Needing a loan for essential car repairs but I have a poor credit rating

[Nothavingfunrightnow]

Due to various fuck ups, I am in a debt management programme (Step Change) and have been since Dec last year. I have no savings and my car needs about £900 work done on it.

I wondered if anyone could suggest a lender I might approach? I have undertaken "soft searches" online and understandably the major high street lenders won't touch me.

I am stuck while trying to sort out my crap. Does anyone have any success stories of lending when in this situation??

Please don't have a go at me for being up shit street. I work full time, have done for ever and I am a lone parent with all the delights that brings.

Contact Stepchange to start with, they may be able to suspend the payments to your DMP for a month or so to allow you to pay for the car.

Taking out further credit is against the terms and condtions of a DMP and Stepchange may stop helping if they find out you have taken out a new loan.

Can you manage without a car?

For £900 you could get a half decent little run around

Is it not against the terms of your debt management plan to take out more credit?

I'm sorry but you can't afford the car. What happens next time it needs work? Sell it as spares and repairs and buy a bus pass.

PS I'm not having a go at you OP I'm just being realistic. The last thing you need right now is more debt.

Why do you want to get yourself into yet more debt when you can't afford to repay what you owe now? How is this going to help you?

I realise this sounds very unsympathetic and no doubt not having a car would be very difficult, but you need to draw a line somewhere OP.

Unfortunately you can't afford more credit. I'm not having a go at you, I understand it's a shit situation, but you can't afford what you already owe. What are your alternatives? Public transport until you're debt-free?

Contact Stepchange as a pp said and see if they can negotiate a couple of months of suspended payments.

Don't on any account take on more debt.

Thank you for all your advice. I have decided to make other arrangements rather than take out credit - I have a small policy that I will cash in to use to repair the car then set the balance aside as a car fund. Public transport is not an option because it would be more expensive than using a car because of where I work.

Regarding Step Change, I had contacted them about this predicament to see what their advice was. The advisor I spoke to said that he did not advise taking out further loans but that in my case it seemed unavoidable. However,, he said that it might be that the current creditors would pursue me again if they got wind of me having taken out a loan. This would be flagged up when my annual review comes up.

This car disaster has come at a fucking awful time as my dad has just died and the funeral is a 5 hour drive away. Again public transport is out of the question because the funeral will be early in the morning and I do not have spare cash to stay overnight. All a bit of a disaster, really. But I am sure i will live to fight another day.

Thank you for the replies and advice.

You can hire little cars for about £30-40 a day, less with cashback and special offer codes etc. Is that viable? Can you travel with another funeral attendee and split the cost?

I understand what you mean about buses being more £££ than cars (not to mention they aren't available when you need them or go to the places you need to go) - it's a horrible situation.

I hope you manage to get things sorted OP.

Can you afford to stick a small amount a week aside for future repairs? The reality is cars cost to maintain (unless they're brand new to under 3 years old), so unless you can afford this you're always going to be stuck with occasional car related bills like this.