1. If you default on payments on a loan, the default goes on your credit record and is removed after 6 years, so you might end up with a clean record just as you migfht after bankruptcy.
But a clean record does not mean you can happily start getting credit again. A lot of lenders look unfavourably on people who do not have any credit record and refuse to give them credit! (Of course, that doesn't apply to impecunious young people - students - who the banks seem quite content to lend to!)