Car Loan on Credit Card?

[Dan]

I am trying to decide if I should move my $10,500 car loan at 9.75% to
a credit card that promises 3.99% until the loan balance is paid off.

Here is my situation: After looking at my credit report and adding up
all the revolving credit limits, it comes to about $44,000. I
currently have about $9,700 of that limit used.. $9,000 on a credit
card and $700 on a store card. I figured that in the next year I can
save $700 or so in interest, over $1000 in two years by making the
switch.. I plan on selling the car in the next two years.

Will it hurt my credit score if I do this? What are the implications?

Thanks,
Dan

[John A. Weeks III]

In article <648fff84.04061...@posting.google.com>, Dan
<dan_h...@hailmail.net> wrote:

That is the wrong question to ask. Sure, your credit score is already
lowered by having $10K in silly debt (credit card stuff). Your score
will take another hit when you go up to 50% of your available credit
being used. But you will get a few points back by having paid off
the car loan.

The real question here is why you have $20,000 of debt. The reason
is that you spend too much, and you have a way too expensive of a
car. You really need to sell the car, cut up the cards, and live
on beans and rice until you get all this debt paid for. Drive a
beater car. Once you get paid off, then you can start playing
high finance again and perhaps get a better car if you can afford
to pay cash for it.

-john-

--
====================================================================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708 jo...@johnweeks.com
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
====================================================================

[MissLivvy was:Curly]

I you can't sell the car, I would consider putting the loan balance on the
credit card, but before doing so, be very careful to read the fine print. A
lot of times making a late payment on will cause the interest rate to
increase significantly. Probably to more than what you are paying now. So if
that's true and you are not reliable about making your credit card payments
on time, I would say it's not worth the risk.

Good luck in getting out of debt!

"Dan" <dan_h...@hailmail.net> wrote in message
news:648fff84.04061...@posting.google.com...

[miket...@gmail.com]

I don't think it will hurt your credit score. Recently I bought a car loan at 2.99 APY from Greater Central Texas Federal Credit Union, they are really affordable. For more information, visit: http://gctfcu.net

[bo peep]

On Saturday, June 19, 2004 5:00:14 PM UTC-6, Dan wrote:
> I am trying to decide if I should move my $10,500 car loan at 9.75% to
> a credit card that promises 3.99% until the loan balance is paid off.

I just checked my local credit union - they will refi a car loan on a car that is less than 4 years old at 2.49%. Perhaps you should check your own local credit union's rate.

[Bill Woessner]

Shifting around balances shouldn't have much impact on your credit score. But there may be fees involved in what you want to do. The holder of the car loan may add a surcharge to a credit card payment. Or they may outright refuse a credit card payment. In that case, you would have to use some kind of balance transfer. That typically has a fee associated with it, as well.

In theory, you should be able to get a lower interest rate on a secured loan (car loan) than on an unsecured loan (credit card). Of course, in practice, that's not always true. A quick check at bankrate.com shows auto refinancing loans as low as 1.35%.

--Bill