Auto Finance Tool
Work out your real monthly car payment in seconds, including down payment, trade-in equity, sales tax, dealer fees and the interest you will actually pay over the life of the loan. Then see how a longer term or a small extra payment changes the total.
1Your deal
2Your payment
Estimated monthly payment
$0
over 60 months
Estimates only. Your final figure depends on lender rounding, the exact day your loan funds, gap insurance or warranty add-ons, and state-specific tax rules.
Same car, same rate. Only the number of months changes. This is the trade-off dealers rarely put in front of you.
| Term | Monthly payment | Total interest | Vs. 60 months |
|---|
See exactly how much of each payment kills the balance and how much just feeds interest.
| Year | Principal | Interest | Balance |
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Most auto loan calculators ask for three numbers and hand you a payment that never matches the finance office. This one models the parts that actually move your payment.
Still owe more on your trade-in than it is worth? Enter the payoff amount and the shortfall gets rolled into the new loan, exactly the way a dealer does it. Most calculators silently ignore this and under-quote you by thousands.
In most states you only pay sales tax on the price after the trade-in credit. Toggle it on or off to match your state instead of accepting one hard-coded assumption.
Add anything from $25 a month and instantly see the interest saved and how many months come off the term. Almost no competing car loan calculator offers this.
36, 48, 60, 72 and 84 month payments calculated at once, with the extra interest each longer term costs you spelled out in dollars.
Switch between a year-by-year summary and the first twelve months to see how heavily front-loaded the interest really is.
Everything runs in your browser. No email wall, no lead form sold to dealerships, no figures leaving your device, and results update as you type.
Dealers negotiate on monthly payment because it hides the total. Arrive with a payment and a total interest figure you calculated yourself and that tactic stops working.
Stretching from 60 to 84 months lowers the payment but often adds thousands in interest and keeps you underwater far longer. The comparison table puts both numbers next to each other.
Work backwards. Decide the payment your budget supports, then adjust the price until it fits, so you shop in a range you can actually sustain.
Run the dealer offer and your bank pre-approval through the same calculator. Differences in APR that look tiny often translate into a meaningful gap in total interest.
Car loans use the standard amortizing loan formula: M = P × r / (1 − (1 + r)−n), where P is the amount financed, r is the monthly rate (APR divided by 12) and n is the number of months. Each payment is identical, but the split shifts: early payments are mostly interest, later ones mostly principal. If the rate is 0%, the payment is simply the amount financed divided by the number of months.
It depends heavily on your credit score, whether the car is new or used, and the loan term. Buyers with excellent credit typically see the lowest advertised tiers, while subprime borrowers can pay several times that, and used car rates usually run higher than new. The reliable move is to get pre-approved by a credit union or bank before visiting the dealership, then treat the dealer’s financing as a competing offer to beat rather than the default.
A common guideline is 20% down on a new car and 10% on a used one. The reason is depreciation: a new vehicle loses value fastest in its first year, so a small down payment leaves you owing more than the car is worth. A larger down payment lowers the amount financed, reduces total interest, and can help you qualify for a better rate.
Long terms are not automatically wrong, but they carry real costs. You pay substantially more interest, you stay underwater on the loan for much longer, and you may still be paying when major repairs start. Use the term comparison table above: if the extra interest on 84 months is uncomfortable, the honest answer is usually that the car is more than your budget supports, not that you need a longer loan.
Yes. Open the tax, fees and extra payments panel to enter your sales tax rate and your title, registration and documentation fees. You can also choose whether to roll those costs into the loan or pay them up front, and whether your state applies sales tax before or after the trade-in credit. These choices routinely change a monthly payment by $30 to $80.
That gap is called negative equity. If your trade is worth $9,000 and you owe $12,000, the remaining $3,000 gets added to your new loan, so you finance the shortfall plus the new car. Enter the payoff amount in the advanced panel and the calculator rolls it in and warns you. Financing negative equity is expensive, and where possible it is better to delay the purchase until the old loan is closer to paid off.
Usually yes. Most US auto loans use simple interest, so extra payments go straight to principal and reduce the interest that accrues from then on. Enter an amount in the extra payment field to see the interest saved and the months removed. Check your loan agreement for a prepayment penalty first, and make sure the lender applies extra funds to principal rather than treating them as an advance payment.
It works for any amortizing auto loan, so used car purchases and refinancing are both covered. For refinancing, enter your current payoff balance as the vehicle price, set the down payment and trade-in to zero, and use the new rate and term. Leases work differently because they are based on depreciation plus a money factor, so this calculator will not model them accurately.
A car is usually the second largest purchase people make, and the financing decides how much it really costs. Run your figures, test a shorter term, and take the total interest number with you.
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