I bought my first car from my parents. It had lots of miles and no frills — not even air conditioning — but the price was right and they sold it to me cheaply enough that I could pay cash. My second car, though, was a gray Mustang convertible I found in the classifieds (no… Read More

There are two main reasons why people refinance auto loans: 1) To lower the interest rate they are paying and 2) to reduce their monthly payment. You may be able to do both when you refinance, and save hundreds or thousands of dollars in the process. As you look into refinancing, keep in mind that… Read More

We’ve had many readers write in after a divorce, asking how to go about separating their assets with their ex-spouse. One of the most common questions is how to remove an ex from a car loan and title. Here’s how to do it. You’ll need to refinance the auto loan into your own name to… Read More

When it comes to buying cars, it should come as no surprise that pricier vehicles tend to be favored by those who have high credit scores, and new research suggests just how much a vehicle’s price tag plays into the buyer’s ability to obtain financing for it. Generally expensive cars come with significant credit qualifications… Read More

When consumers want to obtain financing to cover the cost of buying a new or used automobile, banks are now more willing than they were a year ago to extend loans to those with lower credit ratings. Auto financing extended to consumers with nonprime, subprime and deep-subprime credit ratings accounted for a greater portion of… Read More

If you have had trouble getting approved for a mortgage, a credit card or a personal loan recently because your credit isn’t up to par, you aren’t alone. We get readers writing to us often in our Credit.com Forum about their trouble getting access to credit, but one type of loan is already opening up… Read More

The credit pipelines for auto loans are thawing and that means more consumers are getting access to the cash they need just in time for car-shopping season. A new analysis of automotive credit from Experian released Monday shows that average credit scores of car buyers dropped to near pre-recession levels in the first quarter of… Read More

I’ve gotten a healthy dose of questions from friends and friends-of-friends via Twitter and Facebook, many of them credit-related.

Buying cars is a tricky business. If you walk into a dealer showroom without doing your research, you could get fleeced. I stopped negotiating directly with dealers a long time ago. Instead, I use an agent to find the best deal for me, paying him $200 for the service. He arranges to have the car delivered to my house so I don’t have to set foot into the dealership, thus avoiding the inevitable pinky-ringed “closer” who pressures buyers into purchasing useless paint-protection sprays and other bogus extras that equate to pure profit for the dealer.

A new report by debt rating company Fitch Ratings shows that the nation’s credit problems have gotten worse.