 TITLE: How to Negotiate a Car Loan CONTENT: How to Lower Auto Loan Interest Rates After Getting a Loan\n----------------------------------------------------------\nEven after all your efforts, it's still possible you won't qualify for the interest rate you want. Fortunately, that doesn't mean you're stuck with a high interest rate for the entire term of your loan. If you can improve your credit score, you may be able to refinance your car loan with a different lender and score better terms.\nHere are a few actions you can take that will contribute to your overall creditworthiness:\n*   **Check your credit report.** Your credit report provides a list of all your current and some or all previous credit accounts, and can provide you with the information you need to know which areas you need to address.\n*   **Dispute** inaccurate or fraudulent information. In rare instances, incorrect or even fraudulent information could show up on your credit report. If this happens, you can file a dispute with the credit reporting agencies to have the details corrected or removed.\n*   **Pay on time, every time.** If you're behind on payments with any of your credit accounts, get caught up as quickly as possible, then focus on paying on time every month going forward.\n*   **Pay down your credit card balances.** Your credit utilization ratio, which is your total card balance divided by your total credit limit, is an important factor in your credit score. In general, the lower your utilization ratio, the better, so work on paying down your credit card debt and keep it relatively low.\n*   **Use your utility payments to boost your score.** Utility and phone payments haven't had any impact on your credit score historically. But with Experian Boost™† , you can connect your bank accounts and opt to have the positive payment history associated with those accounts added to your credit file, which can help increase your FICO® Score.\nIt's not always easy to know when to refinance a car loan, but it's generally best to consider it if your credit score has improved or interest rates have gone down since you took out the first loan.\nAgain, as you go through this process, it's a good idea to shop around and compare rates from multiple lenders. When you find the best deal for your situation and the lender approves the loan, it will pay off your original loan on your behalf.\nTo give you an idea of your potential savings, let's say you initially took out your car loan when your credit scores were much lower than they are now, and your $15,000 loan had a 15% interest rate and 60-month repayment term—that gives you a monthly payment of $357.\nNow, let's say you're roughly 16 months into paying off your loan, and your loan amount is down to $12,000. Your credit score is now in the fair range, so you start shopping around for new rates and the lowest you qualify for is 8%. If you were to replace your current loan with a new one that has a 48-month repayment term, your monthly payment would drop to $293, and you'd save $1,601 in interest over the remainder of the new loan. END