Ford Removes Minimum FICO Score Requirements For 84 Month Loans

There is no officially no longer a minimum credit score necessary to get an 84 month (7 year) car note at Ford.

Yes, those pesky FICO scores determining who does and who doesn’t have the means to pay or a history of paying bills will finally no longer have leverage over the broke, spend-heavy U.S. consumer.

Ford sent a bulletin to dealers this week announcing they would be removing the requirement, CarsDirect wrote. 

And while 7 year loans aren’t commonplace yet, they soon will be. Covid sped up the rate at which these types of loans were being offered and Ford introduced a 0% APR for 84 months in 2020. The offer then vanished, but the loan term has remained a part of Ford’s incentive arsenal.

“Our proprietary scoring models do an excellent job of assessing the probability that an applicant will be able to pay. FICO is one input. Eliminating the separate FICO requirement opens the prospect of financing to more customers who would qualify for 84-month financing within our models regardless of their FICO score,” Ford Credit spokesperson Margaret Mellott told CarsDirect.

84 month loans routinely have higher interest rates than most other loans. CarsDirect points out that a current 6.9% rate on a 2022 Ford Bronco Sport would make the vehicle, listed at $40,000, actually cost $50,000. 

And just think, Ford. If you amortize the car payments over 10 million years, you could charge less than a penny a day to pay back loans and 100% interest. And then, everyone would qualify!