Detroit Business Daily

What credit reporting agency do GM dealerships use?

I want to check my credit report and score ahead of time, before applying for GM financing. However I'd rather only buy 1 instead of all 3. If I can find out which Credit Bureau they use, that will tell me which one to buy.

Public Comments

1. A GM dealer may use all or one of the reporting agencies. Very likely that the primary one is Experian.
2. First off, you are entitled to one free copy of your credit report from all agencies every year. If you have not gotten one from them, you can pull it for free. There is a website you use to get them all at once - a legit site - not one that makes you buy a service. Just google it and I believe its the third link. Second - There is no set rule that says "Sellers of brand X use ___ reporting agency". Dealers will make that decision on a store level. So it may be any one of the three Lastly, dealers have a scoring system that is weighted to auto credit. The credit score you get from a reporting agency will be your overall score. However, dealers also see a second number called your auto score. That rating is based on teh amount, number and repayment history of car loans. It is always lower than the global score, but if you are steady on car notes, it wont be much different. If you are overall decent, but have had lapses in your car loans, then it will significantly affect that number. Get your free reports from the agencies and start there. If you want the link, I can send in email. Again, its the legitmate credit site, not some bogus "sign up for alerts" thing. Good luck
3. You are entitled to one free credit report every 12 months. Dont have to pay for it.
4. Dealers may use one of their own choosing to pre-approve customers, but then the finance company used by the dealer could use a different one. Some pull all three and use an average. You can get free credit reports as others have already mentioned but credits scores are not free. And there is no way for you to figure out your score from reading your reports. It's the score that is important.
5. It'll vary with every dealership. It shouldn't make that big a difference though, if you've got a credit issue on one it will be on the others too. If you know you've got a better score with one of the agencies ask them to use that one for financing. Unless you're going through gmac, you're all on the same side of trying to get a good financing deal. It's you and the dealer vs. the bank. (that's not saying a dealer wouldn't bump up your APR so they could make a little profit though. But, if they were going to do that they'd still want to show the bank the best fica score they could so they could get the best rate from the bank and pocket the extra percent--that's how it works.) Don't bother buying any. You can check your credit for free at annualcreditreport.com. That's the real site that the government mandated they use. Don't go anywhere else for your report. There are also sites that will give you an approximation of your score, like quizzle, the radio host clark howard told me about them. You can see his site for a few others, www.clarkhoward.com. Then, when you get to the dealer, tell them they can run your credit with the stipulation that they allow you to see the report and your fica score. Don't worry, they want to sell you the car, there's no rule against them showing it to you. If you're upfront with them then there's no trick to it. They'll show it to you.