Drive Time Auto Sales

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Drive Time Auto Sales - The nation's largest car dealership!
Buy here pay here dealerships specializing in bad credit car sales...

Drive Time Auto Sales is one of the nations largest buy here pay here dealerships. With over 80 dealerships in 11 states, that specialize in helping people with credit challenges buy the car, truck or SUV they need. If you've got credit issues, then they could be a perfect fit for you.

They make it a point to not just look at your past credit history, to make a simple yes/no decision, but they look at your future to help get you into the vehicle you need. They finance nearly 99% of all the vehicles they sell, which means getting approved for a loan is fairly easy.

Assuming you've applied for your loan and your approval is in process, let's get on to the review, where you'll not only be able to read my review of the pros and cons of buying a car from them, but you can submit your own review, read what others have written and find Drive Time locations across the country.

Drive Time
Auto Sales Review

Let's start the review with the pros and then we will work our way into the cons...

99% Finance Rate
Do they ever say no? I'm sure they do, but it's not often. In fact, when I worked in Texas, Drive Time Auto Sales was my biggest competitor when it came to bad credit car sales. They could help customers in ways that my lenders could not.

It was frustrating for me (in a business sense), but good for the customer. See what dealers in your area can offer with this 60 Second No Obligation Auto Loan Application.

Flexible Terms
Most buy here pay here dealerships will have one set rate for all customers and don't budge, but not Drive Time. They offer flexible rates even for customers with bad credit or no credit.

Basically, the more you put down the more they lower your rate. In addition, they'll give you up to 30 days after you've bought your vehicle to add more to your down payment to get an even lower rate. I don't know of any other buy here pay here dealer that does anything like that.

Report to the Credit Bureau
Not only will you be able to get a car, but Drive Time will help you to build or even rebuild your credit by reporting your well paid loan each month to the credit bureau.

Additionally, they will take into account your well paid car loan with them and will offer better rates to you the next time you buy from them (if you choose to).

Free Used Car Warranty
For vehicles that qualify, and it's my understanding most do, Drive Time Auto Sales includes a free 36 month 36,000 mile extended warranty that covers your engine, transmission, drive axles, climate controls and more...

Some buy here pay here dealers will offer this, but they'll make you pay for it.

Free Oil Changes
Included with your vehicle extended warranty are free oil changes. Now that's impressive! The extended warranties I sell at my dealership 1) Are not free 2) Definitely don't cover oil changes. Very good deal here with Drive Time Auto Sales.

DT Champ
This is cool and again, one more thing that separates Drive Time Auto Sales from the rest. With DT Champ, once you have paid down your current Drive Time car loan (down to $3500 and paid on time), they allow you the opportunity to upgrade to a newer vehicle with:

1. No money down
2. No trade in required (with zero balance)
3. Reduced interest rates

A buy here pay here allowing you to buy a newer vehicle for no money down, that's practically unheard of.

Referral Program Pays Down Your Loan
Drive Time Auto Sales wants you to be happy with your new car for multiple reasons. One of them being they want you to return in the future to buy another car and the other is for you to want to refer your family and friends to buy cars from them as well.

Outside of offering you a quality experience and a great car, Drive Time adds a little extra motivation by applying $200 towards your loan for each person you refer that buys a vehicle from them.

On to the Cons...

The cons I'm about to cover here are actually not unique to Drive Time Auto Sales, but are fairly common with all buy here pay here dealerships.

High Interest Rates
As mentioned above Drive Time Auto Sales offers you a way to lower your rates with a larger down payment, but if you use just the minimum down payment required you will be facing some fairly high interest rates.

These rates can be anywhere from 18% on up...It's important to note that Drive Time lends money under what would be considered high risk conditions and needs to charge a higher rate for these riskier loans. One thing that defines a riskier loan is a smaller down payment. Save up, put more down and pay less.

No Big Discounts
Don't be surprised if the price you see on the window is the price you pay. As with almost all buy here pay here dealers, Drive Time Auto Sales will typically charge a bit of a premium on the vehicles they sell.

As mentioned just above they sell cars to customers with credit issues and these loans are risky. Most buy here pay here dealerships will average 15-25% repossession rate and they need to make up for those losses by making bigger profits from the customers that do pay.

This is not saying that Drive Time Auto Sales absolutely won't budge on price, but don't expect the types of discounts you might be able to receive if you were easily able to get traditional bank financing. Same as with the interest rate, a larger down payment will give you more leverage when negotiating as this reduces their risk.

Mechanical Issues
This is certainly not unique to Drive Time Auto Sales, but is a problem every dealer faces. On occasion a vehicle a dealer sells (some dealers more than others) will break down, even after a rigorous inspection process.

It's important to note that dealers selling cars are not the manufacturer and all they can do is simply buy the vehicle, inspect it, fix it and then sell it.

Drive Time Auto Sales does everything they can to protect their customers with free extended warranty coverage and a thorough multi-point inspection process. Unfortunately, cars are machines and sometimes run into problems.

Summary
Now that you've had a chance to read my review and compare apples to apples you can make the best decision possible. I personally feel that they offer an excellent opportunity for customers with some credit challenges to not only buy a nice pre-owned car, but also allows you to begin rebuilding your credit.

What are you waiting for? See how much you can get approved for and get connected with a local dealer that can help! Fast Auto Loan Application.

Now that you've had a chance to read my thoughts, I'd like to hear from you and I'm sure other visitors would like to hear from you as well. Have you done business with Drive Time Auto Sales? How was your experience?

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