Car shopping is beyond a doubt one of the most interesting things to shop for. And I am the worlds greatest car shopper and recently found a great online resource here in Louisville that makes a great starting place. They call themselves the Louisville Car Guys.

By using their site and filling out their pre approval form your information is sent to 4 different dealerships that can help a person with no credit or a low credit score be able to buy a car. The best thing about it is the 4 different dealerships know that you can just get up, walk out, and go to another place at the drop of a hat. Also, you don’t have to enter your social security number or date of birth to get pre-approved for a car purchase.

Before we filled anything out I called and spoke to the site owner and he advised me that the only time you ever give that information to a car dealer is when you’re at their location. When you’ve determined that they’re a legit operation. You’ve decided that you like your sales rep. And that you’ve looked at a car your interested in buying. Which makes total sense to me. He also told me that when you enter that information online that in all likelihood it will end up being sold to credit card companies and so forth and so forth.

So let’s get back to the car shopping. My son is fresh out of college and has had cars he’s bought and paid cash for, but still had never borrowed money or a car. Myself and hubby do not co-sign for other peoples loans and that includes our children, so he had to start with a buy here pay here car. This made everything totally new to me and very interesting to say the least.

So after entering our info with the Louisville car guys we get calls from 4 different dealerships. 3 of the callers were actually managers so that made things a little easier. And just like the website said they treated us much differently than I would have thought. Apparently these dealers get quite a bit of business from the Louisville Car Guys and don’t want to upset them by treating a client with anything less than total respect.

Only 2 of the 4 that called actually had anything similiar to what my son was wanting to buy so we made appointments at those 2 dealers (The Car Store) and (Cars Direct) and went shopping.

When we got to Cars Direct we met Chris Browning the manager and he showed us the Dodge Charger they had. We drove it and talked some numbers but the payment was a bit higher than my son could afford. Chris reassured us he would call us if something sporty came in that was a bit more affordable.

Then we went to The Car Store and met with Bobby Newton their most senior sales rep. Bobby showed us a Mustang and we drove it up onto the highway and down around in the city. He was totally knowledgeable about his job and told my son he would be looking at a monthly payment of between $325.00 and $350.00 a month which didn’t seem bad considering he had no credit to start with. It was when Bobby told us the insurance for a young male driver in a sports car was what would shock us that made us a little skeptical.

When we got back to the dealership Bobby got the numbers off the car and let us use his office phone to call and check the insurance rates for my son on that particular car. GAAKKKK!! Bobby was right, it was over $200.00 per month just for insurance on it.

Well he still needed a car so we checked out a Nissan Altima. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever had the opportunity to ride or drive one of these little cars but I was impressed with it. Just like before we took it up onto the highway and down into town and overall toll a nice long test drive in it. We got back and the insurance checked out at $85.00 per month. Bobby told us the payments would run $320.00 per month and that was good. The car FAX Bobby had showed 2 previous owners and no wrecks. Things were looking pretty good, then we were informed that The Car Store provided a 1 year unlimited mileage warranty on the power train and that’s great. So then we had one last thing to do before buying it. We took it to our mechanic.

Our mechanic looked the car over and said it was in great shape and didn’t look as though anybody had ever abused it. He pointed out just like Bobby did that there were still several receipts for past maintenance in the owners manual jacket.

So we bought the car! My son keeps going over to the front window and looking at it out in the driveway. I wonder if he thinks somebody will try to steal it? HA! So now he’s on the road to establishing some credit and he has a nice little car that gets pretty good mileage. I didn’t want him driving a race car like he wanted. I’m his mother and I’m turning grey to fast as it is.

So my car buying experience at a buy here pay here lot went good. I can reccomend using the car guys site, which made looking for a good place much easier by causing them to look for us. Or you can call Bobby Newton direct at The Car Store. He’s been there 12 years now and according to Bobby he’ll be there till he retires or they close.

I hope all of you enjoy the upcoming holiday weekend !!