An auto financing payment calculator is probably one of the most useful tools available for consumers shopping for vehicles. There are a number of these
free auto loan calculators available that will allow you to create everything from amortization schedules to assisting you in making a decision on whether you want to buy or lease your next vehicle. At this time, we will discuss two different kinds of calculators - the loan payment calculator and the loan rates calculator.
The loan calculator auto known as the loan payment calculator is useful because it does two things very well - it demonstrates how a new car will fit into your overall financial situation and allows you to compare different interest rates and loan terms so that you can determine which changes will make the most difference in the amount of interest expense that you will incur over the life of your loan.
Loan payment calculators vary in the amount of information they can furnish the user. While many perform just the simplest of calculations, the very best payment calculators contain a number of fields that allow you to input such things as monthly payment, loan term in months, cash down payment, trade-in allowance, balance owed on trade, total purchase price, interest rate, non-taxable fees, taxable fees and state sales tax rate.
In addition to determining a monthly payment amount, the most sophisticated of these programs will also allow you to perform a reverse payment calculation - that is, you enter everything but the purchase price and the program allows you to calculate the sale price of the vehicle based on the number of payments and the monthly payment. This will tell you if the dealer has included any hidden charges in the sales contract.
A second type of loan calculator - the loan rates calculator - allows you to compare monthly payments, fees, auto loan rates and other costs associated with obtaining a vehicle loan. By allowing you to compare two or even three sets of variables side by side, you can pick out the type of loan that works best for you. To top it all off, the best of these loan calculators will allow you to view and print a report of the results so that you don't lose this valuable information.