Autodecide

Shopping For the Best Auto Loans at Credit Unions

Before going to a dealership, make sure you get pre-approved for your car loan. Here’s what consumer advocate Clark Howard recommends:
Clark advises anybody seeking an auto loan to get pre-qualified at a credit union, which will offer lower rates than a bank.
But don’t just go to the first credit union you see. You can qualify to join many credit unions. By doing some searching, you can find the credit union which will offer you the best deal on a car loan. This post is intended to make this search easy.

Finding a Credit Union with Competitive Auto Loan Rates

A good resource to find all of your local credit unions is this Credit Union Locator. This will give you all of the credit unions near where you live. It’ll also give you the web address of each credit union. Most credit unions will list the auto loan rates on their website.
Another good resource is at BankingMyway which has a searchable database of local bank and credit union auto loan rates. If you use this, I bet you’ll notice that the best rates are from credit unions.

Joining a Credit Union
If the credit union is offering competitive rates, you’ll next want to check to see if you are eligible to join the credit union. Unlike banks, credit unions are only allowed to offer membership to certain groups or fields of membership. These can be based on employers, association memberships or where you live. Most credit union websites will include a page which describes their field of membership.
If you are eligible to join a credit union, membership typically requires a minimum balance in the credit union’s savings account (typically called a share account). This balance must be maintained to keep your credit union membership. Typically this amount ranges from $5 to $25.

Credit Unions Outside Your Area

You can be eligible to join many credit unions that may not have branches in your city. This gives you more options at finding the best rate. Some of these credit unions allow you to join online or by mail. You still have to be in their field of membership to be eligible to join. But this can often be easier than you might think. You can often qualify if you’re a member of some association that anyone can join. The association typically requires a small membership fee, but you don’t have to maintain the association membership to maintain your credit union membership.

How to Join Pentagon Federal Credit Union

A good example of this type of credit union is Pentagon Federal Credit Union. If you don’t qualify based on military, employer or family, you can become eligible by joining the National Military Family Association (NMFA). Please refer to Pentagon FCU’s How to Join overview page for details. Joining NMFA and Pentagon FCU can be done at the same time all online. The yearly membership for NMFA is $20, but your membership in the association does not need to be maintained to continue as a Pentagon FCU member (although the NMFA is a good association to support).

Car Loan Deals at Pentagon FCU

Pentagon FCU has a history of offering great . As of April 2008, the credit union has an especially good deal with a rate of 4.25% APR. This rate applies to terms from 12 to 72 months for new cars and from 12 to 60 months for used cars. This rate also applies to refinancing an auto loan.
This is an internet-only rate. Pentagon FCU sends you a blank check for the auto purchase within 2 days with limits you set when you do the online application. There have been reports that Pentagon FCU is a conservative lender who’ll typically require a decent credit score for you to qualify.
In addition to car loans, there are other reasons why you may want to join Pentagon FCU. They offer a great that pays 5% cash back for gas purchases when you pay at the pump, 2% for supermarket purchases and 1.25% on all other purchases. Pentagon FCU also offers good deals on mortgages, HELOCs and CDs.
Pentagon FCU is just one of many credit unions which provide easy nationwide membership. I’ve covered other credit unions in previous posts, which have also had great auto loan rates. In the months ahead, I’ll continue to post on more of these.

Beware of Auto Identity Theft When Buying a Used Car

Four years after you buy a used car, the police confiscate it and you never get it back. This actually happened to a lady in South Florida. Her story is in this Sun Sentinel article. She had a sporty gray Mitsubishi Eclipse which she bought at a large car dealership. Both she and the dealership weren’t aware that it was a stolen car that had its vehicle identification number (VIN) replaced with another car’s VIN.
According to the article, cloning operations often target high-end models and their business is booming. Consumers often lose their cars when such fraud is found because the vehicles are considered stolen property.
Vehicle Cloning Prevention Tips
As the article describes, the thieves can be sophisticated and can be difficult to detect. They forge, duplicate or alter titles so VINs placed on the clone matches the documents. There are some steps you can take to reduce the chance of this happening to you. Here are some vehicle cloning prevention tips mentioned by the National Insurance Crime Bureau:

Check the vehicle’s VIN with appropriate government agencies and your state bureau of motor vehicles.
Analyze the ownership pattern for any new or late model vehicle with no lien holder.
Trust your instincts: If a used vehicle deal sounds too good to be true, walk away.
Have a private company conduct a vehicle history search.

Obtaining a Vehicle’s History Report

A vehicle history search can be done on the internet. Two choices are AutoCheck from Experian and CARFAX. Both searches cost around $25. The CARFAX tool is nice in that you can get a free and immediate summary of the car’s year, make, model and a few other car details by just entering the car’s VIN. I tried this out with my car and it worked perfectly. You’re then given the choice to purchase the vehicle event history.

