That happy couple at the car dealership, back by popular demand.

Since we last reported on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and its controversial crusade to uncover racial discrimination by car dealers on interest rate markup on automobile loans, the agency has ordered over $100 million in fines and settlements against banks that some have deemed extortion. This has infuriated lenders and car dealers, and has frustrated lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

The tale continued last week as the House Committee on Financial Services revealed that their work on this case now includes trying to get the CFPB and Department of Justice to agree on that age-old problem on how to get white car buyers to admit that they are actually white.

Let us review this investigation, which recently prompted the House committee to publish a report about the CFPB probe, titled “Unsafe at Any Bureaucracy: CFPB Junk Science and Indirect Auto Lending.”

(Read More…)

Though most lenders aren’t comfortable with the idea of 84-month auto loans, Ally Financial is going full steam ahead with such loans.

(Read More…)

The final tally is in: American taxpayers lost $9.26 billion from the Bush II/Obama-led rescue of the U.S. auto industry.

(Read More…)

With its GMAC Financial leather jacket burning in the closet while a supermodel lip-syncs in the tub, Ally Financial is at last free from government ownership.

(Read More…)

Ally Financial, the lending artist formerly known as GMAC Financial, inches closer to freedom from government ownership as the United States Treasury begins a second trading plan to shed its shares.

(Read More…)

Former General Motors lending subsidiary Ally Financial is one step closer from leaving government oversight, thanks to the United States Treasury cutting its stake in the company.

(Read More…)

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?

(Read More…)

In today’s General Motors digest: An ignition-related issue is quietly fixed years before the February 2014 recall; a Chinese supplier is blamed for defective switches recalled in June; Ally prepares to take flight from the Beltway; and Mark Reuss helps bring back a Corvette stolen 33 years ago.

(Read More…)

Doing business with Chrysler proved to be a boom for Santander Consumer USA’s Chrysler Capital during Q1 2014, while former lending partner Ally Financial experienced a painful bust on its Pentastar originations.

(Read More…)

Detroit Free Press reports the U.S. Treasury lost $11.2 billion in taxpayer money from the rescue of General Motors back in 2008, up from the $10.3 billion estimated after the agency sold its remaining shares back in early December 2013. Part of the final figure came as a write-off of an $826 million “administrative claim,” which was found in a report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The overall figure pales in comparison to the $50.2 billion given by both Bush and Obama administrations between 2008 and 2009 to GM as the automaker struggled through its financial crisis at the onset of the Great Recession.

(Read More…)

With Ally Financial’s IPO now making the rounds on the New York Stock Exchange, the former financing arm of General Motors has its eyes on taking more of the subprime market, a move benefiting dealers once the last ties to the U.S. federal government have been severed and sold to the stock market.

(Read More…)

Autoblog reports 2.19 million of the same vehicles under the current General Motors ignition recall are under a new ignition-related recall, as well. The new recall warns of a problem where the key can be removed without the switch moved to the “off” position. According to GM, the automaker is aware of “several hundred” complaints and at least one roll-away accident resulting in injury, and is instructing affected consumers to place their vehicles in park or, in manuals, engage the emergency brake before removing the key from the ignition until repairs are made.

(Read More…)

Associated Press reports General Motors has placed two engineers on paid leave as “an interim step” in the investigation conducted by former U.S. attorney Anton Valukas. Spokesman Greg Martin declined to name the two engineers in question.

(Read More…)

Three years in the making, Ally Financial — formerly GMAC — has filed for an IPO that could net as much as $2.7 billion for the United States Treasury.

(Read More…)

Ally Financial, the bank holding company formerly known as GMAC, is still a major part of the United States federal government investment portfolio in the five years since it was bailed out at the start of the Great Recession. Yet, it may be able to soon divest its ownership in part due to General Motors selling their remaining shares.

(Read More…)