There are a few ways to purchase a car. The most popular is with an auto loan, but an auto loan can also be obtained in various ways. You can either shop online and get quotes from many lenders or try and get financing from the car dealer himself. Either way, it is important to know your credit score before you begin looking for an auto loan because it will affect how much interest you are charged.

A credit report is good but without your credit score attached it is useless. You should only get credit reports from the 3 major credit bureaus; Experian, Equifax or TrueCredit, and use them against shady dealers who try and use no-name credit bureau reports to charge you a higher APR. Your reports will outweigh their reports. Here’s a tip; you can run your own credit file as many times as you want, and during the 30 days grace shopping period, all credit inquiries are considered as a one inquiry, but if a dealer does it on a new car loan then your credit score will drop. Not a good thing.

Not only is it smart to get your credit report before embarking on the shopping process but possessing an online pre-approved car loan is equally important and here’s why; some dealers will not grant you a car loan unless you already have prior car loan experience despite the good credit score you may have. The only way to confront this if it should happen is for you to either move on the next dealer or to pull out your online auto loan approval. He shouldn’t say no to that, but if he does, walk away, chances are he’s trying to squeeze more cash out of you.

Other options you need to consider before committing to a particular car loan is the amount you can afford on a monthly basis. It shouldn’t choke your pocket book too tight. Checking car insurance is another tip; verify how much a certain brand of car will cost you and the possible increases that may come with it. If you find that the monthly payments might be hard to meet, then you might want to increase your down payment in order to decrease your monthly payments.

If your heart isn’t already set on a particular type of car, do a search for cheapest cars to insure. Know this info in the first place will avoid any future insurance surprises you might have had otherwise. Good luck and be careful.