Car Finance 101: Everything You Need to Know

Quick Facts About Financing a Car

• Factors like credit history, credit score, loan amount, and loan duration determine interest rate.
• Shop for the lowest interest rate before going to the dealership, then weigh the best option.
• If you need to repair your credit before buying, doing so can help raise your credit score.

Whether you financed a dozen cars or are new to the game, getting a loan for a car can be a daunting experience. Of course, you can sleepwalk your way through it, squeeze your eyes shut, and hope for the best. Or, you can be proactive, do some homework, shop around, and get the best deal possible.

If you pick the second option, we’ve put together this guide as a road map to help you navigate the financing process.

• Understanding Interest Rates
• What Is Financing a Car?
• What Are the Two Ways to Finance a Car?
• How Car Financing Works
• Car Financing Options
• Determining Your Monthly Budget
• What Is Your Credit Score’s Role in Car Financing?
• Refinancing a Car
• Is Financing a Car the Best Choice for Me?
• What to Know Before Financing a Car

Understanding Interest Rates

Spoiler alert: Your goal when financing is to land the lowest interest rate possible. Ensuring you get the lowest rate you deserve requires some effort on your part. Here’s some simple math to help you get into the proper frame of mind.

According to the consumer credit experts at Experian, the average amount borrowed to buy a new vehicle reached just over $40,200 in the second quarter of 2022. That new loan amount is up about $5,000 since a year ago. According to Bankrate, interest rates, too, increased to 5.97% for a 60-month loan on a new vehicle as of November 2022.

Let’s say that’s what you’re financing. Using Autotrader’s car payment calculator, if you finance $40,200 for 60 months (5 years) at 5.97% interest, you will pay $777 per month. Your total interest paid over those five years will be $6,397.

Knocking just one point off that interest rate to 4.97% reduces the monthly payment to $758. Total interest paid over those five years drops to $5,284.

Yep, that’s a savings of $1,113. Suddenly you have the cash to buy that new 60-inch TV and a gaming console (if you can find one).

If that makes sense to you, please read on.

What Is Financing a Car?

Financing a car means borrowing money, typically from a bank, credit union, or financing arm of a car manufacturer, and paying it back over time to buy that car today. This is how most of us buy a vehicle. Some buyers decide to lease instead, and some finance. But nearly all of us use someone else’s money to purchase a new or used vehicle.

At the time of purchase, you sign an agreement to pay a set amount each month for an agreed-upon number of months, at the end of which the agreement is fulfilled. Loan terms can vary for the length of time you choose and what you can afford. However, most last between three to six years, or 36 months to 72 months, though some go as high as seven years or 84 months.

Using that borrowed money, however, isn’t free. We must pay for it. The amount we must pay is known as interest. It is part of those monthly payments, along with the sales tax and other fees.

From Experian’s report, the average number of months for a car loan in 2022 is 69 months, about the same as last year.

What Determines the Interest Rate?

Much goes into determining a buyer’s interest rate. The person’s credit score, credit history, loan amount, length (term) of a loan, and so forth get weighed by the lender when assigning an interest rate.

Beyond that, different lenders may assign you different interest rates based on the same information. This is why shopping your loan around to several lenders makes good financial sense.

Read on for more details.

What Are the Two Ways to Finance a Car?

Basically, when you don’t pay cash for a car, you have two primary avenues for borrowing the money: financing with a loan or leasing.

Car Financing with a Loan

This is how the majority of us buy a car. It’s usually fairly straightforward. Anyone who has purchased something, especially something pricey, using credit should have a certain comfort level with a car loan.

The main ingredients of a car loan:

• Down payment or trade-in
• Loan amount or balance, including taxes, title, and fees
• Term or length of the loan
• Interest rate or the cost of the money being borrowed

Most of what we discuss with loan financing applies to new and used vehicles. However, interest rates tend to be higher for used than new. An Experian report shows that new car interest rates reached 5.97% for a 60-month loan in November. A 36-month loan was 6.18% for used cars.

With a car loan, if you make your payments on time, you own the vehicle at the end of the loan term.

Car Financing With a Lease

We aren’t going to go too far down the rabbit hole here on car leasing. Cox Automotive, the parent company to Autotrader, projects the leasing share of retail new vehicle sales will be 19% in 2022.

The main ingredients of a lease work similarly to a car loan. However, the two processes offer little in common and bring totally different outcomes.

Think of leasing as a long-term rental. You never own the car, share in its equity, or have anything tangible to show for those monthly payments at the end of the lease. The monthly payments are based on what the lender believes the car will be worth at the end of the lease.

Although they can be shorter or longer, lease terms are usually 24 to 36 months. Whatever the lender projects the vehicle will lose in value over the lease term is the basis for calculating the monthly payment. As with a loan, calculating the interest, also known as the “money factor” in leasing, gets based on the purchase price.

On the one hand, the monthly payment for a lease is almost always less than the monthly payment for a traditional car loan. On the other hand, at the end of a car loan, the vehicle is yours. At the end of the lease, the car still belongs to the lender.

