Car Loans Security

What is the real difference in cost and conditions between car loans that are secured or a unsecured personal loan and how that difference affects your finance and the car loan payments. The difference can vary depending on the bank or finance company, but is superior when the true cost of each is taken into account.

Understanding secured and unsecured car loans in detail can be useful in saving money but, let's first have a look at the various components that determine the cost of your loan and of your monthly repayments. The cost of a loan is the total you repay less the amount borrowed. Hence, let's say you are repaying $20,000 at 12% interest rate over 36 months; you will pay back at the rate of $664.29 per month. That would total a repayment of $23,914.44, and the cost of the loan would be $3,914.44 plus any set-up or administration fees. A car loan calculator will enable you to work this out for yourself.

An substitute to a car loan package would be car hire purchase (HP), where you hire the car over the repayment period and receive the ownership papers to the motor car with your final payment. Until then the car belongs to the HP company.

However, most credits are either secured or unsecured, and not all lenders offer unsecured or personal loans so let's look at secured car finance first. Secured car loans is one whereby the lender offers the loan with the car as security. If you fail to make payments, the lender can sell the car to recoup their money. It could be probable to get a secured car loan when the motor vehicle gets past a certain age, often 7 years, but you may find the loan term only being approved on a shorter term or not at all by using your home or some other form of security. These however are not strictly classed as car loans. It is generally the car that is the security.

Secured car loans can include on-road expenses such as the registration, loan protection insurance for disability,death or unemployment and comprehensive auto insurance as part of the financing deal. Loan insurance makes sure that the loan is paid off in the event of your death during the loan period, and car insurance is needed to make sure that the car is in good condition should it be needed to repay the loan in the event of you having your car repossessed.

This might all sound like doom and gloom, but these are conditions you see with most secured car loans, not only car loans. You can normally have a secured car loan over one to five years, and the interest rate will be lower than that for an unsecured car loan where the lender charges extra to compensate for their added risk. As with any loan, a deposit will result in lower payments, or a shorter term, whichever you prefer.

Balloon payments could be an option on your finance package, which is an amount borrowed where you pay interest only and finalized the principle when finalizing the loan. This is popular by those whose income will increase over the period, and they will be in a better financial position to pay a lump sum in 3 - 5 years time. This too results in either a lower monthly repayment or a shorter repayment term.

If you are looking to purchase a used car, your car loans interest rates can be priced very differently according to the lender and the age of your car. Many will charge higher loan rates, and the current credit problem has changed the outlook of many lenders to unsecured car loans in particular. Many no longer offer unsecured loans due to the increased risk in the current economic climate.

However, they are still available, and some car loan brokers can assist in getting you a good low rate unsecured car loan. In addition to the interest rate on such loans, you should also compare the fees charged, since they can involve a considerable outlay for you before you get the loan.

The major differences between secured and unsecured car loans, therefore, can be summed up as:

Secured car loans are cheaper to repay, with generally lower interest rates.
Secured loans demand fully comprehensive car insurance, while unsecured loans do not.
Both loans could require life insurance cover for the loan, but secured loans are more likely to.
You can sometimes include insurance, registration and other costs in the secured loan, but not with an unsecured car loan.
Fees for unsecured auto loans can be considerably higher than for secured loans.
Not all lenders will offer unsecured auto loans.There few doubts that if your car is young enough to be given a loan with the car as security, then that should be your option. You might be able to arrange a secured loan for an older car with your home as security, but you will have to make sure that maintain the repayments since lenders are becoming unsympathetic in the current economic climate.