A brief explanation why the vehicle value is important to subprime lending

Why is it that people who are classed as subprime struggle to get a personal loan, but can be approved for car finance by numerous companies, surely lending money is all the same?

The answer is quite straightforward, but maybe confusing to those who are not in the subprime finance business. In essence it boils down to a simple case of security and potential loss. If someone defaults on a personal loan, there is no real potential of recovery of any of the funds in a swift period of time.
For instance, customer A defaults on a personal loan, apart from taking them to court and trying to recover income from them, there is no alternative and if the customer has a genuine reason for default, it’s unlikely that you would obtain a judgement for anything meaningful in terms of monthly instalments. Therefore your loss is total – advance, minus payments made and the derisory judgement the court makes in a repayment schedule; assuming that the customer actually keeps to it. In this scenario, your return will drip feed in over many years and without doubt you will have to chase the customer for the payments as well. All in all, not a good position to be in if you’re a lender, this is why loans with no security are few and far between in the subprime world.

Let’s now take the subprime car loan. First of all, the lender knows that there is an asset they can repossess and sell in the event of default, so immediately were ahead of a personal loan in terms of loss. Secondly, we know that the vehicle is more than likely a critical requirement for the customer, few people want to get public transport and nowadays in general we all prefer to travel by car. This means that the customer has a reason to pay for the loan as well, so were looking good now.
Not only do we have some immediate return in the event of default, we also know there is a need for the customer to pay for the loan, rather than the basic obligation of a finance agreement.
So we now need to analyse what the loss situation is going to be. The loss is in direct proportion to the amount you lend on the vehicle relative to resale/auction value. Lending someone £10,000 on a car loan that’s worth £600 at an auction is dumb and is as good as writing a personal loan. Sure, cars still depreciate; however, you’re betting that the instalments made will help offset this problem.
A standard market value in the subprime sector is to lend retail value (mileage adjusted), using an agreed independent and updated valuation source (Glass Guide or CAP) in the hope you will obtain trade price at the auctions. For those not in the “know” circa 120-125% of trade represents the retail amount, however, prices do vary.
Operating in this manner, the dealership or seller makes enough profit out of the metal for it to be worth their while and the finance company “ideally” has an asset that can realise a good amount in the event of repossession and resale at auction. This will ensure that the loss isn’t total and those customers who pay will pay for those that don’t.
The only security superior to that of a vehicle, is obviously the security of a charge on the property.