May 6 – Got in touch with a Toyota BGC agent; applied for auto loans online (BPI, Metrobank, Security Bank)
May 7 – Applied personally at BPI
May 9 – Approved with BPI for 31.01%. Pretty high.
May 9 – Applied online at BDO and RCBC
May 14 – Got in touch with RCBC, was offered 26.80% for regular auto loan and 25.82% for AutoLoan Plus w/ free 1st year insurance, but with a 5yr lock with Malayan. I also need to apply as a Hexagon member to qualify for those preferred rates. I sent this to BPI.
May 16 – After going back and forth with the requirements, Metrobank approved with a rate of 25.81%, 10k discount on CMF, free 1st year insurance but with a 5yr lock with AXA.
May 20 – BDO approved with a promo rate of 24.34% for hybrid and electric vehicles, with option to get insurance separately or from them (free 1st year, but locked with Standard). Unfortunately they tagged me to a branch that was far from our place and there was an issue with having to re-tag it to a nearer branch. For document signing they would just send the papers over which would cause delay so we were kindof iffy with this option even though the rate is really good.
May 21 – BPI was able to price-match RCBC’s 26.80%, with no free insurance and chattel mortgage fee. But I already have a lower offer with BDO, so I sent the info to them.
May 22 – Paid reservation fee of 10k to Toyota BGC so they can order the unit already
May 24 – BPI responded with 24.86% OMA rate with free 1st year insurance in response to BDO. It’s 0.52% shy of BDO’s offer but I really appreciate the effort in price-matching and quite honestly I really prefer banking with this particular branch because it’s very convenient for us. And so we decided to push through with them.
May 29 – Signed with BPI
June 4 – BPI followed up with additional papers to sign. Turns out the free 1st year insurance comes locked with BPI/MS. We felt deceived. There was no mention of this in the quote, but it feels too late. We decided to just get our 1st year insurance separately. This was very disappointing for us, because 1st year insurance cost is the most expensive and for our unit it’s 40k+ for year 1. Just factoring this in the overall cost of this deal with BPI and they have the most upfront cost among all the other banks we inquired. Hay.
So now it’s the waiting game…
June 22 – Followed up with my Toyota agent, he said he’ll get back to me next week
June 24 – My agent told us to stand by as the unit may arrive anytime this week. Exciting!
June 26 – Unit has arrived! Unit details have been forwarded to BPI and the bank has responded with the ATD (Authority to Deliver) and PO (Purchase Order). I was advised to settle the downpayment immediately so we can process for release so I did that. Was supposed to transfer 685k online but the daily transaction limit won’t let me. So I just sent a check to Toyota BGC via GrabExpress. It was deposited within the day. So efficient, I love it!
The bank spelled our street address wrong so it was reflected wrongly on the ATD and PO. I had them correct it because the dealership was particular about it. I made to sure to get the corrected documents within the day.
Since we opted to get our own insurance I also needed to get a policy asap so the unit could be released. I’ve already inquired seperately from Mercantile (34k), Standard (48k), FPG (41k), and Malayan (40k) weeks back, but I still thought to inquire with iChoose since we’ve been getting our insurance from them for the past years soI know they’re very easy to deal with.
12:58pm I emailed a quotation request to the agent who assisted us before
1:07pm I got three quotes from FPG (33k), Cocogen (33k), and Standard (42k). I was impressed at the quick turnaround, much more with the cheaper quotes. And to think I requested for the exact same details directly from the the insurance companies. I wonder why it’s cheaper to get from brokers?
Anyway!
I love it! Renelyn, my agent from iChoose, was online so we just talked on messenger. I paid in full, supplied the required PO and Certificate of Unit Details from the dealership, and she placed me request under rush so I could hopefully get it today.
4:30pm I received the policy and billing details in my email. But the address was wrong! I mean it was correct but they had it in the wrong format or order which BPI is particular with so I had it corrected and made sure they followed what’s written on the Unit Details.
5:13pm The policy was corrected so I sent it over to my Toyota agent. But he says he needs the original copy to forward to the bank so I asked Renelyn if we could deliver a copy to Toyota BGC today. She was so quick with it! She asked the nearest hub to send a copy to BGC.
6:21pm The policy was delivered to BGC and my sales agent has received it.
What a day right?? I feel so lucky I got to catch Renelyn online that afternoon because it was so cruicial I get a policy asap. By the way, wew got FPG as our first year insurance provider. It’s not our first time with them and I know they’re accredited with my dealership and also a nearby repair shop. So now that everything is in place, we’re looking at finally getting the unit out within the week.
Fingers crossed!
June 29 – It’s finally here and it’s beautiful! ♥
So all in all from looking for a bank and talking to the dealership and waiting for the car, it took 2 months. I’m sure it will take shorter if we looked for a dealership with on-hand stock but yeah, we just prefer to get it from Toyota Global City hehe.
So worth it!!!
July 12 – Got a copy of our OR (Official Receipt). It was emailed by LTO but it hasn’t reflected in the portal yet.