Buy a Car with Zero Down Payment

College students often have a tough road to hoe when it comes to getting around in reliable transportation. After all, a good number of students are so broke that their college years are often later fondly looked back upon as being the period of the Top Ramen.

However, there is some good news for students in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, for Southeast Toyota Finance is offering rebates of a cool $1,000 to those students meeting a few basic criteria. The first criteria is that you've got to be soon-to-be or recent college graduate, or a graduate student to qualify for this little to no credit car loan.

Next, to qualify for the rebate and student car loan, you have got to already have a job or a verifiable job offer. Also, you'll have to want to purchase certain Toyota, Scion and Yaris models.

That's it. So if you meet those criteria, get in touch with Southeast Toyota Finance and get yourself in a brand new car. The loan and rebate program will run for the next two years.

New safety technology takes at least 30 years to reach 95% of the vehicles being driven. The final 5% often takes many more decades to be reached by new safety features due to the resistance of some to finally sell a beloved vehicle.

These new features start at the top of the market in the more expensive vehicles and only slowly trickle down through the vehicle market as consumer expectations evolve and laws change. Some car safety technologies are adopted at much faster rates. Antilock braking systems, first to hit the market in 1985, will probably meet the 95% threshold by 2015.

Some of the newer technologies will take much longer to saturate the market. It is thought that the forward collision warning system that was introduced at the turn of the century will not be in 95% of the vehicles until 2049.

Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. plans to launch a pilot program in 2012 to base premiums on onboard telematics. The program will bring Hartford in line with other insurance companies like Progressive, State Farm, and Allstate.

The program will be called True Lane and will roll out  ''in the first half of 2012,'' according to Andy Napoli, the president of Hartford’s consumer markets division. This move may help Hartford better compete with Progressive, the leader in telematic based insurance rates. Progressive's Snapshot program is available in most U.S. states and uses a small device that plugs into a car’s onboard diagnostic computer. Customers who volunteer to install the device can get a markdown on their auto insurance of as much as 30%, but currently do not face rate increases based on the information collected.

Insurers normally pool drivers into ''groups'': auto insurance for teen drivers, single men, young drivers, etc, but telematics recognize individual habits, helping to lower premiums. By entering the telematic market Hartford hopes ''to stay at the leading edge of pricing sophistication,'' according to Napoli. ''This capability has really redefined the way we think about pricing auto insurance.''

When a Chicago man fell behind on his car payments his lender allegedly took the extreme measure of trying to ruin his marriage by leaving a message naming a possible girlfriend.

Larnell Pillow has filed suit against Prestige Financial Corp of Salt Lake City, Utah claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress. His lawsuit claims that an agent for the lender intentionally left a phone message with his wife mentioning his secret girlfriend. Pillow says that the malicious message to his wife, ''turned my world upside down. I’d lost my job. Then I lost my wife and kids. It’s just a domino effect.''

In the early stages of the relationship with his auto lender, Pillow and the lender's agent were on friendly terms. Friendly enough that he mentioned to the agent that he had a girlfriend in addition to a wife. That all changed when he lost his job and fell behind on his payments. When he protested about the phone message, the agent allegedly responded: ''Now we know a pressure point to use on you.'' That statement led Pillow's attorney, David Boyd, to call the agent’s actions ''sexual-scandal blackmail.''

Tattling to a man's wife is somewhat new, but unscrupulous debt-collection practices are not. 1978’s Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) was intended to protect consumers from abuse, but it is often ignored because there are too many complaints for enforcement officials to follow up on each one. Hopefully, losing a chunk of money will slow this particular agent down.

[Thanks to the team @ Car Loans With No Credit for the tip on this juicy topic!]

P.S.

For anyone who has been the victim of similarly dastardly behavior, you might want to get an FDCPA attorney on your side.

In a recently released report, Equifax noted that there has been a large increase in the number of auto loans originated over the past two years.

According to Equifax's National Credit Trends Report, auto lenders increased loans by more than 47% between July 2009 and July 2011. That is a jump in originations from 581,300 in July, 2009 to 854,800 in July 2011. During the first seven months of 2011, there were11.3 million new auto loans approved, which is a 13.2 percent increase over the same period in 2010.

Michael Koukounas, Senior Vice President of Special Client Services for Equifax, had this to say ''With unemployment rates remaining elevated for a prolonged period, auto lenders have proactively adopted more comprehensive data and verification tools for greater loan-level transparency in evaluating a wider band of consumers, which has helped enable the auto lending industry to recover more quickly than others.''

Auto finance companies have been lending to subprime auto loan buyers more freely and delinquency rates have been dropping over the same two year period, further fueling loan originations.

If you keep a look out on the TV and radio, you might hear about local dealerships offering zero down car offers such as:  Sign and Drive!  No Money Down!

However, it can take a looong time before you happen across one of these promotions.  What if you want a car NOW?  With ZERO money down?  Well, as with many areas of life, the internet is streamlining the process.  Now you can utilize a specialized web service such as Zero Down Car Loans to find these deals -- as well as get your credit pre-approved for them -- from the maximum convenience of your home computer or laptop.  Usually, you have to submit your credit application online.  This only takes about 3-4 minutes.  Then your application is "shopped" to a vast network of participating dealerships and lenders to find one willing to let you buy a car with no money down. 

This online process can save you time, money, and headaches.  For more information, just visit the Zero Down Car Loans link. 

Many people in the market for a new or used car are not buying their first car.  No, they have a vehicle which they want either to sell first on the private market, keep around for as a hand-me-down, or trade-in at the dealership. 

One option is to sell you vehicle on the private market, where you will typically get the more money than you would be offered from a dealer.  That said, there are often advertising expenses -- and certainly time -- required to successfully sell a car to a private buyer. 

Another option is to see what you can get from the dealer in trade.  Now, what some dealers will do is this:  even if your trade-in is not quite worth the minimum down payment amount required by the lender, they will give you more for the vehicle than it's worth.  This will allow you to make your down payment.  Of course, the dealer doesn't do this out of the pure kindness of heart.  He will make sure the additional cash he gave you in trade equity goes into the increased cost of the car you're buying.  That way things are even, but you satisfy the lender's down payment amount without having to dole out cash from your own bank account at the time of purchase.

This strategy only works if you are purchasing a brand new car.  If so, many manufacturers offer substantial cash rebates worth several thousand dollars, especially during seasonal sales events.  If you don't have a down payment in hand, speak to your dealer about what kinds of rebates are currently being offered, as well as whether the value of these rebates can be easily transferred into a down payment on your new vehicle.

As you probably know, most dealerships work with outside lenders who approve or reject an applicant's credit.  Some of them allow rebates to act as down payment, some do not.  Your dealer, or the dealership's auto finance manager, should know his way around this question.