Wheel Deals on Low-Rate Car Loans
Finance rates on auto loans have fallen to their lowest level in six years, helping to make new cars more affordable, auto industry officials and analysts said.</br></br>Like people buying houses or anything else on credit, car buyers are getting a break from the low interest rates that have persisted all this year as the Federal Reserve has tried to loosen the grip of the recession.</br></br>But in the Washington area, consumer response to the cut-rate auto credit programs has been mixed, car dealers and lenders said. While auto dealers welcome any program to help increase sales, the lower rates have not produced a grounds-well of buyers in the area.</br></br>People want to buy new cars, especially people who have been rolling around in their current models for five years or more. But higher car prices and the lingering personal effects of the recession-lost income and damaged credit--continue to put new cars out of the reach of many buyers, some area dealers said.</br></br>"We have lots of low rates," said Jacques J. Moore, president of Moore Cadillac Co. in Vienna. "But those finance rates are only for people whose credit is golden. Problem is, most of the world is not like that."