Auto Loan Payments

[Krakauer]

I want to cut my auto loan of 75 months in half.  Just made my first double split (regular/principal) payment this month.  I assume making regular only double payments a month will do just that?  Making that second extra payment towards the principal won't help me in that regard is my thinking?  

[increasingmyfico]

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@Krakauer wrote:

I want to cut my auto loan of 75 months in half.  Just made my first double split (regular/principal) payment this month.  I assume making regular only double payments a month will do just that?  Making that second extra payment towards the principal won't help me in that regard is my thinking?  

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    Depends on a few things. First is your lender and how they apply payments. Secondly where you are in your loan. At the beginning of your loan your payments are more interest than principal so by doubling up you would cut it in more than half. Hard to say exactly where. There are amortization calculators online that can help you figure out how much you need to pay to be done at your desired time frame. 

[Krakauer]

Amortization calculator?  I'm using excel to figure this out. It has all the formulas for just this.  I just made my first payment. CapitalOne Auto Loan. I want to payoff this loan quickly as possible. 

[Krakauer]

Problem I'm having with calculations is that I made my first double split payment 12 days early which is good but no definitive way to calculate how much I'm saving. I'm not an accountant. I'll wait and see how my second payment goes with just double regular payments nothing extra towards the principal. 

[Krakauer]

I figured it out. Splitting my monthly double payment's between regular and principal on the earliest date allowed for payment will cut my auto loan of 75 months in half or as you said even sooner

[teekay629]

You can go online to find calculators like the person above mentioned. Doing this will show you (give or take some dollars) how much interest you pay over the life by increasing your payments.

For my car, my payments were about $212 a month. From the very first payment due, I paid the $212 and then paid an extra amount applied towards principal so that I paid an even $300 a month. This made it so I paid less interest over time, but I also paid off my car in 3 1/2 years over the five.

ETA: This is the calculator I used! https://www.bankrate.com/loans/auto-loans/early-payment-payoff-calculator/