# BMWFS Credit Tiers



## cmhsam (Mar 1, 2012)

Is there a dealer that could post the credit tiers for BMWFS? Is STD better than STDPL? Whats the best category you can be for BMWFS?


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## [email protected] BMW (Jan 26, 2011)

cmhsam said:


> Is there a dealer that could post the credit tiers for BMWFS? Is STD better than STDPL? Whats the best category you can be for BMWFS?


The Standard is better than Standard Plus and Super Elite is the top tier. Here is how the tiers break down with BMWFS. Hope this helps.

Super Elite 740+
Elite 739-700
Standard 699-675
Standard Plus 674-640
Progressive 639-601
Progressive Plus 600-575


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## cmhsam (Mar 1, 2012)

Thanks Daniel. I guess I was confused since Experian showed my Credit Score as 760+, have had 8 auto loans in the past 10 years all paid satisfactorily, and only using 16% of my available credit. I would have thought I would get approved for Super Elite.


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## [email protected] (Jun 28, 2012)

cmhsam said:


> Thanks Daniel. I guess I was confused since Experian showed my Credit Score as 760+, have had 8 auto loans in the past 10 years all paid satisfactorily, and only using 16% of my available credit. I would have thought I would get approved for Super Elite.


Why do you need S elite for an M5? SSP starts at 675+ for posted base rates and base rates are better than regional rates for an M5


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## cmhsam (Mar 1, 2012)

[email protected] said:


> Why do you need S elite for an M5? SSP starts at 675+ for posted base rates and base rates are better than regional rates for an M5


No reason in particular. Just wanted to be the best I could be...guess its the competitive side of me...


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## [email protected] (Jun 28, 2012)

cmhsam said:


> No reason in particular. Just wanted to be the best I could be...guess its the competitive side of me...


Than why not do a pre pay lease


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## cmhsam (Mar 1, 2012)

If I prepay a lease and anything happens to the car I am out all that money


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## [email protected] (Jun 28, 2012)

cmhsam said:


> If I prepay a lease and anything happens to the car I am out all that money


:rofl: Who told you that? :tsk: Of course you get your money back...


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## cmhsam (Mar 1, 2012)

I was told thats the same reason you dont put money down on a lease.

So I assume that a standard rate / approval is sufficient for the M5?


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## [email protected] (Jun 28, 2012)

cmhsam said:


> i was told thats the same reason you dont put money down on a lease. *if you were told its the same thing than you need a better CA *
> so i assume that a standard rate / approval is sufficient for the m5?*not quite sure i understand this question*


But im guessing you mean if you need to score over 740 to qualify for SSP...no you dont...just need 675+


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## cmhsam (Mar 1, 2012)

Question being that does BMWFS approve or deny? That as long as you get into a credit tier on the approval that its sufficient for them to fund the car?


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## [email protected] (Jun 28, 2012)

cmhsam said:


> Question being that does BMWFS approve or deny? That as long as you get into a credit tier on the approval that its sufficient for them to fund the car?


If FS approved it...they are funding it... unless they approved it with conditions in which case your CA will let you know what those conditions are if any


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## cmhsam (Mar 1, 2012)

There were no conditions. Just 115% of MSRP including TTL and product is what I was allowed to finance. They told me they got the approval in minutes yesterday when I was at the dealership. Was trying to sign all the paperwork with finance but without a VIN they were unable to proceed. They told me I will need to come back when there is a VIN


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## Orient330iNYC (Jul 30, 2002)

cmhsam said:


> Thanks Daniel. I guess I was confused since Experian showed my Credit Score as 760+, have had 8 auto loans in the past 10 years all paid satisfactorily, and only using 16% of my available credit. I would have thought I would get approved for Super Elite.


super elite is not necessarily a better rate than the Sales support rate.

there are two different programs, with different money factors.

untiered, Sales support (SSP)
tiered, Standard program. this one is the one that has the elite, super elite, etc.
SSP is usually lower than tiered.

also, where did you get your credit score from? read up on fako vs fico scores if you are curious. alot of credit report use different calculations, FICO refers to the scores from fair issacs.


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## cmhsam (Mar 1, 2012)

Orient330iNYC said:


> super elite is not necessarily a better rate than the Sales support rate.
> 
> there are two different programs, with different money factors.
> 
> ...


I got it from Experian. Thanks for the info


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## Dallas550 (Jan 16, 2011)

cmhsam said:


> I got it from Experian. Thanks for the info


Just an fyi, if it was from experian.com or something similar, it's a FAKO score. You can't get your real FICO from experian, only equifax and transunion. Only a lender can pull your experian score, maybe that was the case?


