Now that both GM and GMAC have received aid from the TARP fund set up by congress GM and GMAC are planning on some good financing options.

GMAC said it would relax credit requirements to allow loans to 80 percent of U.S. consumers. In mid-October, GMAC increased minimum credit requirements to a level that shut out 40 percent of GM buyers.

Also Tuesday, GM rolled out promotions to boost sales, including zero percent financing on some vehicles and low-interest rates on about three dozen 2008 and 2009 models. The offers expire Jan. 5.

Local dealers welcomed the moves. Many said that an inability to secure financing in recent months pushed droves of would-be buyers out the door without a new set of keys.

George Fowler, general manager of Superior Pontiac-Buick-GMC in Dearborn, said GMAC’s tight requirements helped lower sales from a monthly average last year of about 150 cars and trucks to just 18 in November.

As of Tuesday, Fowler’s team had sold 24 vehicles this month, compared to 167 in December last year.

“It’s not that people didn’t want to buy,” Fowler said. “It’s that they couldn’t. The credit just wasn’t there.”

GMAC’s move was a big boost for dealers who have not had much good news lately. GM said earlier this month that its restructuring plan could include cutting at least 25 percent of its dealers, or about 1,700, by 2012 and closing, shrinking or selling its Saab, Hummer, Pontiac and Saturn brands.

GM has been hard hit by consumers inability to obtain financing. In November, GM sales fell 41.3 percent, while industry demand plummeted 37 percent to the lowest selling rate in 26 years.

“We will immediately put our renewed access to capital to use to facilitate the purchase of cars and trucks in the U.S.,” GMAC President Bill Muir said Tuesday.

Mark LaNeve, GM’s vice president of North American sales and marketing, said GMAC’s relaxed standards also might allow the automaker to return to leasing vehicles.

LaNeve told The Detroit News that “a viable, healthy finance partner is critical to our turnaround.” He could not immediately predict how much sales might grow with easier access to GMAC loans, but said he expected “a considerable increase in traffic and a lift in sales.”

Continued at Detroit News