What are their membership requirements?
If you are not in their coverage area, you can join with a $5 donation.
See: Join Us ā Credit Union of New Jersey.
Note the best rates require 20% down.
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when? before the rates went up?
Says you can be a āstudentāā¦maybe take an online class at UCMerced, or Santa Cruzā¦
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college classes would not be cheapā¦? 
Why not register for a one of those free certificate classes by Stanford. Doubt anyone is gonna dig that deep
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Yeah to add a CU at least their requirement should cover 5 million people or statewide w/ residence or some simple donation/join some associations. For this one, I doubt thereās only 300k people are qualified.
This is a great thread and mirrors my experience of targeting hundreds of CUs to try and convince to add leasing to their indirect auto product list and then launching the program with the ones that eventually say yes in 1-5 years.
Each CU is a different animal and the member experience can land anywhere on the football field. Some of the best ones on member experience are the small ones that service a small community and less aggressive rates. Bigger ones that donāt have actual branches may be great at growing their total asset size and originating a lot of loans but may have a hard time retaining their members for life with multiple loan products. They outsource a lot of things and since they donāt have the overhead of branches and headcount their loan rates can be the most aggressive. Most of those will have a national charter or have an association loophole to have an open charter but may suffer on the customer experience scores.
So the trade off between the CUs is usually great rates with mediocre member experience where a ton of people qualify or higher rates with excellent member experience and a smaller field of membership.
And a few would even get lumped into the āI wouldnāt bank with them with 0% ratesā category.
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I called with some questions and asked about counties. They said shouldnāt matter for the foundation donation, however we shall see. If not will look at affinity or CUNJ. Buying out my Kia Niro EV lease early because of all the equity from rebates and discounts.
they called and confirmed just a day ago on 13th July.
with AFCU keep one thing in mind, if you are supposed to take delivery of car in a day or two it will not work as AFCU take their sweet time to go through your membership and your loan approval with them.
so i my case they took 10 days to update me that i am approved but i have already taken delivery using BOA at 3.54
but another nice thing about AFCU they agreed that they took too much time so they offered me same rate on refinance this new vehicle if i refinance it in next 5 days.
Definitely refinance it then, youāll save close to 1.5% on the rate, which is huge. For comparison on a 50k loan on 60 months, at 3.54 vs 2.19, youāll spend almost 2k more over 5 years, which considering the hassle youāll have to go through to refi, I think is worth it.
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yup thats why i am working on it
Locked into Carolina co op at 2.25 for 84 months for next 29 days. Not sure if itās worth utilizing it or waiting for a hybrid Highlander at msrp. Comparative SUVs get 20mp from my research. (Mdx, ascent, gas Highlander)
Another thought is getting a Tacoma as a hobby vehicle since I donāt have kids (1-2 years away) yet and waiting out the marketā¦
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A couple others to add - some are a bit restrictive:
https://www.fedchoice.org/rates/?RateId=54
https://www.aplfcu.org/Rates
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Is any bank out there doing a loan with a lemon car? Thanks all.
Look for places that finance branded titles. Itāll be harder and theyāll charge higher interest rates, and Iād suggest not buying one unless one fully understand what this means and the potential resale hit later on.
It might seem like a bargain now but when you need to sell it, it will be a hassle.
This is my personal view / advice, while people may advocate for salvage or rebuilds, Iām not technically inclined enough to want to deal with any issues, or want to roll the dice on if the issue is truly fixed.
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Fed choice accepted my membership app through a donation to the Tangerine Foundation. once applying for membership they will send a notification that in process. I replied with Tangerine Foundation transaction number.
I do live in one of the states they generally serve.
another credit union to watch is
https://www.campbellcu.org/about-us/rates/
Can join with membership to NJ american consumer council
Good luck
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Current Rates - Interior Federal Credit Union (interiorfcu.org)
Very decent rates for 96 months 2.5%
Can join thru Home - New Mexico Wildlife Federation - New Mexico Wildlife Federation (nmwildlife.org)
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Jesus christ, thereās way more than just that. You can volunteer and Iām eligible. Iām calling them.
For those not inclined to read the full post: I did confirm that FedChoice has members all over the US - they DO NOT limit membership to the counties listed under their charter. You can gain membership via a $15 donation to the Tangerine Foundation as part of the application process.
The full story: I applied for FedChoice membership on July 11, 2022. I do not live in one of the charter-serving areas (located in the Midwest). The application process is fully online; however, after submitting the application, I received a notification on July 12 that the credit union needed additional information and documentation from me. The documentation needed was proof of social security, which I was able to upload electronically via their secure messaging system. They also needed me to call in and answer some verification questions (places I lived, people I knew, make and model of my cars, etc.) - unlike the horror stories Iāve heard about CUās, Iāve never had a hold time of more than 15 minutes when trying to get hold of a customer service representative, and most of the time the hold is no longer than 1-2 minutes. After about a week of not hearing anything back from the CU, I called them on July 18 to ask about the status of my application for membership; apparently there are only 2 people in the department that reviews new applications, so their processing times are a bit slow. I received a call today (July 19) from one of those 2 employees asking me some additional clarification questions, and I received approval for membership a few hours after that conversation.
Next steps: My next step will be to apply for an auto loan, with current rates at this CU at 2.14% for 72 months. Once I go through that process, I will update this post to reflect my experience. So far, I am very happy with this particular CU, especially in the light of some of the horror stories Iāve read on this thread about other CUās.
P.S. Given the slow processing times of the CU, I donāt think it would be a good choice for people who need a loan same day or the next day (looking at you, Tesla Discord). However, it might be an excellent choice for people who can wait a bit and want a low rate with good (so far) customer service.
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