Help with refinance process?
 

I want to refinance my car to lower the payments and be a little more comfortable but Ive never really been through that process.
I was hoping someone with the experience can kindly offer some details or advice on how to go about it.
For instance, what type of lender would be better? A bank or credit union? Is it possible to try and refinance with the same/current lender?
Is a form of down payment required?
When refinancing, you've made every payment on time but you have average credit score due to other obligations, does credit score still play a great factor?

Thanks for any help.

A credit union would probably give you the most competitive rate. I did mine through a local credit union and brought my apr from 4.7% to 1.8%. The whole process went smoothly. I didn't have to do any downpayment of any sorts. They just ran my credit and got me approved. My only issue was the fact that my sister had originally co-signed for me. The title said my name "or" her name. The DMV was charging me sales tax to completely remover her name and just leave mine. I ended up keeping her on the title and now plan to pay off my car by the end of the year... hope this helps.

If you REALLY want to save money...pay it off. Get on a budget and throw every dollar you can at the car.

Cars are our largest depreciating purchase - and financing it (at whatever rate) makes them even worse. I went from a $732 payment to zero. Now we're throwing $5000 / mo. at my girlfriend's Cherokee to pay it off. It changes your life not to have a car payment. We're going from $1200 / mo. in car payments to zero. That extra $1200 gives us the room to buy a new house (which mostly likely will appreciate vs. depreciate).

I wish I had understood how stupid car payments are 30 years ago. Just started listening to Dave Ramsey about a year ago and in 2 months, will have no payments but my house. Once you really understand car payments (and any debt), you won't go down that road.

Not the answer you were looking for, but as someone who appears to be about twice your age, I wish someone had explained that to me years ago.

I have zero debt, so I can't be much help on the re-fi. How did I get to be debt free? I re-evaluated my spending habits, cut until it hurt, and paid off all my loans as quickly as possible. As per scottIN, borrowing money to buy an asset that depreciates is not good business (sometimes you have to do it, but avoid it when you can).

My guess is that you are wasting a lot of money on "little" things - a dollar here and a dollar there adds up pretty quick. Drop any extra cable channels you have and/or move to a lower tier - same for any other services you use. Don't upgrade your gadgets every time a new model comes out. You can buy a cable modem for about 10-15x what your ISP is renting you one for - pays for itself in about a year. Eating out is very expensive - learn to cook or at least operate a microwave. Be VERY wary of any thing free - you usually end up paying through the nose for it (eg, "free" cell phones from your provider).

Check out penfed (penfed.org). They have very competitive rates. Few years ago refinanced from a 2.9 or 3.9% to 1.49%.