Profligate days over as it’s back to the old ways to secure car loans

Date Published: {J}

Times may change but priorities amongst young people don’t vary much and the lure of owning their first car is one that is certainly one that figures in the top five of wish lists. So great is the desire at the moment to own a car – preferably a modified one – that even Leaving Cert students are mobile now.

The only difference between now and say 20 or 30 years ago is that younger people seem to have more access to money and of course this was evidenced by what happened in the Celtic Tiger era when the country seemed to have more money that they knew what to do with it. We were nearly tripping over the stuff.

Many moons ago when the desire of owning a car sent the pulses racing, I was earning a bit of money, had got the hang of the three point turn, dreamed of driving the highways and byways of County Galway with the elbow stuck out of a rolled down window and excitedly embarked on the quest for a dream machine that was within my budget.

It was not a sort of decision that could be done in a day, a week or even a fortnight at the time. A lot of consideration had to be given to this monumental purchase as it was about to be the biggest financial outlay since the acquisition of a Duran Duran LP. This was serious stuff and one that couldn’t be treated with any small degree of complacency.

Once the heart was set on the sky blue two door Opel Kadette, there was no going back. This was the ultimate babe machine and it was only a matter of signing on the dotted line . . . well, once the finances had been sorted out, of course. The delirium of owning my first car was soon replaced by a sense of deflation and humiliation when I went to source the two grand or so needed for the purchase.

My options were finance houses which cost the earth in interest rates or my local bank or credit union. I opted for the friendly bank and, not having an account apart from one in the post office, I duly made an appointment to see a chap with a grey suit in the naïve belief that he would hand over the loot on the spot, I would agree to make monthly repayment and I would drive off into the sunset.

Instead the middle aged man behind the desk, who greeted me with a scowl and never looked up during the course of our conversation, told me two dozen reasons why he couldn’t give me the loan and as many more about why I shouldn’t be asking for it in the first place. He told me the implications about missing a repayment . . . how I would be hauled before the courts and be humiliated in front of my friends, family and neighbours.

In the end he said that in order to obtain the loan, I would need people of substantial property or savings to act as guarantor in the event of me welching on the deal, losing my job or leaving the country never to be seen again. There were times that I felt as if I as asking him for money out of his own wallet. I felt as if I was begging for it.

Having left that bank both a chastened and almost frightened young man, the funds were eventually sourced in a credit union without any hassle but the good had been taken out of the transaction. It was for these same reasons that anyone buying a house at the time had to source their finance from Galway County Council at monumental interest rates because the banks were saying no.

For more, read page 12 of this week’s Connacht Tribune