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## cmhsam (Mar 1, 2012)

It came from freecreditreport.com. Guess I paid for a bad report?


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## Dallas550 (Jan 16, 2011)

cmhsam said:


> It came from freecreditreport.com. Guess I paid for a bad report?


Yeah that's not the best place to get your scores. The only place where you can get a real FICO is myfico.com. Every other site will give you some type of FAKO score, or educational score. Make sure you cancel that service by the way! Before someone told me about all of this stuff, I had a very short lived subscription with them, difficult to get it closed.


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## cmhsam (Mar 1, 2012)

Dallas550 said:


> Yeah that's not the best place to get your scores. The only place where you can get a real FICO is myfico.com. Every other site will give you some type of FAKO score, or educational score. Make sure you cancel that service by the way! Before someone told me about all of this stuff, I had a very short lived subscription with them, difficult to get it closed.


I will be on the phone with them tomorrow. Thanks for your help!


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## Orient330iNYC (Jul 30, 2002)

Dallas550 said:


> Yeah that's not the best place to get your scores. The only place where you can get a real FICO is myfico.com. Every other site will give you some type of FAKO score, or educational score. Make sure you cancel that service by the way! Before someone told me about all of this stuff, I had a very short lived subscription with them, difficult to get it closed.


+1
i just bite the bullet and pay for the myfico report. no services to cancel,etc.

the fako scores tend to be inflated in my experience.

on the east coast i believe bmwfs pulls transunion, west coast experian. not sure why though.


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## cmhsam (Mar 1, 2012)

Thanks for all the info. I plan on doing it tomorrow


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## Lance Alot (Sep 23, 2007)

FWIW, I am on the west coast and dealer pulled both Experian and Equifax. They were both really good but they varied by 50 points....not sure they use the same scale though?


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## cmhsam (Mar 1, 2012)

I think each bureau uses different formulas


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## EC7 (Apr 30, 2012)

cmhsam said:


> I think each bureau uses different formulas


Yes, from what I understand each credit bureau has as different model. Further to that, I believe there is a specific model used for auto loans.


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## MonkeyCMonkeyDo (Jun 9, 2012)

EC7 said:


> Yes, from what I understand each credit bureau has as different model. Further to that, I believe there is a specific model used for auto loans.


In fact there are over a 1,000 different models between all the credit bureaus. We have been trained so long that FICO is the only "real" score and in many cases that is true. However, real estate rentals, mortgage companies and automobile finance companies all tend to use specialized models that relate directly to their industry and in many cases may give a complete different number than you will see from fair isaacs. Some have a simple number from 1-10, while others go to 1000. A 700 from one model may be a mediocre score while the same number from another may be immaculate.

A company like experian stopped using FICO because they realized there is more money in keeping everything in house. They started freecreditreport.com and offer a plus score to consumers but very detailed and industry specific models for their customers. Until you run all three main bureaus and have an inquiry from a vendor you will never really know how the credit world sees your risk level.


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## crabu2 (Mar 14, 2017)

[email protected] BMW said:


> The Standard is better than Standard Plus and Super Elite is the top tier. Here is how the tiers break down with BMWFS. Hope this helps.
> 
> Super Elite 740+
> Elite 739-700
> ...


What the heck does being Super Elite get you on a purchase.. NOT lease?

Do these tiers still hold true and can someone tell me what the score range is ... 350-900 possibly?

Thanks all!


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## jjrandorin (May 8, 2013)

crabu2 said:


> What the heck does being Super Elite get you on a purchase.. NOT lease?
> 
> Do these tiers still hold true and can someone tell me what the score range is ... 350-900 possibly?
> 
> Thanks all!


Seriously zombie thread, but to answer your question having a higher credit score will let you add more to the approved amount. If you are approved for 40k for example, but you have the top credit score approval, you can actually finance more than the 100%. Why would you do that?

Well if they got the car approved for 40k but you want to add on paint protectant, extended warranties, cap / finance the taxes, etc that gives you the room to do so.

Dont know if the names are still the same but 675+ is what you need to get "tier 1" financing / leasing interest rates / money factors.. but there is more to it than just a score.

I dont personally get the angst over applying to find out what you qualify for, myself. Its a ding on your credit history but multiple dings for car loan searches only count as one, and its a relatively small ding that is reversed in a couple of months.

Unless you are also applying for a mortgage or something (in which case DO NOT change ANYTHING about your credit history, including buying a car until you finish that), there is no reason to not just have the dealer run the credit and see, if you are worried about it.


