Menu
Find the best bad credit car finance providers in the UK.
Car finance is a very popular way for people to pay for cars. Most people will struggle to pay for a vehicle outright with their own money, which is why people get personal loans and other forms of car finance plans to make buying a car a little easier.
However, because car finance is considered a credit product, you will need a good credit score to be accepted for the best deals. When you take out a loan or get car finance, you’re borrowing, and the providers need to know if you can be trusted to pay everything back. If you have a bad credit score, then you can’t be trusted and will not get favourable terms or could get rejected.
Thankfully, there are plenty of bad credit car finance providers online and on the high street that you can use to circumnavigate this issue. Some may charge more, and others may have different flaws, but there are still many fantastic options for you to get bad credit car finance from. You can learn more about the best poor credit car finance lenders here and discover more about buying new and used cars on the rest of the Car Adviser website.
Bad credit car finance is a type of finance option that’s tailored to those who have poor credit scores. When getting traditional car finance, some providers will require you to have a good credit score to be accepted. This is because if you have a poor score, you’re more likely to miss a repayment or mismanagement your loan in another way, making you a riskier person to lend to.
To help those with bad credit, specialist providers exist who offer car finance to those struggling to get accepted elsewhere. These providers are more likely to provide you with a car finance plan; however, the terms may not be as good as the plans offered to those with good credit.
For example, if you apply for car finance and have a good credit score, you can expect a finance package with a low percentage rate, typically under 10%. However, car loan providers for bad credit will usually offer you a deal with much higher interest, which could average at around 30% and even be even higher than this.
A higher interest rate means that the amount you have to pay back for your financial plan increases by that percentage over time. This means that you can end up paying a lot more in total for the car than you would have done if you had a better credit score.
There are definitely positives and negatives to getting bad credit car finance, so it’s something that you’re really going to have to consider a lot to make sure that it’s the right option for you.
For example, although poor credit car finance lenders can allow you to get a finance deal for your car, it will be a more expensive option than just buying the car outright. That said, when you manage your repayments well, it has the potential to boost your credit score so that you can get access to better car finance deals in the future. However, if not budgeted correctly, committing to pay significant sums of money each month for at least a few years can harm your future finances if your circumstances change. We at Car Adviser believe that using poor credit car finance lenders is a risk, although it can be helpful if appropriately managed.
We admit that bad credit car finance can be a tricky thing to understand and get your head around, especially if you’ve never bought a car through finance. Thankfully, we’ve put together the ultimate guide to bad credit car finance so that you can better understand what it’s like and what to expect if you choose this finance option. You can find our guide on here.
It’s hard to say precisely how much a bad credit car finance plan will cost you because it will be different depending on how much you borrow, the value of the car, and what percentage rate you’re offered. How much you have to pay also depends on what specific car finance option you choose to use and how big of a deposit you put down at the start of your term.
For example, a hire purchase agreement will usually be more expensive and last longer because you’re working to pay off the car so you can own it. In contrast, a personal contract purchase is where you’re paying for the car’s depreciation and aren’t going to end up owning the vehicle at the end of the agreement unless you make what’s called a balloon payment. This option usually has cheaper monthly repayment rates.
Despite not being able to fully know how much a car finance plan will cost, it’s clear that you will be paying a fair bit more for the car throughout your financial plan if you have bad credit compared to if you had a good credit score. This is because of the increased interest rate that you’ll have to pay.
Here’s an illustrative example to demonstrate the possible extra amount you will have to pay when getting bad credit car finance.
If you have a low credit score, you’ll likely get offered a bad credit car loan at a representative APR of 23.9%. APR represents the extra amount of money you need to pay back for your loan after a calendar year.
With this finance plan, you agree to pay for a car worth £8,500 over 36 months. This means that you’re making 36 separate payments for the vehicle. You also decide to put down a deposit of £500 to reduce how much you’re borrowing to £8000.
To figure out how much you have to pay back every month to cover the loan and interest cost, the lender will use a fairly complicated equation to see how the 23.9% APR affects the total amount owned. For these terms, you will have to pay £304 a month.
