<human>: Could you distill the essence of the text into 1-3 sentences?

Hi Guys,
Hopefully someone on here can help me out with some advice for this. (And hopefully right subreddit..) I'll start off by saying, my credit sucks. It's in the mid 500's right now. I spent the majority of my late teens and early 20's financially very immature and not paying things back. I've had a job for the past 5 years making about 70k, and a couple weeks ago started a new job making just over 6 figures and some change.

My old car is about to die, and I'm in need of a new one, knowing this I've begun to attack my credit and try to make it better. I've spent the last week doing self credit reports, calling the creditors/collectors and either paying debts off in full or making payments towards them. I've paid off about 7 k worth of debt in one week. My old auto loan is down to about 1500 bucks and my remaining debt is around 3k total.

However I keep running into a WALL when I try to get an auto loan.. I've been looking at slightly nicer cars (lincoln mkz, infinity g35 type, entry luxury class), and the bottom line is I could buy or make lease payments on 2 of them if I wanted to (I have the income to do it), the sales people are ecstatic when I walk in until they run a hard credit report against me and see that ever ominous 548 (that hasn't budged even though I've cleaned up more than half my credit, and have at least contacted everyone).

What are my options? Am I screwed with this number being more important than what I bring in? I feel like shouting at them to shut-up and take my money, I would be the easiest sale of their day!
<bot>: My credit score is the only thing cramping my style, am I screwed with a KIA for now even though I make over 6 figures?