The repossession lane

Entering the repossession lane Default rate soars on auto loans in pattern likened to mortgage crisis

By Jenn Abelson, | March 7, 2008
When lenders sent a tow truck to repossess his silver 2001 Lincoln LS last month, Myles Chilcot eagerly handed over the keys.

Last year, Chilcot, 21, bought the $15,000 car - a sweet ride with tinted windows and custom chrome rims, and a loan with $370 monthly payments that he could not afford on his $12 hourly wage at Home Depot. By the fall, facing mounting credit-card debt, student loans, and rent, he stopped paying the car bills.

"I ran around smiling for 20 minutes when they took the car away," Chilcot said. "It was a relief."
It is also an increasingly common story as more Americans, under growing economic pressure, are deciding to surrender their rides rather than the roofs over their heads: The rate of auto-loan defaults recently reached a 10-year high of 3.4 percent. And one local auction company saw repossessions nearly triple last month compared with a year ago.

As with the subprime-loan crisis that has caused waves of home foreclosures, trouble has been brewing with car loans for years. As the economy boomed, lenders made it easy for shoppers to buy cars they couldn't afford by stretching their loan payments to five or six years, which more than doubled the total of Americans' auto-loan balances over the past decade to $772 billion from $282 billion in 1998. As with home buyers, lenders relaxed standards for car buyers such as Chilcot, who had blemished credit and put no money down.

With oil prices skyrocketing and the economy in a downturn, consumers are looking to downsize to cheaper, more fuel-efficient models, and reduce their payments. And many - even those with good credit and lower interest rates - are finding they can't afford to sell their vehicles because they have more left to pay off than their cars are worth. Lenders, meanwhile, are writing off billions of dollars in defaulted loans, and some analysts worry this could escalate to a foreclosure crisis on wheels.

"The suddenness with which we saw repossessions hit the market at the beginning of the year has been unusual and appears to reflect not only the general economic slowdown, but some spillover from the mortgage crisis," said Tom Kontos, chief economist at Adesa Inc., which runs 58 car auctions across North America. "With folks getting resets on adjustable-rate mortgages, it forces many people to decide whether to default on their home loan or default on their car loan. When they have that kind of choice, predictably, they gravitate toward defaulting on car loan."

Nationwide, repossessions are up about 15 percent so far this year, Kontos said. At North Shore Auto Auction in Ipswich, repossessions almost tripled in February to 125 vehicles, with gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and vans being turned over more quickly than cars at a rate of two to one. As homeowners get squeezed by rising mortgage payments, contractors are also feeling the pinch as people cut back on home-improvement projects, leading to a glut of repossessed pickups, according to Frank Iovanella, president of North Shore Auto Auction.

For two years, Carole Beausoleil, 58, of Southbridge has been trying to get rid of a black pickup, a 2003 Chevy Silverado the family bought in 2004. Beausoleil says the family was pressured by the dealer into costly add-ons the members quickly regretted, such as LoJack and an extended warranty.

These services added thousands to the $21,900 sticker price and pushed up the monthly car bill to $465.
Beausoleil fell behind on payments in 2006 and debated allowing the lender to repossess the car. She reconsidered because she didn't want to ruin her credit and her husband needed the vehicle for work. Instead, they tried to downsize to a less expensive, more fuel-efficient model. But they have been unable to because they owe $13,000, and lenders told Beausoleil the truck's value has shrunk to $10,000.

"We got swindled and overpriced. It was a mistake, and now it's too late," Beausoleil said.
Beausoleil, who is trying to pay off other debts, including overdue credit card, gas, and electric bills, says she plans to use the anticipated federal tax rebate this spring to help make up the $3,000 difference so the family can finally get rid of the truck.

Lenders, meanwhile, are cracking down. GMAC Financial Services, the country's largest auto-finance operator, recently tightened its underwriting standards to authorize fewer subprime loans and also increased its collection force to work with customers who are late on auto payments. During the last two quarters of 2007, the riskiest subprime borrowers had interest rates of about 15 percent for their auto loans, while borrowers with top credit ratings carried car loans with 5.7 percent interest rates, according to J.D. Power and Associates' Power Information Network, a market research firm.

Jack Tracey, executive director of the National Automobile Finance Association, the trade group that represents subprime lenders, said, "The nonprime auto-financing industry is very important for the economy because it provides many economically disadvantaged consumers with the ability to own a car and have the ability to hold a job where they need to commute to work."

But the most recent data available from a member survey showed that delinquencies on subprime loans jumped to 11.6 percent, up from 6.8 percent.
"Just as in the subprime mortgage industry, car dealers have been giving consumers with less-than-prime credit ratings car loans with rates and payments they can't afford," said Yvonne Rosmarin, a consumer-protection lawyer in Arlington.

Some industry analysts do not expect the problems within the auto industry to reach the crisis level of the mortgage industry. Lenders can more quickly recover, in many cases, because vehicle repossessions can occur within 90 days after a loan is past due, while home foreclosures can take up to a year. Still, some lenders, like Eastern Bank, which have seen an increase in repossessions, are taking a hit at auction, getting at least 10 percent less than last year for larger vehicles.

That means the problems for consumers may not end when their repossessed cars are towed away. They still may owe money if the lender sells the car for less than the balance owed. Moreover, the repossession typically stays on consumers' credit reports for up to seven years.
Chilcot, who recently had his car repossessed, had initially intended to purchase an $8,000 Nissan Altima, but he couldn't get a loan to cover the vehicle because it had too many miles. He knew he had bad credit, so when a loan offer was approved instead for the $15,000 Lincoln, Chilcot seized on what he thought was a good deal - even though it came with a 18-percent interest rate.

Since his car was taken away, Chilcot has started walking to work at his new job - as a car salesman at a dealership in Plymouth.
When asked whether he tries to caution people against buying a car they can't afford based on his recent experience, Chilcot chuckled: "Not really. You become pretty shameless pretty quick when the paycheck comes."

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