Auto Loan Deals at the Nation’s Largest Credit Unions

Navy Federal Credit Union is offering an auto loan rate for new vehicles as low as 3.50% APR for a 36-month term. The rate for a used car is 4.25% APR. The new-car rates for terms of 48, 60 and 72 months are as low as 5.00% APR.
Navy FCU is the largest credit union in the nation with branches all around the world. To be eligible to join this credit union, you or your immediate family member must have some affiliation with the Navy. See their eligibility checklist for more details. If you’re not sure if you are eligible, I recommend calling. Often the customer service representative will be able to give you more options to join.
Pentagon Federal Credit Union (Penfed) will be introducing new and lower auto loan rates in January. The rates will be as low as 5.49% APR for new vehicles and 5.79% APR for used vehicles.
Penfed is the third largest credit union in the nation. Unlike Navy FCU, anyone can be eligible to join Penfed by joining the National Military Family Association. This allows you to meet their field of membership. It costs $20 to join this association, but you only have to pay one time to join Penfed. You can also be eligible to join Penfed if you or an immediate family member has affiliation with the US Army, Air Force or Coast Guard. See Penfed How to Join Guide for more details.

Car Loan Deals at Credit Unions

Before you go to the dealership to buy a car, you should take the advice of consumer advocate Clark Howard::
Clark has talked for several years about the tremendous advantage of getting pre-approved for your car loan from a credit union. They offer deals that are substantially better than what you’ll get from a bank.
To join a credit union, you have to be eligible and be in their field of membership. Each credit union’s field of membership is different. It can be based on where you live, where you work or what organization you are a member of. There’s a little known fact that there are several credit unions you can join via a membership into an organization open to everyone. There’s typically a small membership fee into these organization, but you only have to pay this one time. Once you’re a credit union member, you’re a member for life. You can join these organizations and these credit unions by mail and in many cases online. So you don’t have to live close to one. The Bank Deals blog has a list of several credit unions open to everyone.

Car Loan Deals

As Clark Howard mentioned, you’ll often find great deals at credit unions for car loans. One credit union in particular that has consistently offered great loan deals is Pentagon Federal Credit Union. This is one of those credit unions anyone can join. Currently, they’re offering auto loans with rates as low as 5.74% APR for new cars with terms from 36 to 72 months. For used cars the rates are as low as 6.04% APR for terms from 36 months to 60 months.
An even better deal is currently at Agriculture Federal Credit Union which is another credit union open to all. They are now having an auto loan special with rates as low as 4.99% APR for new cars, trucks and vans with terms between 24 months and 60 months. For used vehicles, the rates are as low as 5.49% APR for terms between 24 and 60 months. These are fixed rates. You can even get a $50 gas card.
The above deals are much better than what’s listed at Bankrate.com.

New device offers reduced emissions and better fuel efficiency

Save The World Air, Inc. (SWTA) has developed a new technology which apparently promises significant reductions in vehicle emissions and increase in fuel efficiency.
The product – ZEFS is shown on the images below (from the company web site www.stwa.com)
ZEFS ™ (Source: www.stwa.com)
STWA has stated that they will introduce the product shortly. Tests have been done on Chinese motorcycle and have shown dramatic (per STWA) reduction in toxic emissions and 7% increase in fuel savings. Knowing what I do about pollution in China, such a technology would be great there, as well as in the rest of the world — So will keep checking this company’s progress and hopefully will be able to use the product.

New article about making big decisions

According to an article from February 17, 2006 published in The Boston Globe, some psychology scientists are advising us not to think rationally when making big decisions. Here is a link to the article
Link to article!
Quoted in the article Ap Dijksterhuis, a professor of psychology at the University of Amsterdam, recommends that the consumer follows their gut when making big, complex decisions like buying a house, or a car, etc. According to the research team he had led, people can not make big decisions in a rational way
Well, I think this is a strange conclusion. This is precisely what we are working on developing tools that help us, the consumer, to make those big decisions in a rational way. Why should I base my decisions that have the impact to the extent of tens of thousands or hundred of thousands of dollars based on following my gut
I would rather know why and how I am making a decision. If I know and I make a mistake, I will know how not to repeat the same mistake next time. And if I use a tool that helps me handle multi criteria and multi option decision in a rational mind, why would not I make a better decision than just “following my gut”.???
In a situation where time is of essence and we have to make a decision in a manner of a few seconds, following your gut could be the best choice, but I cannot imagine that being the case when we have minutes, hours or days to finalize a decision.
What do you think?