The vehicle price field should not include tax or additional fees. Dealerships will in many situations add additional fees on top of their advertised price. A dealership might call this price field the MSRP, the Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price.

A down payment is money that you put toward your car purchase and that you don’t pay interest on. You would put a down payment on a vehicle at the time of purchase so that your lease or finance monthly payments become cheaper overall. The more of the car you pay upfront, the less you will have to pay back in car payments. You cannot put a down payment on a “cash purchase”. When purchasing a car with cash, you are simply paying the entire amount right away.

A Term, or Term in Months as shown on the calculator above, is the length of time that you would like to have your car loan. The longer the term, the cheaper your payments will be, however, it means that you have that car for a longer period of time, and you will be paying more in interest over that total length of time.

Your loan term is a personal decision and depends on many factors, including your lifestyle, your income, how you like to budget, and how long you would like to own your vehicle. The loan amount will fluctuate to a degree depending on which loan term and downpayment you choose. We recommend you talk to one of our Vehicle Experts if you want to discuss loan terms and your car loan payments. They can give you guidance on making the decision that’s right for you.

APR stands for Annual Percentage Rate.

If you have leased or financed a vehicle you will pay interest on the debt that remains before you fully own it. To recap, interest is a fee alongside your car payments that goes to the lender from where you are borrowing money.

Every province has a different tax rate when purchasing a vehicle. Depending on your province, this will include PST, GST or HST. BC has a luxury vehicle tax which is an additional tax on vehicles that are priced over a certain amount. See our luxury vehicle tax blog post for more details on this. The Federal government also has an additional luxury sales tax on top of the provincial. For private sale vehicles, some provinces will still require you to pay tax on the car even though it is a used purchase. If you try and get around this, by let’s say pricing your vehicle at $1, the Province will deny your vehicle ownership transfer and expect a reasonable vehicle sales amount for your make model and year.

Additional fees can include many things, such as freight (the cost to ship a car), pre-delivery inspection, and administration fees. Some of these fees are mandatory, and some of them optional - it’s always a good idea to inquire as to what these fees are. Additional fees are pre-tax.

Leasing a car means that you don’t own the car, you pay to use it for a fixed period of time (your loan term). You can only lease a new vehicle. You can only lease from a dealership. When the lease term is up, you will return the car to the dealership or in some situations you can buy out the remainder of the owned value of the car and at that point, you would own the vehicle. An advantage of leasing is that you only pay the tax on the amount you pay each month - this means you do not have to pay luxury tax on a leased vehicle.

Financing is similar to leasing in that you pay in monthly instalments, but you are taking out a loan and paying back that loan over time. You have taken ownership of the vehicle. You can finance a new car or a used car. You can shop around for loan offers - banks will provide loan options and so will most dealerships.

It’s pretty simple, you will pay the total amount for the car up front at the time of purchase, including taxes and any additional fees. You will have full ownership of the car.

After all additional fees, taxes, etc., are added up, the calculator above will show the total payment that you would have to make. Your payment frequency can either be biweekly or semi-monthly payments. Bi-weekly has 26 payments per year, and semi-monthly has 24 payments per year. Reminder: this calculator is an estimate, and your total payment will be determined when you visit a dealership.

Your biweekly or semi-monthly car payment will be taken out of your bank account directly. You can also pay via your credit card. The payment will be taken on the contract date, but can usually be changed after the first payment.