to see the approval in writing... he won't show it, meaning that he is bumping your rate by 2% on average.
4. If the finance punk beat your approval at the other bank, go ahead and tell him your approval at the other bank is lower that what he quoted. Outright lie to him. Don't show him the approval, but make him check his rates again to give him another chance to earn your business.
5. If the finance punk cannot beat or lower rates, then don't use him, just go with your approval you had before you even visited the finance punk.

Key things:
Inquiries will add up, but they only count when you loan shop outside a 14-day window. So do your finance hunt within the same week, or at least 10 days prior to buying your car.

Even if you don't get an approval from another bank, go ahead and tell the finance punk you already have approval for a rate... quote it at 1% lower than what he's giving you - and see if he can match it.

If you could not get approval anywhere VW/Audi will consider financing you as long as you have plenty of money to put down... think 20%+ and you should get enough wind in your sails to get the rate as low as possible.

There is max cap of what the finance punk can bump your rate by... which is 2% or something like that. So the first rate quote you get will likely be the worst.

audimaestros

Thanks guys for your inputs. I have one more question. After applying on Audi website, AFS say they send out an email notifying whether I'm approved or not. Question is, do they explicitly say I'm approved or not in the email? From what I've heard, the emails are pretty misleading. Does anyone know about that? I really appreciate your help...

Richard Solomon

Wow, just wow. I'm sort of morbidly curious what you say when the "finance punk" beats your pre-approved rate is step 4 but can't do any better than that. Step 5 seems to say you gaff him off and go with the higher rate, but I imagine you're instead going to come up with some reason why you'll take his 2% instead of your lender's -1.5% or whatever other song you spin.


FWIW, I don't play those sorts of games nor do I deal with people who do. I've paid more for cars in the past rather than take the slightly better deal from a slimebag. I'll also say that most F&I folks I've dealt with (or whatever they're called now) shift gears quite quickly and easily when they see you're prepared*. So I agree with Step 1 - get a loan approval up front, but from there on out we mostly diverge.


*My favorite was on an extended warranty - I'd done my h/w and had a quote from my credit union, F&I gal gave me the full MSRP song and dance at first. I laid the printout of my competing warranty specs and price on her desk and said "What can you do?" After about 2 minutes of looking it over, she said "Yeah, this is pretty much what we offer. At that price I'd only be making $100, but it's $100 I didn't have when you walked in - I'll match it."