Any advice for someone about to apply for a car loan?

[Workin4to5]

I've never taken a look at my credit, but I've never had a problem as far as I know. I'm only 23 and I was looking to get my first significant loan - a car loan to be specific. Is there anything that I should be doing in the run up to that date, which is probably a month or two from now?

[Japhet11]

Hi Workin,

If you haven’t taken a look at your credit reports then now is DEFINITELY the time. A public interest group did a survey a few years ago and found that 79% of credit reports have errors of some kind, a quarter of them serious enough to have consumers denied for credit or loans.

You want to fix credit errors before you apply for any big ticket items. Even if you’re not denied, they could jack up the interest rates on you. You could end up paying thousands more over the length of your car loan. At 23, I’m sure you can find other uses thousands of dollars. If you’re smart, you’ll save it so the next loan you apply for is a mortgage.

The first step is to check out your credit reports. You can get a free report from each of the three major bureaus at annualcreditreport.com every 12 months. Just take a look. You might be just fine. But if you’re on here posting, you’ve got to be stressing it a little bit. Trust me; you’ll sleep a lot easier knowing exactly what your credit report says.

Let me know how it goes, or if you have any other questions.