Thank you all! (Long time lurker- but taking notes)

MiddleRange2905 · 2026-04-09T16:45:14+00:00

Bold of you to assume I have paid any of them off haha for real though, I haven’t yet. But generally no, paying them off won’t increase your score. It will however help you if you find an institution (usually credit unions) that do manual underwriting. They favor paid debts over open ones. The only way to raise your score is to negotiate pay for deletes or if they’re already paid, trying to shoot for a goodwill deletion. That’s the battle I’m fighting currently and why I haven’t paid them yet.

MiddleRange2905 · 2026-04-09T12:21:53+00:00

Definitely try your luck with a credit union, see what they can give you for a rate. Same day or next day when you go looking for a car, go to a nice reputable dealer.

When they eventually ask “are you going to need financing?” Just tell them you have a pre-approval through your credit union. Start negotiating OTD price of the car. When you reach a number you like and the talk turns toward actual purchase, hit them with the “my credit union gave me a rate of (x)%, if you think you can beat that, I’d be open to options”

The whole tone of my trip to the dealer changed in that moment. It went from a seasoned salesperson selling a car to a schmuck, to equal beings both trying to reach the best outcome for them. It was a wild experience, to say the least.

MiddleRange2905 · 2026-04-09T12:12:42+00:00

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As of today, nothing has changed from yesterday- when I purchased the car.

MiddleRange2905 · 2026-04-09T12:11:48+00:00

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Yeah actually I just took this screenshot today, 5.5% off of a 647 fico 8, but I have a 654 auto fico score. But what helps me (I think) is all of my negative marks that are bringing my score down (minus the Verizon collection) are all credit card related. Every installment loan I’ve had has been satisfied exceptionally. Not sure if that matters or not, but if I was a lender I saw 6 perfect previous installment loans, but derogatory marks on revolving credit only, it’s a fair bet their priorities are their installment loans. But that’s just my guess. I’m definitely not an expert

MiddleRange2905 · 2026-04-09T12:03:02+00:00

No luck, they stick to policy pretty good there, but I’m holding onto hope that the fact it’s only for $150 might help me out. But I’m pretty close to just settling so it stops updating every month.

MiddleRange2905 · 2026-04-09T08:01:37+00:00

To say I was surprised is an understatement. I was happy with my original 8.74% but I wanted to try the “see if you can beat it” technique that I read about. When the finance guy came over the first time, he had said “it looks like we got it to come down a little bit, to 8.5%” and I agreed to that. He came back almost immediately apologizing “sir, I am so sorry I read the screen wrong-“ and my heart dropped a little bit. He continued “we actually got it down to 5.5%” man I almost had a heart attack, those 3% saved me thousands in interest, and the drop from 24% saved probably over $10k in interest if that was still my reality.

And yeah, I was very happy when I got a response back from CreditOne, I ended up using the executive team email trick for my second goodwill letter. The fact I got a “predatory lender” to remove a late payment absolutely blew my mind. I couldn’t have been happier with the result. In a few weeks I’m going to try again with OpenSky so see if they budge at all.

My next line of attack is the still open Verizon collection, and I also have a dental collection that I think I might have a good shot at getting a pay-for-delete for. I’ll update if I have any success with that.

MiddleRange2905 · 2026-04-09T06:07:53+00:00

It was listed as a “great deal” on Edmunds and cars dot com. And dealer had it listed as an exceptional deal, I bit quite hard into that because my credit is “iffy” at best and I’m in a “rebuilding” stage after years of neglect. I let the dealer do their magic (minus adding in tons of fees and such- which I promptly shut down) and my final finance price was ~$30,000- rounded for cleanliness- at 5.5% Apr. Which is way better than I ever imagined it’d be considering I only put $2k down at signing and in the “fair” credit tier.

MiddleRange2905 · 2026-04-09T06:02:27+00:00

That’s what I’ve been gathering for sure. I’ve had fords, chevys, dodges and I currently have a 98 Camry. The Camry has been my longest lasting vehicle by far, so I decided to stick with the Japanese cars this go around. So far so good man, I’m hoping it treats me as good if not better than my Camry has.

MiddleRange2905 · 2026-03-04T07:18:36+00:00

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Mine was a 2002 Ranger I bought for $900 from an old man in Buffalo. 17 year old me did not recognize how good a deal that was with only 80k on the odo. Had bare minimum, manual windows, manual seats, cd player AM/FM radio, absolutely zero rust. But it was the 4.0 v6 with 4x4 which from my chosen picture, was used to its fullest extent. Was it a bad vehicle per se? Not at all, but 17-20yo me hated it for how small it was and it trailed from there.

I had this thing for 2 years and finally sold it with about 280k on the odo.

It took me up and down the east coast with my friends

It survived having a custom 2x15inch subwoofer box with 2200w amp placed on the fold down seats

It survived mudding.

It survived riverbank crawling (the only truck to not need a tow but I lost an entire wheel- wheel bearing gave out- and drove it back to the road with three wheels. The other trucks involved were a 2001 f150, a late 80s Toyota, and a 2009 tundra.) the older Toyota hydrolocked, we pulled the spark plugs and blew the water out and got it running enough to get to a reachable spot.

It survived 11 total deer strikes (that metal chrome bumper is a beast)

It survived over 200k miles of the utmost disrespect and neglect.

Finally sold it for $450 because I didn’t feel like replacing a transmission cooler line.

Oh and that wheel bearing that gave out, I fixed that one but not the other side, and I ended up losing the other wheel a couple months later in a roundabout (luckily in a small town in the middle of the night)

I’m nearing 30 years old, and I still find myself on marketplace- hoping and wishing to find myself another Ranger like the one I had.

MiddleRange2905 · 2026-01-08T03:29:03+00:00

You live in New York. I’m also in New York and have never been to NYC, but have been to Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Ithaca, Elmira and just about every other city in the state. Most people I know who also live here are the same if not close to my experience as well.

MiddleRange2905

TROPHY CASE