Chevrolet Offers 14.7% APR Financing To "Well Qualified" Corvette Buyers

by Virgil Hilts

June 27th, 2014 1:42 AM

chevrolet offers 14 7 apr financing to well qualified corvette buyers

While perusing Chevy’s website to see if there is any color of the 2014 Corvette that actually makes the car look halfway decent, I came across the financing offer pictured above. And, no, I did not enter any personal info that would lead GM’s captive Ally Financial (or whoever the hell GMAC is now) to deem me only eligible for such a high interest rate. Just what is going on here?

A quick look at other Chevrolet vehicles on the site show financing offers of 3.9% to 4.9% APR. These rates may be subvented, or bought down by the manufacturer to help move slow-selling iron, though with car loan rates being under 2.0% by independent banks in much of the US, one has to wonder how much Ally is being charged for their money. Even if they are paying a sky-high 4.0%, it is a mystery why they would advertise a 14.7% loan on the Stingray, rather than, say 6.0% or 7.0%. Ally and the dealers would make a fortune on this 72-month loan but I don’t think they will get any takers because unlike buying the Corvette itself, with dealer price gouging running rampant, consumers actually have many choices when it comes to financing.

I can only conclude that either this offer is in error (maybe even their marketing folks are slammed by the recall crisis) or Ally Financial is simply not interested in $50,000+ loans.

What say you?

#AllyFinancial #CarLoans #Corvette #Finance #GMAC

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12 of 24 comments

Mars3941 on Jun 27, 2014

14.9% APR is out of line even if one had bad credit.

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SaulTigh on Jun 27, 2014

I don't know if it's similar, but when I recently bought a new Ford, Ford Motor Credit would only quote 7.99% unless I filled out a hard inquiry credit app. When I finally did that, they came back at 3.99%. Fortunately, a credit union came back at 1.94% and we did the deal. I wouldn't be driving a new truck today if 3.99% was the best they could have done. We've now had an entire generation of people grow up in the low interest rate environment. If you were 15 years old when 9-11 happened, you're 28 now and probably in the market for a car if you have a halfway decent job. If interest rates even go back to "normal," it's going to be a shock to a lot of people. A 6-7% car loan with a top tier credit score and good income will seem outrageous. I can only imagine what that will do to car sales.

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- Occam on Jun 27, 2014
  
  I'm 32, and agree with this. 6-7% interest sounds to me like something you pay on a Chevrolet or Mitsubishi when your credit is shot and your credit cards are all maxed out.
  
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- Hillman on Jun 27, 2014
  
  As someone who fits the demographic you describe, I can't imagine what will happen when we go back to historical rates. Rates going back to "normal" will kill the economy at this point. Also, I still can't believe the 15 % bond scene in diehard.
  
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- Dtremit on Jun 27, 2014
  
  @Hillman People will buy fewer cars. It's that simple. Even with current rates, length of car ownership is going up steadily.
  
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- S2k Chris on Jun 27, 2014
  
  @dtremit OTOH, if car loans are 6-7%, I'd expect somewhere in the neighborhood of 5% on my savings account, not the .01% or whatever it is I currently get.
  
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- EricJ on Jun 27, 2014
  
  @S2k Chris I'd expect that, too, but the banks don't seem to be passing anything on to us. All you can do is chase returns on the market at this point. There's so much money with nothing to do sitting out there that it's not worth borrowing yours.
  
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- Nrd515 on Jun 28, 2014
  
  @Occam A 32 year old friend of mine, with basically no credit (And a millionaire lawyer father who won't help him at all) is paying a certain well known used car seller 19.7% on a...Taurus. I don't know who was more pissed at when he told me that, the place selling it, or his dad for not helping him out. He had to have a car, he's got a baby and needs to drive to work, so he did what he had to.
  
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- Hybridkiller on Jun 28, 2014
  
  @nrd515 "A 32 year old friend of mine, with basically no credit..." With all due respect to you and your friend, that's almost certainly not his father's fault. Which leaves 2 possibilities - either he's a victim of circumstances beyond his control, or (more likely) he's made 14 years worth of bad choices as an adult. If it's the latter then maybe his father just wants him to learn some financial responsibility.
  
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Chris FOM on Jun 27, 2014

Seems like a computer glitch. Something in the basic math formula used to derive interest rates specifically for the Corvette got screwed up and it's spitting out bad numbers.

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David Walton on Jun 27, 2014

They've advertised a 14.7% APR rate on the C7 for months now, perhaps since new.

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- Dude500 on Jun 27, 2014
  
  I think that GM may not want to be in the business of making loans if it doesn't have to, which in my mind is a good thing. I'm sure that if they need to juice the Corvette sales, we'll be seeing that APR plummet.
  
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