If You Cannot Make Your Car Loan Payments

If for some reason you cannot make your monthly car payment, you need to contact your lender immediately. Many times, lenders will be able to lower payments by extending the car loan, or by accepting weekly payments. While you should always make your car payments on time, there may be times in your life when you become unemployed or have to take some time off from work due to illness or a family emergency.

If you stop making car payments, you may lose your car. Repossession can occur if you miss only one or two payments and you do not let your lender know what is going on. Once you car is repossessed, it will be sold by the lender so that they can make some of their money back. Your credit score will drop dramatically which will make being approved for another loan almost impossible.

But there are ways to make sure that you can always make your car payment:

Always have at least one month’s car payment in the bank for emergency use.
Pay ahead by a month so that you can use the extra month to save money.
Use your ‘pass a payment coupon’ which will allow you to skip a payment and pay it at the end of the loan. These coupons can usually only be used after 12 consecutive payments.

While you cannot always predict what will happen in life, by thinking ahead, you will be able to keep up with your car payments and not have to miss any during the length of the loan.