Other than getting insurance, Nick easily bought a car at Park Auto Mall

Last Wednesday when I showed up to work at 9:00 am, the phone rang immediately. It was a 20 year old guy named Nick that needed a car desperately. His father was letting him use his spare truck, and the transmission went on it. He is employed at Batteries Plus, and his boss told him if he didn’t have a vehicle it could jeopardize his job.

Nick went on the explain that he had no credit, but he had $1,000.00 to put down. He was at his job for 4 months, and he has lived at the same address for 8 years. He mentioned he was thinking of going to a Buy Here Pay here Dealer. I advised him to use that as a last resort. He would have nothing to lose by coming by. I told him if he wanted the car today, he should bring some pay stubs and proof of residency. These are things banks will want to see.

Normally I am not involved in the sales process, but I told him to come in and ask for me. He showed up pretty quick, considering he lived 20 miles away. I gave him a little history about Park Auto Mall, and why we are so unique compared to other car dealers. Then I grabbed the keys to the Ford Focus and we took it for a ride. He loved it, so we proceeded to find him financing.

I have to give Nick credit, he was realistic for a 20 year old first time buyer. He wanted our Ford Focus that was only 2 years old because it was priced at less than $8,000.00. It only had 26,000 miles on it, so it was still practically new. Most 20 year olds want to buy a used BMW, or this Volkswagen R32. Cars that are way out of their price range is pretty common.

Fred (owner of Park Auto Mall) was working the desk that morning, and he was able to get Nick financed within 5 minutes. That’s the great thing about being an independent dealer, we can use the banks we want to. We have over 30 banks that we deal with. When someone like Nick need s a car loan, we let all of the banks compete for his business. Whoever comes back with an approval and the lowest rate wins.

However, we did have a little problem. We had to find car insurance for Nick. He was 20 years old, and had a couple of blemishes on his driving record. Fred told me to call around and get some quotes for him. The first insurance company quoted us $3,000.00 for 6 months. Imagine that? That’s ridiculous. The second insurance company I called told me they don’t insure people in Nick’s zip code. The third one said the same thing, I guess his area has a very high rate of insurance fraud.

Nick and I even took a ride around Pinellas looking for local agents. They were all very expensive. I encouraged Nick to spend the rest of the day shopping around, and I promised him that I would hold the car for him.

To make a long story short, he showed up at 9:00 am the next morning with insurance! Within 45 minutes he was driving away with his new car. Nick was a good guy, and I’m really glad we were able to help him out. I assumed because of our stagnant economy that it would be impossible to finance first time buyers with no credit, but Fred proved me wrong.

If you are a first time car buyer, call me at 727-545-3100 and let me see what we can do for you. Even if you’re not, and you have some credit issues I can help you. If you have repos or foreclosures on your record we can still help you.

Here is the video testimonial Nick did for me before he drove away:

Remember, only use a buy here pay here dealer as a last resort. Call us first! We have 7 people including myself who can counsel you over the phone. Allison, Alexis, Danielle, Esther, Jeanette, Mike, or Tiffany are here to help you!

We take our job seriously, but we have fun too. Check out our vehicle of the week videos we make on our You Tube Channel. We add funny outakes to most of them at the end..like this one.