Ideally we recommend that you avoid taking out a loan to buy a car. You should adjust your budget and trim your other living expenses in advance so you can save enough to buy a car. Car loan interest rates are generally quite high and you should proceed with caution. If you do decide to use a loan to finance your car, we strongly recommend going with Driverloans.com, which compares offers from a nationwide network of lenders and finds you the lowest rate with the best terms.

To aid in determining how much you can afford to spend on a car, we recommend that you prepare a monthly budget, including all of your living expenses such as rent, phone bill, food costs, etc. After you have formed a budget and determined how much money you have left over for other expenses we recommend allocating no more than 25% of this remainder to your car loan.

Next we recommend that you find out your credit rating. Your credit rating has a dramatic effect on the interest rate banks will offer. This rate can fluctuate from as high as 30% to as low as 5%, so we recommend that you check your credit score before deciding which car fits your budget. Experian is a good, free source to use to check your credit score . If your credit score is below 700, we recommend following our credit advice here. Now that you know what you can afford to pay, we recommend using DriverLoans´ 60-second application to determine what rate you can obtain based on these factors.