Drive Financial Services

One - Complete - Solution!

Drive Financial Services is a discount lender that offers, what they call, their "One Complete Solution" for bad credit auto loans.

Each of the words above represents a main credit tier that a customer, based on Drive's internal scorecard, would fit into.

A great aspect of Drive Financial Services program is that your credit score, whether 300 or 800, has no affect on their approvals.

Seeing as how you would probably not be reading this page if you had an 800 credit score this is good news for you. It is also very rare for a customer to get turned down for an auto loan.

What's covered below:

• Who Drive Loans To and How To Get A Loan

• Drive's "One Complete Solution"

• How Their Discounts Affect You

• What You'll Need For Funding

• From A Car Dealers Stand Point

• Contact and Payoff Information

Bad Credit? Repo, BK, Divorce. Let us help!
No Obligation Auto Loan Quotes

Who Drive Financial
Loans To and How To Get Approved

There are very few customers that Drive Financial will not approve for an auto loan.

I've been able to get auto loans approved for customers in a wide range of credit situations, including but not limited to:

• multiple repossessions
• bankruptcy
• no credit
• limited credit with bad accounts, etc.

I've even had customers get approved with a repossession the same day they bought their new car. Even with Drive knowing that the customer just had a repossession that day, they still approved them for an auto loan.

In fact, about the only credit situation that Drive seems to really shy away from is major derogatory credit issues after a bankruptcy. This is typically, one of the few times, when I will see turn downs from Drive Financial.

This is true with all subprime auto lenders and Drive only lends indirectly to consumers through car dealerships. That's okay, because you'll want a special finance loan specialist that can structure you the best loan.

Drive does offer no money down auto loans for their "One" tier customers and limited money down for their "Complete" tier customers. Their "Solution" tier customers usually need a minimum of $1,000-$1,500 down.

Oftentimes, a trade ins equity can substitute for a cash down payment. That's a big bonus...!

To find loan specialists in your local area that work with Drive Finacial and/or other similar bad credit auto lenders complete this 60 second application and get your No Obligation Auto Loan Quotes.

Drive Financial Is Your
"One Complete Solution"

• One

  Is Drive's top tier and is made up of 3 sub tiers; A, B and C.

  I don't know that I've ever seen an approval in this tier. The only dealers that I think use Drive for these tiers are independent dealers that have limited finance sources.
  
  

• Complete

  Is Drive's middle of the road tier and is made up of 3 sub tiers; D, E and F.

  For customers approved in one of these tiers, there will be less requirements for funding and typically less money down required.
  
  

• Solution

  Is Drive's bottom tier and is made up of 4 sub tiers; G, H, I and J.

  These are the big discount tiers, more on discounts below, with high APR's. Will usually require customers to have a nice down payment for the loan to structure right.

How Their
Discounts Affect You

Being a discount lender may sound like it would be a good thing for customers, but in reality the discount is taken from the total amount financed and will in no way benefit you, the customer.

In fact, this discount all but eliminates any chance of the customer getting any type of "discount" off the selling price.

Example
If you were to purchase a car for $10,000 and your total amount to be financed was also $10,000, then Drive would charge the dealer an acquisition fee (the discount) of anywhere up to 27%.

What this means in this case is that the dealer will be charged a $2,700 acquisition fee (27% of $10,000) in order for Drive to fund the deal. That's a big fee!

What would normally be $2,700 that you might be able to negotiate off the sales price is now a fee the dealer has to pay to Drive in order to get your auto loan approved and funded.

That may sound crazy to you, but Drive is in the high risk auto loan business and has to try and protect itself from losses. These types of fees are very common with subprime auto loans.

This is not to say that you can't try to negotiate a lower price, but don't be too surprised if the dealer is not willing to budge much...There simply isn't much "wiggle" room.

This is one of the main reasons why it is so important to stay on top of your credit. Clean up what's legitimately yours and dispute what's not to raise your credit score fast.

Do yourself a huge money saving favor and Repair Your Credit before you buy a car...

Check your Credit Report and Score – Fast, Free & Easy at CreditReport.com.

What You'll
Need For Funding

There are some very standard funding requirements that Drive will have and just about any approval they give will require these items before they will fund:

• Proof of Income (paycheck stub, bank statements, etc.)
• Proof of Residence (utility bill)
• Proof of Insurance (Max $500 deductible)
• Complete Phone Bill
• 5 Complete References (Family, Friends, Co-workers, etc.)
• Valid in State Drivers License

If you do not have one or more of these, then let the special finance manager know ahead of time and they can help to figure out what else might work.

From A Car
Dealers Stand Point

Drive Financial Good:

• They approve most all applications.

• They finance up to 72 months (most subprime lenders don't).

• Quick application decisions (typically less than 10 minutes).

• Loan to value up to 130% of wholesale book (most applicants don't qualify for the max, but when they do it helps with the fees).

• Accept fresh repossessions, like the same day customer buys their new car.

• Do not care about credit scores...300 FICO's welcome.

Drive Financial Bad:

• They have tightened up recently and discounts are so big it's hard to put a deal together.

• Really do not like negative after a BK. I've seen more turn downs from this then in past days.

• Rates seem to be maximum for most every customer now. Averaging out at around 25.99%.

• Even though maximum advance is 130%, most customers are only getting approved for 105 to 110% and with 25% discounts it is very hard to put together a deal without big money down.

All in all, Drive has reverted back to their lending style of a few years back, which makes it very difficult to put deals together.

A year ago they were one of my top lenders and now I may send them a deal once every few months. They are certainly not my first option anymore.

Contact and
Payoff Information

Drive Financial Services was purchased in 2006 by Santander Bank and has remained headquartered in Dallas, TX.

Here is some quick contact information:

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