Making sense of closed accounts on a credit report: please HELP!

[Christine Beeman]

I have an applicant who makes 6.8X the rent. She has a credit score just under 600 and literally $30 bucks of debt (her open account shows no late payments). However, there's a closed auto loan with 20 late payments (over 15k). I asked her more about that and she said that she had settled it and is waiting on the title.  I feel silly asking this here but what could that mean? Was she late on all of those payments and then just paid the car off? Red flag?