One reason car sales hit an annualized rate of 13.5 million units in December, the best showing in years, is lenders are chasing borrowers who are behind on their mortgages! From Q1 throughQ3 ’11 205K loans were made to buyers who were late on their mortgage or experienced a foreclosure, up from 60K during the same period in ’06. Why? Auto loans 30-days past due peaked at 5.89% in ’09 way below the 8.79% peak for mortgages.