Auto Loan Calculator
Use our free Auto Loan Calculator to estimate the overall cost of purchasing a car, including the sales price, sales tax, and the many charges and fees that creep up on you when you finally decide to make the purchase. The worksheet calculates the total Loan Amount, taking into account your down payment, trade-in, or cash rebate. You can then use the Auto Loan Payment Calculator (another worksheet within the Excel workbook) to create an amortization schedule and analyze different types of loans by changing the loan amount, interest rate, term of the loan (years), and the payment frequency.
Our Auto Loan Calculator gives you complete flexibility in how you make additional payments, in case you want to pay off your loan early and avoid paying so much interest.
IMPORTANT: Many auto loans are actually "Simple Interest Loans" that accrue interest daily. Our Auto Loan Calculator is great for running quick calculations, but if your loan is actually a simple interest loan, then you may get more accurate numbers by using our Simple Interest Loan Calculator.
Auto Loan Calculator
for Excel
Download
⤓ ExcelLicense: Personal Use (not for distribution or resale)
"No installation, no macros - just a simple spreadsheet" - by Jon Wittwer
Description
This Microsoft Excel workbook contains three different worksheets ...
1. Use the Auto Loan Calculator worksheet to calculate the amount you will need to finance, based on the sales price of the car, destination charge, fees, sales tax, down payment, cash rebate, and trade-in value of an older auto.
2. Use the Payment Calculator worksheet (the featured image above) to create an amortization table based on the auto loan amount, annual interest rate, term of the loan, and payment frequency. See how making extra payments can help you pay off your car loan early and reduce the amount of total interest paid.
3. The third worksheet (Loan Comparisons) takes the inputs from the loan payment calculator and creates graphs showing you how different interest rates, number of payments, or the amount of down payment affect the monthly payment and total amount of interest.
Using the Auto Loan Calculator
Information about how to use the loan calculators are contained within the spreadsheet itself, mostly as cell comments. Basically, you just enter values in the white-background cells, and see what happens to the other numbers. In the Payment Calculator, you can also enter values in the yellow cells (the Extra Payments column). The spreadsheet has been left unlocked, to give you complete freedom to modify it as needed for your personal use. However, make sure you know how the equations and formulas work before you try to branch out on your own. We don't provide technical support for creating custom spreadsheets, but if you have some suggestions or comments, please let us know.
Buying vs. Leasing Calculators
Our auto loan calculator spreadsheet does not contain a calculator for comparing leasing vs. buying. However, there are a few online calculators that you could use:
- Lease Calculator at Edmunds.com
- Lease vs. Buy a Car at BankRate.com
Cash Back vs. Low-Interest Financing
Sometimes, the auto manufacturer offers incentives in the form of a cash rebate or lower interest rate, but usually not both at the same time. The auto loan calculators in our spreadsheet let you specify a cash rebate and the annual interest rate. You can save (or print out) two different versions of the spreadsheet in order to make comparisons.
Check out the Low APR vs. Cash Back Calculator at Edmunds.com.
See Also:
- Vehicle Maintenance Schedule
- Gas Mileage Calculator
- Balloon Payment Loan Calculator
- Home Equity Loan Calculator
- Extra Payment Mortgage Calculator
- ARM Loan Calculator
- Amortization Calculation Formula
- Amortization Formulas in Excel
- Amortization Calculator (web-based)
References & Resources
- Online Auto Loan Calculator at Bankrate.com : A very nice online loan calculator that creates an amortization table, too.
