Do you have a car loan?

[catherinemoses]

Do you have a new car loan and if you do how much do you pay per month?

We are thinking about taking over one from FIL and I just want to gauge how much others spend on theirs

TIA

[Glamourcide]

I don't know if I'll be much help, but DH and I struggled for ages to get a car loan for something decent because he has a bad credit rating (and I don't work), so we ended up having to go through one of those bad-credit finance places.
They're pretty thorough so there were a few months of messing around trying to find a car that was good enough (we didn't want to take out a loan for an old lemon that would die on us before we'd paid it off, or need constant repairs, so we were trying desperately to get something pretty new and in good nick from a reputable dealer), but eventually we got an amazing deal from our local Holden used-car dealer (who my parents have been buying cars from for ten years and they've always been great, they don't sell crap cars and they are very good on warranties, repairs etc) on a 2-year-old VZ Commodore with very low km's for $17k (we go tit a bit cheaper because it was just before the end of the financial year and they were flogging off cars to get their sales targets up).
Our interest is quite high at 27%, so we will end up paying around $30k for the car, and our repayments are $146 a week, which is manageable for us, so we're very happy with it.

I can't offer much advice as I know very little about interest rates and shopping around and finance companies etc lol, but yeah, like I said, $146 a week for a $17k car with 27% interest (I honestly can't remember whether the loan is a 3-year or 5-year loan, sorry!!), so that's our situation for comparison. Hopefully you can get a much better interest rate (curse DH's bad credit lol), good luck

[catherinemoses]

Thanks Donna.
It sounds a little bit less that what we would be paying if we took it over. It is a 2007 model Territory...I'm a bit undecided what to do

[ss_storm]

We had to buy a car (we bought a second hand one privately) when my old car was written off. The insurance money was about $4000, which wasn't going to buy us anything decent, so I applied for a personal loan through our bank, ANZ, for $8000, which gave us enough to buy a car, with some leftover to pay for insurance and put some in our savings account. Through ANZ, my interest rate at the moment is about 13% and keeps dropping, minimum weekly repayments are just over $40, but I normally pay $50-$70 or even $100 if I can afford it, per week. That was taken over 7 years but we will have it paid out way before then, don't want to end up having it for 7 years!

If you are able to get a personal loan from a bank, that would probably be better than getting a car on finance as the interest is heaps less.

[Phteven]

You probably don't want to hear it but a car loan is not good move financially. While the amount of your loan is going up because of interest the value of the asset (your car) is going down because of age/depreciation.
You're better off with a crappy car that you can buy straight out than with a car bought on a loan. Try the auctions to pick up a decent car at a fair price.
That said we were sorely tempted by the Lexus 4 year interest free deal on their 4wd's.

ETA - FWIW when it comes to making financial descisions what matters isn't so much what other people pay but whether you can fit it into your budget or not.

[catherinemoses]

You probably don't want to hear it but a car loan is not good move financially. While the amount of your loan is going up because of interest the value of the asset (your car) is going down because of age/depreciation.
You're better off with a crappy car that you can buy straight out than with a car bought on a loan. Try the auctions to pick up a decent car at a fair price.
That said we were sorely tempted by the Lexus 4 year interest free deal on their 4wd's.

ETA - FWIW when it comes to making financial descisions what matters isn't so much what other people pay but whether you can fit it into your budget or not.

Thanks brontide. I'm very aware of that which is what is making me hesitant! I think we have worked something out...hopefully

[mitzy81]

I agree also. I have a reliable older car which I will keep until it stops, or until I have cash to buy my next car outright. Once you sit down and work out how much interest you will be paying for the term of the car, it can be a lot, and over the years and each time you trade up or get a new car,it could be a big chunk off your mortgage. In my younger days I would get a newer car every few years to 'keep up' but now I think how stupid I was! Oh well, we live and learn! Saying that, it is everyone's personal choice and what you can and can't afford.

[*Efjay*]

You probably don't want to hear it but a car loan is not good move financially. While the amount of your loan is going up because of interest the value of the asset (your car) is going down because of age/depreciation.
You're better off with a crappy car that you can buy straight out than with a car bought on a loan. Try the auctions to pick up a decent car at a fair price.
That said we were sorely tempted by the Lexus 4 year interest free deal on their 4wd's.

ETA - FWIW when it comes to making financial descisions what matters isn't so much what other people pay but whether you can fit it into your budget or not.

Have to agree here. Just this week gone I discovered how majorly screwed over we are because of this. I still owe 21k on car that isn't worth half that IF it was going! Tuesday seen the timing belt snap on it & we are now up for close to 5 k worth of repairs. Its the only way we will afford (not that we canr eally afford 5k) to have a car.
We have only had the car 2 years. It wasn;t an old car exactly when we got it. its a 04 Kia carnival. I know Kia's aren;t the greatest of cars but still. Now I have a car that if I traded as is I would be lucky to get 3k for & I still owe 21k on it

[Bathsheba]

No! We don't!!!

We bought our 11 year old station wagon 10 years ago second hand... it had only 12,000kms on the dial and was only 6 months old.... had been driven by a Mitsubishi rep... still had plastic on the backseat! Anyhow... it was such a burden paying it off I never want to have to do it again! Especially not for a car which is NOT an asset because it drains more money from your budget than it will ever return.

Brontide is completely spot on: car finance is a rip off. Way better just to save up and pay cash for a good used car.... or use a credit card (ideally on a low interest rate) to make up the difference.