Issues With Leasing

Leases can be tough to break. If, for any reason, you need to get out of a lease early, you may not be able to without paying off the remaining balance. At best, you will face huge penalties.

At the end of the lease, if the vehicle shows only signs of normal wear and tear, you can probably hand back the keys and walk away. However, normal wear and tear is a subjective call that you don’t get to make. You may be penalized for some dings on the exterior and stains on the seats. Moreover, there is a mileage limit you may have exceeded. You will pay a penalty for each mile you drive over the limit.

The good news is that you usually have the option of buying the car at the end of the lease. If you do, you avoid those penalties.

How Financing a Car Works

When you drive off a dealer’s lot in a new car, the dealer has been paid for it in full. Either you paid for it, or some lending institution did.

You may have had a trade-in covering some of the transaction cost of the new car and then you paid the rest in cash. Otherwise, you borrowed at least some of the cost of the new car from a lender.

Most of us borrow at least some of the cost from a lender.

Whatever that leftover balance is will be the loan amount. In other words, the amount financed.

If you did not secure financing at the time of the purchase, you would need to apply for a loan and wait until it’s approved. When your credit looks good, approval might take 15 minutes. If your credit is not so good, it could take a day or two as the dealer shops the loan around.

In any case, before driving off in your shiny new or new-to-you car, you will typically sign a binding agreement to pay back the lender. The final loan amount will include the purchase balance and any costs or fees related to borrowing the money. These costs and fees will include the cost of borrowing the money (interest) and any fees the lender requires to make the loan.

The agreement also sets the loan’s term, otherwise known as the loan’s length. It will be stated in months: 24, 36, 48, 60, and so forth. Your monthly car payment will be the exact amount required to pay off the loan balance at the end of its term.

If you need help determining how much you can afford to pay for a car, use our guide to determine what fits your budget and what’s right for you.

Why Is a Short-Term Loan Better?

The payment gets split whenever you pay your car loan, just like a mortgage, credit card, or formal loan. Part of it goes toward paying down the purchase balance (principal), and part pays the interest.

Car loans are installment loans. In other words, the lender calculated the interest over the loan term and baked the amount into the monthly payment for the vehicle, even though that amount is fixed.

Until you reach the point where the car is worth something as a trade-in, you remain upside down in the loan.

If you want to pay off the loan early, the lender will quote you a payoff amount lower than the sum of your remaining payments. That’s because when you reduce the loan term, you are reducing the cost of the borrowed money.

Car Financing Options

When financing a car purchase, you have the option of financing the deal on your own or through the dealership.

Direct Lending

Whether you decide to finance through the dealership or not, it’s a good idea to check out some alternatives. This is best done before ever heading to the dealership. It’s called getting preapproved.

In your quest to score the best financing deal, you need to know the best interest rate for which you could qualify. The easiest way to gain that knowledge is by shopping yourself around to a few lenders. You can get preapproved at banks, credit unions, and finance companies.

The bank you regularly do business with is an ideal place to start. However, keep in mind lenders want to lend. You can visit any lending institution, sit down with a loan officer, and initiate the process.

Credit unions are well known for low car loan interest rates. You might consider joining one.

After speaking to a few lenders, you will know how much money you can borrow and at what interest rate. If you like what you hear, you can walk into the dealership with a preapproval in your hand.

This allows you to negotiate your car deal with more confidence and gives you the freedom to shop multiple dealers.

Dealership Financing

Financing through the dealer can go a couple of different ways.

The most obvious reason for financing a new car through the dealer is if the car manufacturer offers special financing. This happens regularly with most brands. You can only get the deal through the dealer.

Ford, General Motors, Toyota, and other carmakers created their own financing divisions. For example, Ford Motor Credit and Toyota Financial Services are known as “captive lenders” because they are tied to a particular carmaker.

These captive lenders often run interest rate specials on certain models. Sometimes they don’t require any money down or offer interest rates as low as 0%. Such deals are reserved for buyers with excellent credit. These days, you will see fewer 0% deals due to supply and vehicle shortages.

If you find yourself shopping for a certified pre-owned (CPO) vehicle at a franchised dealer, it can be very much like shopping for a new car. The brand’s captive lender may well be running financing and leasing deals on the vehicle you want to buy.

The other reason you might find yourself sitting in a dealer’s business office applying for credit is if you’ve been unable to secure your own financing. This isn’t a great position to be in.

It restricts your ability to shop around for a better interest rate and leaves you open to making a snap decision. That’s not the best strategy when borrowing thousands of dollars.

Bad Credit Car Loans

If you seriously tried to secure your own financing and couldn’t, the dealer might offer some options to make something happen. The dealer is motivated to sell you a car. If financing exists out there, the dealer will find it.

If you are shopping for a used car, the dealer might even be willing to broker the financing or carry the loan.

In these instances, you are almost guaranteed to pay a relatively high interest rate. Remember that you can always get up, go home, and think about it. The deal will still be there tomorrow.

If nothing else, you can work on your credit score while you wait.

Determining Your Monthly Payment

The monthly payment on the vehicle you are buying is a function of the transaction price, the down payment, the loan term, and the interest rate. That’s it.

