Dealers often make more on the loan than the car. Run your real payment — tax, fees, trade-in, the whole thing — then see what your credit score is actually costing you every month.
Tax is applied to the price minus your trade-in, which is how most states handle it. A few — including California, Michigan (partially) and Virginia — tax the full price, so raise the fee line if you're in one of those.
Enter your numbers to see how your rate compares.
See offers at your credit tierStretching the term lowers the payment but usually raises what you pay in total. Watch both numbers on the right, not just the monthly.
Most people refinance 6–12 months after buying, once the sting of a dealer-marked-up rate shows up on the statement.
Compare refinance offersNothing about the vehicle changes between these rows — only the score attached to the application. Payments below use the loan you built above, repriced at each tier's average APR. The highlighted row simply tracks the APR you entered in the worksheet — it marks whichever tier's average is closest, so change your APR and it moves.
| Credit tier | Average APR | Monthly payment | Total interest | vs. super prime | Lender offers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Super prime781–850 | 6.30% | $458 | $5,571 | — | Compare |
| Prime · your rate661–780 | 8.77% | $490 | $7,930 | +$33/mo | Compare |
| Near prime601–660 | 14.03% | $565 | $13,273 | +$107/mo | Compare |
| Subprime501–600 | 19.42% | $647 | $19,179 | +$189/mo | Compare |
| Deep subprime300–500 | 21.77% | $684 | $21,884 | +$227/mo | Compare |
Average APRs: Experian State of the Automotive Finance Market, Q1 2026 (VantageScore 4.0). Payments are calculated from the loan amount and term in the worksheet above. Your actual offer depends on income, loan-to-value, vehicle age and lender.
Walk in with financing already approved and the finance office loses its best lever on you.
Read the guide: walking in pre-approved
Get pre-qualifiedDealer-arranged loans often carry a markup over what the bank actually approved you for. That markup is refinanceable.
Read the guide: when refinancing pays
Check refinance ratesSubprime approvals exist, but the gap between 601 and 661 is worth thousands. Sometimes waiting is the cheaper move.
Read the guide: borrowing with damaged credit
See lenders for lower scoresFour guides, one point of view: know your number before someone else picks it for you. Every figure is priced from current Experian tier averages.
Every rate comparison site on the internet is paid by someone. Here's ours, in plain language.
If you click through to a lender and complete an application, that lender pays us. You pay nothing, and your rate is identical to applying directly.
We don't sell your contact information to dealerships, and nothing on this page requires an email address to see a result.
Partners don't buy placement. Where the same offer is available from several lenders, we list them by rate.
There's no hard cutoff — lenders finance across the full range, including deep subprime. What changes is the price. In Experian's Q1 2026 data, a used-car borrower at 781+ averaged 6.30% while one in the 501–600 band averaged 19.42%. On a $22,000 loan over 72 months that's roughly a $150 difference every month.
Get your own approval first, then let the dealer try to beat it. Dealers submit your application to lenders and are often permitted to add a markup — commonly up to 1–2 percentage points — to the rate the lender approved. That markup is theirs to keep. Arriving with a competing offer is the simplest way to remove it.
Long terms lower the payment and raise the total cost, and they keep you underwater — owing more than the car is worth — for much longer. If a car only fits your budget at 84 months, that's usually a signal about the car, not the term. Run both in the worksheet and compare the total, not the monthly.
Three situations: your credit improved since you bought, rates dropped, or you took a dealer-arranged loan and suspect it was marked up. Most lenders want to see 6–12 months of payment history and a vehicle under a certain age and mileage.
Keep the remaining term the same when you refinance. Resetting to a fresh 72 months will drop the payment while quietly costing you more.
Pre-qualification uses a soft inquiry, which doesn't affect your score. A full application is a hard inquiry. Auto-loan hard inquiries within a shopping window — typically 14 to 45 days depending on the scoring model — are treated as a single inquiry, so applying to several lenders in a short span is fine.
Enough that you're not underwater on day one. New vehicles lose a meaningful share of their value immediately, so 20% down on a new car and 10% on a used one is the conventional target. If you can't get there, a shorter term does some of the same work.