Car Loan Calculator

You’ll need to enter some details about your car loan. These are explained below:

• Loan Amount — The amount of money you will be taking out under a car loan agreement. This is often simply the vehicle's purchase price, minus any deposit or trade-in amount. If you are borrowing extra to cover other purchase costs (like delivery) or ongoing costs (like car insurance) be sure to factor that in too.
• Interest Rate — This is the fixed car loan interest rate the lender applies, and is used to calculate both the total amount of interest you will pay over the loan period and your scheduled repayment amount. Remember, interest rates are usually lower on secured car loans but tend to be higher for used cars and borrowers with bad credit.
• Loan Term — The length of your car loan as outlines in your loan agreement. The loan term is important as it will allow you to accurately calculate your monthly, fortnightly, or weekly payments through an Annual Percentage Rate (APR) calculation. The shorter your loan term, the higher your scheduled repayments will be. But you'll pay less in interest overall with a shorter term.
• Establishment Fees — Any upfront fees charged by the lender on the loan. Establishment fees are included in the calculation for your repayments to provide a more accurate total loan amount.
• Balloon Payment Any balloon payment or residual value as a dollar amount or a percentage.

Once you have filled in your car loan details, simply click ‘See My Repayments’ to view an estimated repayment amount. You can then select Monthly, Fortnightly, or Weekly repayments to see what your repayment amount will be at various frequencies.

The car loan calculator with balloon payment uses an amortisation calculation.

This calculation takes into account the way you will gradually repay your loan amount over time, meaning the amount of interest charged gradually decreases.

It means at the start of the loan a large proportion of your repayments are going towards paying off interest. As the loan balance decreases over time, you pay off more of the actual loan amount (known as the principal).

The car loan calculator with balloon also takes account of the balloon payment amount, which remains the same during the term of the loan as it is not repaid until the end.

You are generally still charged interest on the full loan amount (including the balloon amount) throughout the life of the loan.

The balloon payment level can either be calculated as a dollar amount or it may be a standard percentage of the car's value/loan amount set by the lender. It's usually somewhere in the region of 30-40% of the vehicle's value.

It's usually thousands of dollars, so many borrowers opt to refinance the balloon amount at the end of the finance term.