Black Box Finance or Immobiliser Car Finance was a scheme that a few specialist Very Bad Credit Car Finance providers ran whereby an immobiliser would be fitted to the finance customer’s car between the battery and the engine so that the finance company could take steps to immobilise the car if the customer were to stop paying their loan. The schemes ran from around 2012 to 2020 via companies such as Vehicle Credit Ltd, The Car Finance Company, Go Car Credit and Trax Motor Finance. Now, finance companies don’t use immobilisers when offering finance and favour more stringent affordability checks to fitting an immobiliser.
The closest alternative to a Black Box Car Loan is to apply through a dealer that deals with every fair, bad and very bad credit car finance company in the U.K. to guarantee the best possible chance of a car finance approval. You should make sure that the dealer in question uses Soft Searches so that when you apply, there is no impact on your credit rating.
Get A Better Car are Nottingham’s best alternative to Black Box Car Finance, and, although none of the car finance providers we use fit a car finance immobiliser, the Very Bad Credit Car Finance providers we deal with such as First Response Finance, Moneybarn, Go Car Credit and Lendable, will accept customers with a “very bad” credit history. Since they all use a soft credit check, if you apply, it will not affect your credit score.
A credit check has to be completed for all finance applications, as well as affordability checks. All finance companies only want to offer car finance to people that they believe are going to be able to make all of their contractual repayments. If your income is sufficient to outweigh your outgoings and your last 12 months credit history doesn’t show a lack of affordability.
There aren’t any companies that offer car finance with a black box any more and the car finance immobilisers were only fitted to cars with certain finance companies between 2012 and 2020.
If you had a car finance agreement with Go Car Credit, The Car Finance Company, Vehicle Credit Ltd, or Trax Motor Finance during that time, there is a high probability that your car was fitted with an immobiliser. This would serve a double purpose for the car finance company:
This device was fitted to cars by car finance providers as a failsafe to help regulate customer payments. The first version of Car Finance Immobilisers had to have a code inputted every month in order to continue using the car. If customers were unable to pay, they would be able to speak to the finance company who could provide a code if they choose to.
The next generation of immobilisers still had the same functions as the first generation of immobilisers, but the customers did not have to enter a code every month to continue using the car. They were still able to immobilise the vehicle in cases of non payment or if customers voluntarily surrendered the car so that they could locate the vehicle and repossess it.
In 2025, there are no longer any car finance lenders that fit black boxes to cars, instead, they apply more scrutiny to the upfront checks to make sure customers have enough affordability to afford the car loan. Your interest rate will be determined by how the lender sees your credit file and which tier they approve you on, we provide examples for the 4 main approval tiers that are usually on offer.
Since Black Box Car Finance evolved into Bad Credit Car Finance in 2020, there have been very few dealers that have specialised in bad credit car finance. There are options for bad credit car finance in Nottingham now with Get A Better Car based in Bramcote, and Stoneacre (with a site in Derby and Nottingham) ranking high for Black Box Car Finance searches in Nottingham.
The finance company would fit an immobiliser to the car for 2 reasons:
The laws around this are very hazy which is what led to finance companies abandoning fitting immobilisers to cars in favour of more thorough upfront checks on potential customers.
Since Black Box Car Finance is no longer offered by bad credit car finance providers, you need to assess whether you are eligible for any car finance product and the criteria to apply is:
You can apply here >