Over 36 months, these repayments add up to £10,944. When you subtract the original amount of £8,000 borrowed for this car finance plan, it shows that interest has added an extra £2,950 to what you owe, which is a significant chunk of money.
Of course, if you decide to pay back the loan over a shorter period, such as in 24 months, then interest will have less time to take effect, resulting in a shorter total amount you have to pay. That said, decreasing the time needed to repay a car finance plan will increase how much you have to pay each month, so you need to jungle affordability with the total cost to work out the best car finance plan for you.
There are plenty of great poor credit car finance lenders online where you can get loans and useful information from these products. For this article, Car Adviser has put together some of the best places to find good bad credit car finance and bad credit loans.
Among some options are dedicated businesses that will offer you car finance plans, as well as popular comparison sites that will allow you to check your eligibility and use their resources to find the best car finance option for you that you’re likely going to be accepted for. Some of these businesses will also be brokers, meaning they won’t offer you finance deals directly but will show you providers who may accept you.
You can’t go wrong with any of the businesses and resources suggested in this guide. However, we’re also providing each business’s Trustpilot ranking so that you can determine which provider is best for you.
Note that all the bad credit car finance lenders on this list are FCA regulated.
| Provider | Customer Rating | Website |
|---|---|---|
| ChooseMyCar | 4.9/5.0 | choosemycar.com |
| Moneybarn | 4.6/5.0 | moneybarn.com |
| Money Super Market | 3.4/5.0 | moneysupermarket.com |
| Confused | 4.4/5.0 | confused.com |
| CarFinance247 | 4.7/5.0 | carfinance247.co.uk |
| Stoneacre Motor Group | 4.0/5.0 | stoneacre.co.uk |
| Zuto | 4.6/5.0 | zuto.com |
| GoCarCredit | 4.3/5.0 | gocarcredit.co.uk |
| Refused Car Finance | 4.9/5.0 | refusedcarfinance.com |
| CarVine | 4.9/5.0 | carvine.co.uk |
| The Car Loan Centre | 4.3/5.0 | thecarloancentre.co.uk |
Do note that the bad credit car finance provider that suits you may be different from the one that’s best for someone else. This is because you’ll have various requirements and needs and be in different financial situations, which can affect the value of each provider.
Here are the UK’s top car finance and car loan providers for bad credit.
ChooseMyCar is a used car finance specialist, meaning they have a lot of great experience when it comes to offering car finance to those with bad finance.
When you opt to get a finance plan from ChooseMyCar, you’ll be able to use their intuitive loan calculator tool to figure out how much your loan repayments will be depending on how much you take out and how long you want the term of the loan to be.
This gives the website an outstanding level of transparency, as users will know exactly what they’re getting into. In fact, the provider is extremely clear with its terms and promotes what their representative APR is front and centre of the webpage.
That APR is a representative 21.4%. Depending on the specifics of your credit score, you could have to pay more or less than that; however, if you do have bad or poor credit, the best available rate will be around 25.4%.
When you get a quote from ChooseMyCar, they’ll use a soft search to see your affordability. This does not affect your credit rating, and there’s no obligation to use ChooseMyCar. This means that this is a great place where you can see the options available to you that you are likely to be accepted for.
ChooseMyCar has an excellent reputation and has obtained a near-perfect score of 4.9 stars out of 5 on Trustpilot. This means that the vast majority of the users have benefited from their experience with ChooseMyCar. The high volume of positive reviews illustrates this.
Many people have praised the customer service team and appreciated how invested they seemed to be when trying to broker a finance deal. In fact, the vast majority of the reviews seem to focus on how good the personal aspect was between the customer and their customer service operative.
That said, when you look at the low amount of negative reviews, a common complaint is that some people have still been rejected for car finance despite being initially approved. It’s essential to make clear that ChooseMyCar is just a broker who gets you in touch with dealers and providers offering finance plans. You may initially pass their testing and screening; however, the lender may still reject you when you do apply. This can be frustrating, but it is a rare occurrence, and most of the time, you can be confident that you’ll be able to get a bad credit car loan when passing their initial checks.