Lowering the transaction price involves not only negotiating down the sale price of the vehicle, but maybe scaling back on the car you hope to buy. Do you really need a 12-speaker audio system or leather seats?

If you’ve done your homework, you should have a good idea of what the dealer invoice cost of the vehicle is and what that vehicle typically sells for in your area. If you don’t, excuse yourself, go home, and do the research.

Negotiating the lowest price on the vehicle you want, though, is only half the battle in scoring the best deal. You can wipe out what you managed to save on the purchase by paying a higher interest rate than you deserve.

This is why you need to know how lenders see you in terms of risk. You need to have at least a ballpark idea of the interest rate for which you qualify.

Even if a monthly payment seems affordable and within your budget, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best interest rate you can get.

What Is Your Credit Score’s Role in Car Financing?

Your credit score isn’t everything in securing financing, but it’s a honking-big thing. Your credit score is a lender’s first impression of you as a borrower. Beyond your name and address, it’s the first thing a lender cares about.

Your credit score shows a snapshot of your credit health at any particular moment. It’s a number that goes up or down every week. Moreover, you have more than one credit score at any given time. That’s right: Several agencies and financial institutions monitor your credit and maintain your credit score.

More than likely, all of these credit scores are similar, within 10 or 15 points, but they aren’t the same. Likewise, not every lender uses the same scale to rate credit scores.

Here’s how FICO, or Fair Isaac Corp., and VantageScore break down their scores. VantageScore is a joint venture of Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, the three most prominent national credit reporting services.

FICO

Source: FICO

VantageScore

Source: VantageScore

To help you understand where your credit score stands in the bigger picture of car financing, we’ve pulled these three statistics from a 2022 Experian report on the latest trends in car financing.

1. 1. The average credit score for a new car loan is 738.
   2. For a used car loan, it’s 675.
   3. Only about 16% of loans and leases for new and used vehicles went to borrowers with a credit score below 601.

Tips for Repairing Your Credit Score

If your score is below 600, it’s not the end of the world, but you have some work to do. We offer these tips to help build a better credit score:

• Reduce balances on loans. Pay off whatever loan balances you have. One of the factors negatively impacting a credit score is a high ratio of loan balances to your overall credit limit. In other words, if all your accounts combined have a total credit limit of $10,000 and all the balances combined are $9,800. It’s a problem.
• Keep accounts current. Do your best to pay any delinquent balances. Besides bankruptcy and repossessions, late payments are historically the biggest drag on a credit score.
• Abstain from new credit. Likewise, avoid opening new accounts. Credit scores respond positively to older, established accounts and not so much to new ones.

Refinancing a Car

Car loan interest rates remained so low for so long that most people see no reason to refinance. Because of inflation and interest rate increases, it’s doubtful you can get a better interest rate today than you did two years ago.

However, maybe you didn’t do your homework when you bought that vehicle two years ago. Now, you realize you are stuck with an interest rate higher than you deserve. You can refinance. Or, if your credit had some serious dings, but your credit score is much higher today than when you got your car loan, you can refinance.

We’ll say it again — lenders want to lend. Your current lender will not be very motivated to refinance you at a lower rate, but another lender might.

Here’s the rub, you may still owe more on your car than it’s worth. It’s that “underwater” thing we talked about earlier. If your credit score is really high or you are willing to put down more cash, a lender might take the leap.

If you are considering refinancing, you need three numbers: your credit score, the payoff amount of your current loan, and the current book value of the vehicle.

Is Financing a Car the Best Choice for Me?

Unless you are a member of the 0.01%, chances are you need to finance some part of your new car purchase. Cash is better. Maybe consider a used car you can pay for in cash.

Otherwise, you will need to finance or lease. Leasing isn’t a good idea unless you do it for business purposes. Yes, you have a newer car to drive for two or three years, but then what? You may find yourself paying hundreds of dollars in mileage overages and damage penalties.

If you can’t pay cash, a car loan is an answer. Look for those carmaker-sponsored financing specials and take advantage of one. If you can’t find one that works for you, shop around to several lenders and find the best deal that way.

What to Know Before Financing a Car

1. Research the car you want: In today’s connected world, there is no excuse for not being armed with all the pricing information on the car you are considering. This includes the dealer cost and average transaction price, which lately topped $48,300.
2. Calculate the costs of ownership: Besides knowing if you can afford the monthly payment, research the ownership costs of the car. Those include insurance, monthly maintenance, and fuel expenses. Will the total cost of ownership fit within your budget? Try our sister site’s ownership cost estimates tool to get a better idea.
3. Determine your credit score: Your bank or credit union may track your credit score. If not, reach out to Experian or one of the other national consumer credit agencies. While you’re at it, get a copy of your credit score. By law, the national consumer credit agencies must provide you with your credit report each year, but you must request it.
4. Save a down payment: If you don’t have a trade-in, you may need to put some money down. Lenders like to see a borrower have some financial skin in the game. They see you as less of a risk. Try to put together at least 10% to 20% of the vehicle price.
5. Secure a co-signer: If your chances of securing financing look really grim, a co-signer might be enough for a lender to take a chance.