Car Loan Interest Rates Compared
Borrowing money to buy a new car can cost a lot less from some lenders. There is plenty of competition out there but you need to compare rates carefully to ensure you are getting the best deal.
If you can get zero percent finance from a dealer (Opel has offers at the moment) – you will be doing well. You might not be able to haggle on the price as much – but 0% finance on 13000 euro over 3 years could be worth as much as 1500 euro in saved interest charges.
Some lenders are advertising car loans as if they are different rates to loans for other purposes – but in most cases the car loan rates are just the same as a loan for any other purpose (except mortgages)
The rate of interest may vary, you will usually get a lower rate if you borrow more.
Until February 28, Bank of Ireland is offering a promotional fixed rate of 6.9 per cent APR on car loans of €20,000 or more over five years. But you could get this same rate on smaller amounts from Tesco Personal Finance.
Halifax has also just launched its new car loan product, with fixed rates of 6.5 to 8.8 per cent, depending on how much you borrow.You need to borrow over 25k to get a rate of 6.5% APR. If you are borrowing this much – then the Halifax is the place to go.
If you borrow €15k or more you get a Garmin Sat Nav absolutely free!
The headline rate doesn’t look so good if you borrow 13k\over 3 yrs the APR is 7.2%. So again the 6.9% from Tesco is better . Borrowing between 15k and 25K from Halifax gets you an APR of 6.9% – the same as Tesco (but you get the Satnav from Halifax)
EBS loan rates range from 7.99 per cent to 11.37 per cent too high to even consider.
Permanent TSB have varying rates – New cars over €15,000 – APR 6.9%. New cars between €9,000 – €15,000 – APR 7.9%. New cars under €9,000 and used cars – APR 8.9%.
Minimum loan amount €2,500, The APR for loans from €5,000 to €8,999 is 10.4% and for loans less than €5,000 the APR is 11.7%.
Tip: Try to match your repayment plan with the length of time you’ll have the car. Borrowing over a longer term means you have lower monthly repayments but it will cost you a lot more in interest over the life of the