I'm working in auto finance and my manager is pushing our team to get the Certified Asset Recovery Specialist (CARS) credential. The exam is through ARA and I've been struggling to find recent prep material - most of what's online is from 2018-2019 and I'm not sure how much the content has shifted.
The exam covers five domains: skip tracing, legal compliance, field operations, remarketing, and communication. The compliance section apparently reflects more recent state repossession statutes, which is where I'm least confident since regulations vary so much by state. I scored 58% on a practice set I found and need 70% to pass.
I've got about 5 weeks before my scheduled date. Plan is two weeks on compliance then three weeks of mixed practice. My day job involves skip tracing and field coordination so those domains should be solid. Just wondering if anyone's sat for it recently and can say whether the 2023+ version is harder than what older threads describe.
Five weeks is comfortable. I passed with 74% after about 3.5 weeks of prep at an hour a day. The ARA prep materials they sell are worth the money - better than anything free I found online.
Your skip tracing background will carry you through at least 20-25 questions easily. I came from a similar background and felt confident in that domain going in. The remarketing section was shorter than I expected - maybe 10 questions total.
I took it last fall and the compliance section is definitely the most updated part. There were several questions about Right to Cure notice requirements that felt very current. Focus on which states have mandatory waiting periods - that topic came up multiple times.
Don't overlook the communication and documentation questions. I almost skipped that domain because it sounded easy, but there were some tricky scenario questions about proper notification procedures I wasn't expecting.