With interest rates near all time lows for the last several years, many people have been refinancing their mortgages, lowering their mortgage interest rates and monthly payments. It is also possible to save a lot of money by refinancing your auto loan.
Auto loans carry much shorter payoff schedules than do home loans, so it is to your advantage to refinance your car loan as early as possible, before a good deal of the original loan has already been repaid. If you are already several years into making payments on a car, the savings will not be as great.
When you refinance an auto loan, you will pay off the existing loan completely and enter into a new loan agreement, which will ideally carry a lower interest rate than the original loan. If your refinance loan has a payoff time longer than what was left of your original car loan, and your interest rate is equal to or lower than your previous interest rate, you will in turn have lower monthly payments. You may opt to take the interest savings from the new loan and apply it toward the principal, thereby reducing your payoff time.
