Comment by ssl-3

Up in my neck of the woods, it depends.

I paid cash for the last two used cars I bought. As used cars go they weren't particularly expensive and it wasn't a big deal. Both purchases came from dealerships that also sold and serviced things like brand new Hondas or Chevrolets.

For one of those cars, the paperwork was completely finished and I drove off in that new-to-me car without me even giving them a dime. (I did promise in writing that they'd have a check in a few days, and I did make good on that promise.)

There's also used car lots that work with real financing companies. They broker the financing deal and get paid for it. That works, too. (I've financed cars at these places, too; this also went smoothly.)

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But then, too: There are buy-here, pay-here used car lots. These are traps for the poor, and they love their particular financing game.

At these places: The loans are designed to be very upside down and they therefore hold all of the cards. They'll sell a used car for years of weekly payments of $120, and if/when the payments stop then they just turn the car off remotely and have someone go pick it up.

After that, it's cleaned up and sold to the next guy for $120 a week.

It's a very profitable way to conduct business and nobody of any substantial means and sane mind would ever buy anything there at all.

But they don't check credit, and they don't report credit. So as ugly and expensive as it is, for some folks that's the only way they can get the car they need to try to survive in the society that they were born into.