It used to be pretty easy to qualify for a car loan before the economy went in the tank and credit locked up.  For a few years, all you had to do was sign your name on the dotted line and you could drive off the lot with a new car.  The dealers didn’t even care if you had a down payment because they planned to make so much money on the interest charged.  This all changed as soon as the economy soured and people started missing car payments.  Before long cars were getting repossessed right and left and loan companies started losing all kinds of money.

The banks and finance companies are very careful about who they will give a loan to nowadays.  If you have a good credit score then you can still get a loan fairly easily but if your credit is less than great you will have to jump through more hoops.

If you are wondering how to purchase car with bad credit then one option is something that used to be used all the time.  Before credit was easy to get people actually had to prove themselves before they could get any money.  The problem was the banks were not interested in taking chances on people with no credit history.  Therefore they came up with the idea of the co-signer.

When person A agrees to co-sign a loan for person B this means A is guaranteeing that the loan payments will be made.  If person B reneges on the loan then A will be held responsible.  In order for this to work, person A must have a good credit rating that person B can piggy back on.

If you decide to go this route then you will need someone with good credit to co-sign your car loan.  In days past, this was usually a parent or other relative with some money.