Know Your Rights

One of the biggest hassles in buying a car is getting a car loan. It is just a simple fact that if you want to purchase a new car you probably need an auto loan to do so. However, for most people, the thought of even having to go in and haggle for the price of the car is daunting enough so that they don’t ever do it. When they do decide that they absolutely have to go get better auto loan, they usually don’t get a very good deal.
 
The first thing you need to know when you go in for a car loan is how much you can afford. Many people make the mistake of going in and telling the dealer that they can afford a certain amount of money each month to pay off that car loan. This is not what you want. Instead, you need to figure out what you can afford per month and multiply that by the number of years that you want to be paying on that auto loan, and that is the amount that you can afford to spend on a car. Now, this is not the amount that you will purchase the car for because this also includes any fees and interest. You take this amount to the dealer and let’s say you can afford $24,000 over a five year loan. You then go to the dealer and you say at the end of the day when you’ve finished out all of your paperwork on a five-year loan I don’t want to pay more than $24,000 for this car - interest and fees included.
 
Before you sign that paperwork, look at the amount that is what you will have paid over the life of the loan. If that amount is more than $24,000 you do not sign that auto loan contract. You also want to ensure that they are not giving you a cheaper car so that they can get you with a higher interest rate. Check with the banks see what the average auto loan rate is so that when you go in they don’t hand you a $6000 car and say that with interest it will be $24,000 at the end of five years. If they try something that shady, you simply walk out of the office.

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