Pros
Cons
Moneybarn is a car finance company offering various car finance products for those with both good and bad credit scores. As a result of this, their representative APR can fluctuate a lot, with it ranging from 14.9% all the way to 48.9%.
The website has a loan calculator function where you can input the car’s purchase price, your desired repayment term, and your credit score. With this data, you’ll be able to see how much your monthly repayments are, what the APR you’ll be offered is, and how much you have to repay in total.
When using the loan calculator from Moneybarn to get a quote for a poor credit score, the APR increases to a 48.9% interest rate, which is a very high amount. This APR could have you paying back more than double the value of the car you’re borrowing for, although this does depend if your repayment term is long enough. In addition, you cannot check to see what the APR is if you have a bad credit score.
Most bad credit car finance providers will rank credit with the levels of Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, and Bad. With Moneybarn not giving you the option to check quotes for bad credit, it may mean that they have more strict eligibility criteria than most bad credit car finance providers.
When applying for car finance with Moneybarn, you need to make sure that you have a consistent monthly income of £1,000; otherwise, you will not be accepted. This income can come from work, pension, or even benefits.
On Trustpilot, Moneybarn has a respectable rating of 4.6/5, making it an excellent business and one that you can trust. The vast majority of those leaving feedback have rated the company 5-star, with many praising Moneybarn’s approach to eligibility.
Many car finance providers will focus only on an individual’s credit score, whereas Moneybarn emphasises on how much you earn to see if you can afford a loan. This helps those who may have bad credit but a solid income get a car on finance, which many people have praised.
When looking for any obvious flaws with the business, a couple of common complaints pop up when looking at the bad reviews. Many have stated that although the process of getting a car on finance has been good with Moneybarn, if that car is faulty or has any issues, there’s been accounts that the complaints team halted correspondence. In fact, customer care has been criticised by a few people, with many saying that they are hard to get a hold of and may not get back to any requests or queries for days on end.
Pros
Cons
MoneySuperMarket is one of the UK’s leading financial advice and guidance resources on the UK, and it also operates an excellent comparison service that lets you find various credit products for you.
In terms of car finance for bad credit, MoneySuperMarket partners with a brand called Motiv, which works with a range of finance providers to help you borrow the money you need for your car.
What’s great about MoneySuperMarket is that it’s a very informative resource and gives users a lot of information so that they can understand their options regarding car finance before they commit to anything.
There is no easy-to-use loan cost calculator on the website, making it hard to see what terms you’ll be offered without inputting your personal details. That said, if you click on their ‘compare deals’ call-to-action, you’ll be able to fill out a detailed form to see what you can get. You’ll have to provide a lot of personal information in this form. It does mean that your quotes will be accurate, but it’s not good if you want a quick idea of what to pay.
That said, MoneySuperMarket advertises its Motiv service as having a 23.9% representative APR, which is one of the lowest so far.
On Trustpilot, MoneySuperMarket has an average score of 3.4 out of 5, which is a pretty surprising rating for a company with its authority level. When looking to see why this brand has such a low score, you’ll find many complaints about how many of its recommendations may not be the best option in the market.
Businesses like MoneySuperMarket work through commission, meaning that if someone buys a credit product after being suggested that product by MoneySuperMarket, they’ll get a cut of that transaction. This can lead to comparison websites like this having favourites and becoming less impartial than they should be.
As a result of this, it’s wise to shop around with other comparison sites to see what truly is the best finance deal. With that said, MoneySuperMarket is still a great tool to see the various car finance brands that will accept you if you have bad credit, and it has the functionality needed for you to compare brands properly.
There are still plenty of positive reviews for MoneySuperMarket, with past customers praising the website’s clarity and how they clearly explain each product so that you know what you’re getting into. In fact, many people enjoy how the business provides sound advice to help you find a deal that is worth it for you.
Pros
Cons
