APR, also known as the annual percentage rate, is determined by your interest rate, loan amount, duration of your loan, and any additional fees.
There are a couple of ways to calculate APR; one of the easiest ways is to get help from an Excel or spreadsheet program.
To do this, determine the =RATE(your loan information)*12
RATE can usually be found under financial in the spreadsheet functions.
Your loan information that goes in the parenthesis is:
The months of your loan term
Estimated monthly payments (as a negative number)
Value of the loan minus fees (do not include commas)
Let’s say you take out a 72-month loan
for $26,000, and your monthly payment is $440. You will write into the cell on your spreadsheet: =RATE(72,-440,26000)*12.
The answer is 0.067 or about 6%.
This number won’t be the same for everyone’s 72-month $26,000 car loan because APR is also determined by credit scores, credit history, and any additional lender fees added in. Because of this, this number is an estimate to help you determine how much to expect.
Talk to your lender to ask more about APR and how they determine it for you. If your APR is too high or you want to make changes to your car loan to save money, the best way is through refinancing. You can refinance through the Jerry
app. Car owners pay $85 less every month by refinancing their auto loans. MORE: How to refinance a car