Hey all!! How's Harley's financing? A buddy of mine said, "if you take a 10% down payment to a dealer you'll get a bike". I think he meant no matter what your credit is (I THINK). My credits not to well right now, but not awfull. Do ya'll think they'd finance me?

 

There's really just one way to find out. Go ask them at the dealership.

 

True!

 

With less than perfect credit, they might still finance with 10% (or more) down.
But I am betting you will NOT like the interest rate they will give you.

 

My experience with HD and their financing didn't seem too horrible. Price tag on the bike was $5769, sales manager said he'd do it for that price out the door. I filled out a credit app to see what my monthly payment would break down to, just to see if I wanted to venture into monthly payments. Came back with $127 a month for 48 months with 10% down. Not too bad, but I decided I really don't want a payment. So, I asked the sales manager if he'd do the bike for $5000 CASH out the door. He wouldn't do it, so I walked out of the place.

My credit score is like 610, not horrible, but not super great either, and they got me approved.

I have since decided I'm just gonna find a Sporty and buy it cash, whether it at a dealer, or from a private seller locally.

In fact, I just talked to the Matco tool guy who comes into the auto shop I work at about a '04 Sporty he's selling. I told him, "You've got a month to think about this Larry, 4 grand cash for the bike." He had said previously he wanted like $4500 for it. He's selling it so he can get the wife a Heritage. He then jokingly told me I should buy his Road Glide for $15K so he could buy a new bike for himself. Mind you, his RG is only a 2007. I just kinda laughed about it and told him, "If I had $15K to spend on a bike, a Road Glide honestly wouldn't be my first choice. I'm not a big fan of baggers, I'd get a FXDL."

 

But what was your interest rate that they were offering you? My guess is that it was fairly high with a 610 credit rating. I'm willing to bet that he would have dropped the price by a small amount if you would have financed it, and then made it back up on the finance charges. If you had the cash you could have just financed it to get a better price, and then payed it off when the first payment was do. This works great if your contract doesn't include a penalty for early pay off. But it sure pisses off the dealer.

 

Problem is then they want ya ta make those dern payments....

 

Normally, (but the current credit crisis may change this) if you can fog a mirror and have at least 10% cash down Harley will finance you with bad credit, BUT you will pay as high as 24.9% interest. I have a friend that his DA self financed a Fatboy for 84 months at 24.9%, $580.00 a month payments. With teh down payment he'll end up having like $50,000 in it when/if he pays it off! CRAZY!

 

Oh, you under-estimate yourself, a 610 is bad. Bottom of the "Poor Credit" rating on the FICO Scale. With that score you'll get Harley's "Stick it in your azz" rate.

 

While I appreciate your oh-so-insightful commentary, I was just looking at my credit score and info the other day, and cehcking some other info, and it doesn't classify my score as "poor credit" as you say it does. Get your facts straight. Yes, I may get higher rates on stuff, which is part of my reasoning for not wanting to finance the bike. I don't wanna pay crazy interest and fees. I was just kinda looking into things with the dealer that day.

My credit was worse due to some issues in the recent past, but I have since cleared stuff up, and am working on rebuilding my credit. I've got a couple low-limit credit cars I use now and then. When I use them, I pay them off in full when they are due to show a good payment record. I also have some stuff for my job thru Snap-On Tools on their Snap-On Credit thing they have. It's $2500 worth of stuff I purchased earlier this year thru them. I have a weekly payment of $25 I make on that. Haven't missed one yet, haven't been late, I've even paid extra almost every week on it.

It's a slow process to rebuild credit, but I'm trying my damndest to make it happen.

I also have some student loans that are not yet in repayment status. Once they are, the interest rates are less than 5%, some of it is no interest. Payments will be very low on them, since I don't have a ton of student loans to repay. It's somewhere around $25K for the 4 years of schooling I'll have completed after the upcoming winter semester. That 4 years is about equivalent to one year of what my sister is having to repay from her 4 years at the University of Michigan, so I don't feel so bad about having taken out those student loans to get myself thru school.

I just love internet know-it-alls on message boards.