New Car Finance

[aphid]

I am looking to buy a new Toyota or Honda and there are some great finance deals around 3% interest and 20% deposit with both.

Are there any restrictions on a farang like me (legally employed in Bangkok with new 3 year contract, UK passport) taking advantage of these deals?

Aphid

[noahvail]

I am looking to buy a new Toyota or Honda and there are some great finance deals around 3% interest and 20% deposit with both.

Are there any restrictions on a farang like me (legally employed in Bangkok with new 3 year contract, UK passport) taking advantage of these deals?

Aphid

Some finance companies will ask for a Thai co-signer. And you will probably be asked for a letter from immigration stating who you are, what your residential address is, that sort of thing.

[torrenova]

The interest rate is flat so roughly double it to get the APR.

More deposit means less paperwork.

With a WP and bank paperwork, I guess you'd be ok at 30% and maybe 20% but with the credit crunch I don't know for sure. Do you have someone to guarantee for you, like your missus ?

Your WP negates most paperwork that non WP holders need I think.

Still get the extras even if you get a deal on the HP.

[chivo]

is 3% actually considered good for financing?

i was hoping for 0% in these times!

[torrenova]

The percentage varies with the deposit as well. Zero percent financing may well be on 40% or more deposit.

However, let's do some very simple maths.

3% is actually about 6% APR so if you borrowed Bt800,000 (80% of Bt1,000,000) over 4 years then your interest would be:

800,000 * 0.03 * 4 = 96,000 or 2,000 a month. Thus, the car costs you roughly 100k more to buy at 3% than 0%. Quite a significant sum, equivalent to about 10% of the purchase price and 12% of the sum borrowed. I seriously doubt you could get 100k knocked off a 1m baht car.