The temperature is starting to drop, but rates show no sign of stopping. Repayments on those big purchases may just keep creeping upwards.
If you’re looking to get your motor running, it might be time to lock in a fresh car loan. With car supply beginning to normalise in Australia, it could be a good opportunity to enter the market, or to make sure your current car loan stacks up.
'Cheap' is the word on the top of a lot ofcar loan wishlists. After all, with fuel, registration, car insurance and mechanic bills, it already costs a fair bit to keep a car on the road. Plus, when you take out a loan you’ll already be paying at least a little more than you would if you bought a vehicle outright, since there’s interest to be repaid and potentially fees on top. If you’re looking for a great value car loan, our list of award-winners may offer what you’re looking for.
To help you narrow down your options, our team of expert researchers trawled through the fees and features of car loans tracked in the Mozo database to reveal the list of Australia’s cheapest car loans.
The best-value options were crowned as winners across various categories in the Mozo Experts Choice Personal Loan Awards^ for 2023. These categories included:
- Car Loan
- Excellent Credit Car Loan
- Used Car Loan
- Excellent Credit Used Car Loan
- Green Car Loan
The awards are announced in November for the year to follow.
If you're looking for a car loan this year you may want to consider the award-winning cheap car loans below, and you can read further for more details about how we selected winners in different categories.
Cheapest Car Loans
If you’re looking to buy a shiny new car driven no further than to its spot in the sales lot, the winners of this award might be for you. That’s because this category is designed specifically to find the cheapest car loan for customers buying a new car. While there isn’t one specific loan or lender that will be cheapest for everyone, our judges went through a rigorous research process to identify car loans that are among the cheapest.
For this award we took the example of a $30,000 car loan, repaid over five years and worked out the overall cost, including any interest, fees and charges. “We found the total price to be paid for each loan, and gave awards to those we assessed as being cheapest for most people,” Mozo Expert Judge Peter Marshall said.
The winners were:
- Auswide Bank Car Loan
- Beyond Bank Low Rate Car Loan Special Offer
- IMB Bank New Car Loan
- MOVE Bank New Car Loan
- People’s Choice Discounted Personal Car Loan
- Police Credit Union Low Rate Car Loan
- QBank Discounted Car Loan
- Queensland Country Bank New Car Loan
Cheapest Used Car Loans
New cars aren’t for you? Finding a quality used car might be a great option. With new cars in short supply in Australia, second-hand cars have been growing in popularity. These products each scored a Mozo Experts Choice Award^ for cheapest Used Car Loan.
“To pick the winners for this award, our research team compared the total cost of a $15,000 car loan, repaid over a five year term," Marshall said.
"That includes the principal loan amount, interest payable over that time period and any fees and charges that come with it.”
Same as the new car loan, the results were ranked from the cheapest to the most expensive, with the judges awarding titles to the standouts.
The winners were:
- Auswide Bank Car Loan
- bcu New Car Loan
- Credit Union SA Special Fixed Rate Personal Loan
- Firefighters Mutual Bank Car Loan (Fixed)
- Gateway Bank Used Car Loan (Under 5 Years)
- Health Professionals Bank Car Loan (Fixed)
- Hiver Car Loan (Fixed)
- Heritage Bank Car Loan
- Illawarra Credit Union Secured Personal Loan
- Teachers Mutual Bank Car Loan (Fixed)
- UniBank Car Loan (Fixed)
When it comes to being rewarded for excellent credit, Pepper Money’s Secured Personal Loan picked up the Mozo Experts Choice Award^ for cheapest Excellent Credit Used Car Loan. This award category is designed for customers who are looking for a used car loan and already hold an excellent credit rating.
Cheapest Green Car Loan winner
As you might have guessed, this last award category seeks to recognise Australia’s cheapest car loans for ‘greener’ cars. Of course green is a little vague, so let’s break that down.
“The Green Car Loan award only considers loans that offer special rates or fees aimed at encouraging Australians to buy low-emission vehicles,” Marshall said.
After identifying loans that met this criteria, the research team calculated the overall cost of a $30,000 loan, repaid over five years.
The winners were:
- MOVE Bank Green Car Loan
- Queensland Country Bank Green Car Loan
Why choose a Mozo Experts Choice award winner?
Like a lot of things in the financial realm, car loans can be confusing. First you have to consider the interest rate. Then you have to make sure there aren’t any sneaky fees. And finally, you’ll need to investigate if there are any loan features that might help you save money or pay down your debt sooner.
This can all be a bit overwhelming, but that's where we come in. Mozo is dedicated to comparing financial products so they’re easier for you to research and assess yourself – and we’ve been doing it for over a decade.
Marshall says the research team knows where to start and what to take into consideration when looking at loan costs.
“For the Car Loans category – which only considers loans intended for customers purchasing new cars – we assessed 83 different products to see which ones had the most competitive pricing, as of 12 October 2022” he said.
That’s just the tip of it though. To allow for any price variations over time, the team made calculations on three different dates over a three month period. This took into account the applicable interest rate and all mandatory fees (like application, service or exit fees) for each loan assessed.
As you can see, a lot of work goes into comparing these financial products so we can accurately highlight the best-value personal loan products on offer in Australia. We don’t take this responsibility lightly and each year we do the calculations again so that Australians always have the most up to date information on what the most competitive personal loan products are.
See more information and the methodology report for the 2023 Mozo Experts Choice Awards for Personal Loans.
*WARNING: The Comparison Rate combines the lender's interest rate, fees and charges into a single rate to show the true cost of a personal loan. The comparison rates displayed are calculated based on a loan of $30,000 for a term of 5 years or a loan of $10,000 for a term of 3 years as indicated, based on monthly principal and interest repayments, on a secured basis for secured loans and an unsecured basis for unsecured loans. This comparison rate applies only to the example or examples given. Different amounts and terms will result in different comparison rates. Costs such as redraw fees or early repayment fees, and cost savings such as fee waivers, are not included in the comparison rate but may influence the cost of the loan.
^See information about the Mozo Experts Choice Personal Loan Awards
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