2026 winter depression and financial desperation drove me to buy a Tesla that I could not afford. The idea was that I would drastically change my life by getting a car and migrating to Texas where I would find work.
It did not go according to plan, because I was unable to find a financial institution that would finance me with $0 down payment.
Here are the stats of the car that I bought, but couldn’t pay for.
Used 2020 Tesla Model Y Performance 78,354 miles $24,200
Tesla offered me 60 month financing and required about $8K at delivery.
Tesla was helpful in telling me why they gave me the financing offer they gave me.
Dear CHRISTOPHER GRIMMETT,
After carefully reviewing your application, we are sorry to advise you that we cannot extend credit to you or we
have offered less favorable terms than you requested. If you would like a statement of specific reasons for this
action, please contact us via the details below within 60 days of the date of this letter. We will provide you with
the statement of reasons within 30 days after receiving your request.
Tesla Finance LLC
12832 Frontrunner Blvd
Draper, UT 84020
(844) 837-5285
If we obtained information from a consumer reporting agency as part of our consideration of your application,
its name, address, and toll-free telephone number is shown below. The reporting agency played no part in our
decision and is unable to supply specific reasons for the decision. You have a right under the Fair Credit
Reporting Act to know the information contained in your credit file at the consumer reporting agency. You also
have a right to a free copy of your report from the reporting agency, if you request it no later than 60 days after
you receive this notice. In addition, if you find that any information contained in the report you receive is
inaccurate or incomplete, you have the right to dispute the matter with the reporting agency.
We also obtained your credit score from the consumer reporting agency and used it in making our credit
decision. Your credit score is a number that reflects the information in your consumer report. Your credit score
can change, depending on how the information in your consumer report changes.
Your credit score: 683
Date: 2/3/2026
Scores range from a low of 250 to a high of 900.
Key factors that adversely affected your credit score:
PROPORTION OF BALANCES TO CREDIT LIMITS IS TOO HIGH ON BANK REVOLVING OR OTHER REVOLVING ACCOUNTS
LACK OF RECENT INSTALLMENT LOAN INFORMATION
TOO MANY ACCOUNTS WITH BALANCES
TOO FEW ACCOUNTS CURRENTLY PAID AS AGREED
I have 3 credit cards with high balances so this makes sense. Regardless, It was cool to see that they would finance me on my $11K per yr income, and their offer was much better than Tenet’s.
I also checked my bank and tenet.com for financing offers. Tenet texted me to confirm that I had not made a typo when I said my income was 24,200 because of my low income, but they would finance $8K of it. My bank called me in response to my loan application, but I did not answer.
Tesla kept the $500 I paid to have the car transported from Renton to Liberty Lake. At first I was thinking that they were being evil by taking the money without doing anything, but I was able to confirm on their website that the car actually had been transported to Liberty Lake.
I am frustrated because $500 is a shitton of money for someone on my income, and I don’t like that they started working before financing was set up. But again, I blame myself for being dumb and knowingly placing an order I could not pay.
They did refund me the $500 deposit.
This is a good lesson for myself to not do this sort of thing again. When buying a car or big expensive thing, a down payment is usually required. I haven’t had to buy any big things before, so this concept isn’t familiar to me. In the past (before self-employment) I had good credit, so I was betting on being able to get $0 down. Reality was not kind in this case.
In the past, Tesla used a consumer law to have one of my YouTube videos removed, in which I expressed skepticism about electric vehicles in general. I never talked about the takedown publicly until now. It was a -1 for them to censor my speech then, but I loved the company anyway. I still love the company today, even after they took $500 of my money and gave me nothing to show for it.
But now I love the company less.