Car Loan Comparison Calculator

The interest rate is the number lenders lead with, but it's only one input into what a loan actually costs you. An upfront (establishment) fee is a fixed dollar cost that matters more on a shorter loan, because there's less time for a lower rate to claw it back. A monthly account-keeping fee is small on its own but compounds across dozens of repayments — $10 a month over 5 years is $600, before you've counted a cent of interest.

A balloon (residual) payment is the one that catches people out: financing less of the vehicle month-to-month makes the repayment look attractive, but the deferred amount still has to be paid, refinanced, or covered by the car's resale value at the end of the term. Two loans with the same balloon percentage but different rates can end up a long way apart in total cost — and a loan with no balloon at all can beat a lower-repayment balloon offer once you account for what's still owing at payout. That's exactly the trade-off the verdict panel above is built to surface.

If you want to isolate the balloon effect on a single loan rather than compare two offers, the car loan balloon payment calculator breaks that trade-off down in more depth.

Australian lenders are required to advertise a comparison rate alongside their interest rate — a single percentage that folds in most fees and charges so two products can be compared on a like-for-like basis. Under the National Consumer Credit Protection Regulations 2010, the designated amount and term used to calculate that rate depends on a fixed schedule set out in regulation 97: $30,000 over a 5-year term is the bracket that applies to most car and personal loans (shorter terms use smaller standardised amounts, and a 25-year, $150,000 example covers mortgage-length lending).

That standardisation is useful for comparing two products in the abstract, but it isn't your actual loan — if you're borrowing $25,000 over 4 years, the advertised comparison rate was still calculated on a hypothetical $30,000/5-year loan, not yours. This calculator's effective cost rate is different: it's an annualised rate solved from your own amount financed, term, fees and balloon, so it reflects what each offer actually costs you — but it's a genuinely different number from the regulated comparison rate and the two aren't meant to be read against each other.

Always check the lender's own comparison rate disclosure as a sanity check, and use the effective cost rate here specifically to rank the two quotes you've actually been given.

Dealer finance is arranged at the point of sale, often through the manufacturer's own finance arm. It can be genuinely competitive — new-car finance campaigns sometimes undercut standard bank rates — but it's also where add-on products (extended warranties, gap insurance) and higher base rates on used stock are most commonly bundled in, so read the fee lines carefully.

A bank or broker pre-approval is arranged before you walk into the dealership, giving you a firm rate and borrowing limit to negotiate against. It doesn't obligate you to use it — you can still take the dealer's finance if it turns out cheaper once you compare the two properly.

Enter the dealer's finance quote as Loan A and your bank or broker pre-approval as Loan B (or vice versa) above, matching the same vehicle price and deposit, and let the verdict panel tell you which one to actually sign.