The Offer
PenFed is running the following offer for their members:
- For a limited time, receive a $350 cash bonus when you buy a car with the PenFed Car Buying Service with a PenFed loan.
The Fine Print
- The PenFed Car Buying Service rebate of $350 will apply to new and used purchase loan applications with a qualifying vehicle purchase sourced through the PenFed Car Buying Service.
- Applications and Car Buying Service dealership match must be received during the promotional period, between 2/1/2023 and 4/30/2023.
- Dealer originated loans and refinance loans are not eligible for this promotion.
- Loan must be currently active and have at least 2 payments posted in order to qualify for the rebate.
- The $350 rebate will be deposited to the member share savings account within 60 days of receiving the second payment.
- PenFed may discontinue or change the promotion at any time. Other restrictions may apply.
Our Verdict
I’m not an expert on car loans, but I’ve heard PenFed offers good rates. I’m not sure exactly what the PenFed Car Buying service entails. Let us know if you find this deal worthwhile.
Hat tip to Gadget
Received snail mail on this offer today. URL is https://www.penfed.org/auto350
I’ve tried PenFed car buying a few years ago (prior to Covid19 shortages). I found the participating dealers all had ridiculous fees built in such as doc fees of $750 to $1000. I think they jack up these fees to make up for the truecar/penfed cut. Also, since there are often rebates that are tied to taking the manufacturer financing, taking penfed financing might cause you to lose much more than you gain. I have successfully used this strategy several times – 1 take the manufacturer financing to get the rebate and, 2 find a refinance deal and refinance as soon as you get the account number and payoff info. It is possible to find refi deals that offer 0.5-1% cash back incentive to refi. I’ve also found others that are for a flat $250 to $500 cash back incentive. The last one I bought just before Covid19 offered $250 cash back. The account info was available at Ford was available within 5 business days. The credit union took about 3 business days after that was finished. I paid the whole thing off in less than 3 weeks. Got $1250 rebated for taking the dealer financing and the flat $250 for the refi. I could have just paid cash at the beginning but I couldn’t pass up an extra $1500. If the refi incentive is a percentage, you can have any manufacturer rebates sent to you as a check rather than applying them at the time of purchase. This increases the financed amount and thus increases the refi amount. I did it this way once but found it not worth the extra $75 it netted me to have to wait for the checks to be sent. Of note I ALWAYS find the refi incentives at credit unions not banks. I will also say I love Penfed. I have a mortgage with them and a couple of credit cards.
This was interesting. Thanks Charles.
What happen if I have a deposit with a dealership already. Would I still be able to use the penfed car buying service and take advantage of this offer?
I don’t think so if you already have a deal with the dealer. Penfed/truecar charge the dealer a fee for driving business their way. I doubt your dealer would want to pay that commission when they already have your business.
Penfed is one of the CU pulls your tax files when you apply for their auto loans
This did not happen for me last May
I got 2 used auto loans with them at the same time in June 2022 and did not ecperience this
I have used Penfed for their cheapest interest rates. They tend to have the cheapest rate for any open-to-all FCUs. But if you are a member of any local exclusive FCUs, that would be better. Couple of months ago, my buddy got a ~5% rate from Penfed (cheaper than 5 other places), but eventually went with a local super exclusive FCU offering 3.5%. The dealership thought it was a clearly fraudulent offer because they were offering 6.5%, being the crooked dealership as they were.
PenFeds rate is pretty bad compared to most credit unions. Off the top Tower FCY 2.25% 3 year. Adelfi, good coast, schools first, CU SC and maybe 50 more credit unions with lower rate.
Is anyone eligible to join these CUs? Or are there restrictions like location, affiliation etc? AFAIK Penfed is for anyone to join. I have no affiliation to Pentagon but joined by depositing 5$.
It can be difficult if not impossible to login to your Penfed online account. I suggest using incognito mode. That’s the only way I have been able to access my account recently. YMMV.
Logging in works normally for me, even (especially?) with all my anti-tracker privacy measures and extensions enabled in Firefox, and behind a VPN. Probably situation dependent.
same, no issues
I’ve tried for days now, seems they’re using a “New and improved website”, maybe that’s the problem.
A few things I’ll add to this:
Penfed only allows 1 external account to be added at any time and you need to speak to a CSR to get it changed and it takes 24 hours to happen. I imagine this doesn’t impact most people, but it seems like this crowd it would.
Additionally, they don’t allow connections to all banks; in my case, I cannot push from Discover to penfed, I need to withdraw directly from Discover to make payments (student loan refinanced @ 3.3%).
They also constantly update their website so if you use a budget app (I use Mint) it loses connectivity more than it actually connects.
Ya, Personal Capital connection was not very reliable IME.
i received a telemarketer letter from them that i pre-approved 75,000$ auto loan with starting at 5.19% apr. good to know that i can upgrade to a Mercedes E class AMG if someone stole my current car 🙂
It’s what all the Pentagon officials are rocking!
That’s the cheapest AMG out there!
Penfed sometimes has good rates and sometimes not. Their car buying service is a rebranded Truecar. I used the service a couple of times a few years ago and it was fine. Last year, when I was looking and the new car market was in upheaval with no inventory and many months between order and delivery time, the car buying services were completely useless. I doubt that has changed. I did end up using the AMEX branded car buying service but only to identify dealers who would accept AMEX credit card for payment.
I’ve used PenFed a couple times for car buying. Overall good rates and no major issues. Well I was doing it when cash was ultra cheap.
The only hassle is PenFed will not send payment directly to the dealer. So I had to wait for the check and then drive back to the dealer. This is annoying if it’s not a dealer close to you. Otherwise you might need to mail the check to them after receiving. The normal process for a dealer who does not have payment on day of signing is to have you fill out their credit/loan application to use as backup if you do not provide payment within ~ week or whatever grace they give you.