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

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.

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.

is 3% actually considered good for financing?

i was hoping for 0% in these times!

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.