car purchase loan versus car collateral loan
Generally speaking personal loans have higher rates than car loans.  During fairly recent times, the market for car loans has become very competitive.  A local credit union offers loans as low as 1.99% which is about half the prevailing mortgage rate.  In comparison personal loans are typically in the 10-14% range.   Even if it made mathematical sense to do so, I doubt any bank would give you a personal loan secured by a car rather than car loan.  Either the brain would not work that way; or, it would simply be against company policy. These questions always interest me, why the desire to maximize credit score?  There is no correlation between credit score and wealth.  There is no reward for anything beyond a sufficiently high score to obtain the lowest rates which is attained by simply paying one's bills on time.  One will always be limited by income when the amount able to borrow is calculated regardless of score.   I can understand wanting to maximize different aspects of personal finance such as income or investment return percentage, etc..  By why credit score?  This is further complicated by a evolving algorithm.  Attempts to game the score today, may not work in the future.
Car dealers as well as boat dealers, RV dealers, maybe farm vehicle dealers and other asset types make deals with banks and finance companies to they can make loans to buyers. They may be paying the interest to the finance companies so they can offer a 0% loan to the retail customer for all or part of the loan term.  Neither the finance company nor the dealer wants to make such loans to people who are likely to default. Such customers will not be offered this kind of financing. But remember too that these loans are secured by the asset - the car - which is also insured. But the dealer or the finance company holds that asset as collateral that they can seize to repay the loan. So the finance company gets paid off and the dealer keeps the profit he made selling the car. So these loans are designed to ensure the dealer nor the finance company looses much. These are called asset finance loans because there is always an asset (the car) to use as collateral. I think people are conflating two orthogonal sets of terms. Unsecured/secured and good/bad are not synonyms. Debt may be secured or unsecured. If I take a loan against a car or house it is typically secured, so the object is collateral against the loan. Bad debt in financial terms is a loan that is not expected to be recovered. A bank might write off a loan or a portion of a loan as bad debt if the borrower goes bankrupt or into administration for example. Both secured and unsecured loans may be considered bad debt. I think the context in which the question is being asked is how to distinguish between sensible and inadvisable borrowing. An extreme example of inadvisable borrowing would be to buy a PC on a store card. PCs devalue very quickly and a store card may charge 30% APR, so paying the minimum off each month would mean paying  more than twice the sticker price for a product that is now worth less than half the original borrowed amount. On the other hand, a 3% mortgage when borrowing less than 60% of the value of a property is a good bet from a lender's perspective, and would be a good debt to have (not as good as no debt, but better thhan a high APR one). You are currently $30k in debt.  I realize it is tempting to purchase a new car with your new job, but increasing your debt right now is heading in the wrong direction.  Adding a new monthly payment into your budget would be a mistake, in my opinion. Here is what I would suggest.  Since you have $7k in the bank, spend up to $6k on a nice used car.  This will keep $1k in the bank for emergencies, and give you transportation without adding debt and a monthly payment.  Then you can focus on knocking out the student loans.   Won't it be nice when those student loans are gone?  By not going further into debt, you will be much closer to that day.  New cars are a luxury that you aren't in a position to splurge on yet. "It depends on what your plans for the future are.. Taking out a loan is not a bad thing if it is at a good rate and under good terms and you are sure you can handle the payments. If you buy the car with cash you may be giving up the opportunity to later get a great rate on that $8k. However, you are probably not utilizing that $20k to make as much interest as you'd then be paying if you did take the $8k on loan. Since you say ""house fund"" I assume you are saving to make a down payment on a new house. If you plan to buy that house within the next 6 months the hard pulls on your credit report from applying for the car loan will probably ding your credit score for the next 6 months which might cost you on your mortgage rate. However, if you don't plan to buy for a few more years and if you've never had a car payment before then the auto loan would actually be adding diversity to your credit history and in the long run would help your score. Another factor to consider is the loan-to-value ratio you are shooting for. LTV affects the interest rate, requirements for private mortgage insurance, etc.. Mortgage rates are at an all-time low and lower than auto-rates, so depending on the terms of the house purchase that $8k might be better spent on the car than the house. In short, if you want to buy the house soon (rates are loooow, market is a buyer's market), and you need that $8k to get a better mortgage rate or prevent you from being required to buy PMI you should probably put it toward the house. Otherwise you should probably put it toward the car. Last piece of advice. If you absolutely must buy a house and a car in the same short time-frame, do them both on the same day so that your credit score is not dinged before applying for one or the other. With mortgages this may be difficult considering the longer closing procedures, but try to time it so that your credit is getting checked by the mortgage broker and the auto lender on the same day." Go to your local bank or credit union before talking to a dealership. Ask them if putting both names on the loan makes a difference regarding rates and maximum loan you qualify for. Ask them to run the loan application both ways. Having both names on the loan helps build the credit of the spouse that has a lower score.    You may find that both incomes are needed for a car loan if the couple has a mortgage or other joint obligations. The lender will treat the entire mortgage payment or rent payment as a liability against the person applying for the loan, they won't split the housing payment in half if only one name will be on the car loan. Therefore sometimes the 2nd persons income is needed even if their credit is not as good. That additional income without a significant increase in liabilities can make a huge difference regarding the loan they can qualify for. Once the car is in your possession, it doesn't matter who drives it. In general the insurance company will put both spouses as authorized drivers. Note: it is almost always better to ask your bank or credit union about a car loan before going to the dealership. That gives you a solid data point regarding a loan, and removes a major complexity to the negotiations at the dealership. As a former banker, the title of the car will be assigned to the loan account holder(s) because legally, he/she/they are responsible for payments. I've never heard of any case where the car title differs from the loan account holder(s). Throughout my career in the bank, I've come across quite a number of parents who did the same for their children and the car title was always assigned to the loan account holder's name.    You do have a choice of applying for a joint loan with one of your parents unless if you are concerned about what your credit score might be.  Once the loan has been paid off, the title could be changed to your name from your parents of course. As for insurance, there are numerous options where the insurance would cover all drivers of the car however at a slightly higher price like you've mentioned. I would use that money to buy a car instead of taking out a loan to buy the car.   It does however prompt the question:  What do you want more a house or a car? "Paperwork prevails.  What you have is a dealer who get a kickback for sending financing to that institution. And the dealer pretty much said ""We only get paid our kickback at two levels of loan life, 6 and 12 months."" You just didn't quite read between the lines.  This is very similar to the Variable Annuity salespeople who tell their clients, ""The best feature about this product is that the huge commissions I get from the sale fund my kid's college tuition and my own retirement. You, on the other hand, don't really do so well.""  Car salesmen and VA sellers."