Can you buy a car with credit cards? People sometimes don’t realize that almost every type of company accepts credit cards these days. In fact, YES, you can even buy cars like you can buy candy bars (sorry, I couldn’t resist that rhyme).
But I recall when I purchased my very first brand new car. I had many used vehicles before, but they were constantly breaking down, and I was so frustrated. So I finally decided that I would buy a new car, and sell my old ones. The only problem was, I was short about $8,000 to buy a new one. It was a 2003 Kia Spectra by the way, and only cost $11,300 taxes and all at the time–not bad and it still runs great as I write this article in 2010.
I had a few options when buying the car. First, I could have simply got a car loan. But I didn’t want to do that, because then you still owe money, and technically don’t “own” the car. You then usually have to get full-coverage insurance, which is expensive. So that didn’t seem like a good options.
Buy a Car, Truck, or Van with a Credit Card
Then I had a brilliant idea: I could use my credit cards. I didn’t have a card with that high of a limit at the time, so I had to use a couple. But I asked the car dealer, and sure enough, they accepted credit cards. Not only that, but they didn’t even charge a convenience fee! So it was literally just like buying a candy bar. Yah!
So I purchased the car using a couple of credit cards. It turned out to be a great choice for the following reasons:
- I got the title immediately and “owned” the car (as if I had paid cash), without the car company holding the title, and without dealing with fear of repossessions and so forth (not that I don’t pay my bills, I always pay them).
- I didn’t have to get full-coverage insurance, and instead just got liability which was way cheaper.
- The payments were about the same. You can easily calculate this by checking to see how much the credit charges for a minimum payment (sometimes 2-3% usually). Then multiply that by the total balance. So for $8,000 X 2%, my minimum payment was $160.
- I had a 0% introductory offer, which means I didn’t have to pay interest for a full year (that helped a lot).
- I actually kept transferring the balances to new cards once the interest charges were about to begin. The new cards also had a 0% introductory offer, which means I barely paid interest the whole time I payed for the car!
- I also earned some credit card points. As you can imagine, points on an $8,000 purchase adds up fast. So this was yet another perk for using the card.
Conclusion: Yes, You Can Buy a Car with a Credit Card (If the Dealer Accepts Them)
Looking back, it was a great choice to do this, and I would do it again in an instant. Just be sure that you have a low (or 0%) interest rate, pay your bills on time, don’t spend more than you can afford, and be smart! If you can do that, then I can recommend using a credit card to buy a new car. But only if it makes financial sense!