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## crabu2 (Mar 14, 2017)

jjrandorin said:


> I dont personally get the angst over applying to find out what you qualify for, myself. Its a ding on your credit history but multiple dings for car loan searches only count as one, and its a relatively small ding that is reversed in a couple of months.
> 
> Unless you are also applying for a mortgage or something (in which case DO NOT change ANYTHING about your credit history, including buying a car until you finish that), there is no reason to not just have the dealer run the credit and see, if you are worried about it.


They had me put a credit app in for the order, then told me my credit score. I have no idea what amount they might have pre-qualified me for.. Or even if they did a pre-qualification. I just know they know my credit score, which would put me into that super-elite category. I'm hoping it gets me more than just being able to finance more than 100% of the vehicle because that's not worth anything to me... An interest rate that's below 2% would be good .. being that I just paid off my existing loan with a rate of 1.69%, in prep for this new loan, because I didn't want to carry 2 car loans.


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## jjrandorin (May 8, 2013)

crabu2 said:


> They had me put a credit app in for the order, then told me my credit score. I have no idea what amount they might have pre-qualified me for.. Or even if they did a pre-qualification. I just know they know my credit score, which would put me into that super-elite category. I'm hoping it gets me more than just being able to finance more than 100% of the vehicle because that's not worth anything to me... An interest rate that's below 2% would be good .. being that I just paid off my existing loan with a rate of 1.69%, in prep for this new loan, because I didn't want to carry 2 car loans.


The best rates are available to someone with a credit score of 675+ like I said. They do not offer better rates with a higher score than that.

Additionally, dealers are allowed to mark up the rate on loans up to 1% on a loan from BMW FS. So, if the buy rate is 2.99 percent, they can offer to finance it up to 3.99. The buy rate is the lowest rate you will get, and being " super elite" will not get you lower than the buy rate. Dealers will normally mark UP the rate, so if you are financing, you will not likely get a rate anywhere near what you are expecting from BMW FS.

You should be arranging your own financing if you are expecting a rate that low. You will likely be offered either the buy rate of 2.99 that is in play right now, or higher, not lower unless they use 3rd party financing that has a lower rate (which of course a dealer could do).

If you are FINANCING the only reason to use the dealers financing is ease of application etc... you should be looking into your own financing as well.


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## SD ///M4 (Jan 24, 2011)

jjrandorin said:


> If you are FINANCING the only reason to use the dealers financing is ease of application etc... you should be looking into your own financing as well.


The other reason to use BMW FS is Euro Delivery. In 2011 for Euro Delivery on my wife's 335is, our credit union wouldn't accept a loan application because the car would be out of the country for at least 2 months after the Euro Delivery date. Our insurance company couldn't insure the vehicle until it was in the US and CU didn't understand that the car was insured by Allianz while in Europe and the shipping/trucking carriers until delivered to dealer. I know that there are other options like USAA, but that wasn't available for us.

Last year for my M4 Coupe we didn't even bother to check with our CU because BMW FS was offering 0.9%, which was better than all other possible financing scenarios.


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## jjrandorin (May 8, 2013)

SD ///M4 said:


> The other reason to use BMW FS is Euro Delivery. In 2011 for Euro Delivery on my wife's 335is, our credit union wouldn't accept a loan application because the car would be out of the country for at least 2 months after the Euro Delivery date. Our insurance company couldn't insure the vehicle until it was in the US and CU didn't understand that the car was insured by Allianz while in Europe and the shipping/trucking carriers until delivered to dealer. I know that there are other options like USAA, but that wasn't available for us.
> 
> Last year for my M4 Coupe we didn't even bother to check with our CU because BMW FS was offering 0.9%, which was better than all other possible financing scenarios.


You are right, I forgot that angle. On Euro delivery, many banks / credit unions etc dont quite understand it (according to what I have read). Seeing as how I have not done Euro Delivery myself (only read a ton about it here), Im not qualified to speak on the ins and outs of it, and forgot about that angle.


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## Hkapur (Sep 11, 2017)

*Which auto FICO score is used by bmw financial?*

Does anyone know which FICO auto score is used by bmw financial? Is it FICO auto score 5, 8 or 9 by any chance? Thanks in advance for your help.


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## MJBrown62 (Jun 15, 2016)

Hkapur said:


> Does anyone know which FICO auto score is used by bmw financial? Is it FICO auto score 5, 8 or 9 by any chance? Thanks in advance for your help.


Experian Auto, just don't know which version they are on.


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