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A car buying question from John H. in Shrewsbury, MA...
What credit reports credit score do car dealers use?

Hey My name is John I actually asked you a question a few days ago..I have no credit history and my cosigner has a 580 score..Well I checked her score online and TransUnion gave her a 627 which is fair. But the other two scores were 527 and 574..so why doesn't the dealer take the higher score? or were they lying to me?

Answer:

Hey John,

I remember your situation. Unfortunately it's not up to the dealer as to which credit reports credit score is used.

The auto lender makes the final decision. A dealer can request them to use the Transunion, but there is no guarantee they'll accept it.

What credit bureau that is used will depend on your region of the country. I'm not sure what the primary credit bureau is in Massachusetts, but where I'm at in AZ, Experian is primary, with Transunion secondary and very few use Equifax.

When I worked in Texas, Transunion was the primary...

You can call a local bank, speak to one of their auto loan specialists and ask what credit bureau is used in your local area.

In addition, credit score is not everything. Take a look at my bad credit auto loans page and read about the real key factors to approvals...Ability, Stability and Past Credit history.

As for the dealership lying to you, there is really no reason to...They don't stand to make anymore money in your case and they definitely want to sell a car if it's possible.

As I mentioned in response to your first question, I'm not sure how good this dealership, that you're working with, is with bad credit auto loans.

Summary

In today's economy lenders are looking at credit depth and past history a lot more closely than just credit score, so what credit reports credit score is used is not as important as it used to be.
Hope this helps,
Justin

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