How to Pay Off an Auto Loan Early
In general, you should pay off your car loan early if you don't have other high-interest debt or pressing expenses to worry about. However, if that money could be better spent elsewhere, paying off your car loan early may not be a good idea.
How to Pay Off Your Car Loan Early
Even if you pay your loan off sooner, or make extra payments, the amount of total interest you pay does not change. The amount of interest you pay using precomputed interest will be the same as it is for simple interest if you make all your payments according to the schedule.
Pay early – Make your monthly payment before the due date and less interest will have accrued than if you had paid on time. More of your payment will go toward principal as a result.
Other factors that credit-scoring formulas take into account could also be responsible for a drop: The average age of all your open accounts. If you paid off a car loan, mortgage or other loan and closed it out, that could reduce your age of accounts.
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You can always make a higher payment and reduce your loan balance. However, if you make an extra payment, your car payment will not go down. The auto loan company instead reduces your loan balance and shortens the term of your loan. ... The auto loan company doesn't keep loans on their own balance sheet.
Prepayment is one way to reduce your monthly payments and save money on interest. By paying a larger amount than what's due, you'll reduce the principal you owe. Dividing the smaller, remaining principal by the number of months left on your loan will result in a lower payment per month.
A 72-month car loan can make sense in some cases, but it typically only applies if you have good credit. When you have bad credit, a 72-month auto loan can sound appealing due to the lower monthly payment, but, in reality, you're probably going to pay more than you bargained for.
The most common term currently is for 72 months, with an 84-month loan not too far behind. In fact, nearly 70% of new car loans in the first quarter of 2020 were longer than 60 months — an increase of about 29 percentage points in a decade.
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