Consolidate Car Loans: Simplify Payments & Potentially Lower Interest

If you have two household cars with two separate monthly payments, you may be able to combine those two car payments into one. Combining two car payments into one not only serves to eliminate a bill that you must remember to pay each month, but sometimes gives you the opportunity to change the terms of the loans. By refinancing two car payments into one loan with a lower interest rate, you lower your total monthly payment.

Step 1

Try to refinance the two car loans into one with the lender who issued the loans. While refinancing two cars into one loan is not a common practice with lenders, according to Wells Fargo it can be a possibility. Generally, since the vehicles serve as collateral in auto loans, in order to refinance two cars into one payment with a lender, the remaining amounts of the loans for both car loans must be less than the total worth of one of the vehicles, so that the one vehicle can still serve as collateral on the loan.

Step 2

Get a home equity line of credit if you own your own home. The most common method used to refinance a car payment, according to Interest.com, a home equity line can be used to pay off any living expenses, including car loans. Once you pay off the car loans with your home equity line of credit, the car payments roll into the home equity payment, giving you only one monthly payment.

Step 3

Take out a personal loan. Personal loans can be difficult to come by, especially if the economy is weak, but, if you can get one, you can use it to pay off both of the cars and have only the one loan payment to pay each month. A lender is more likely to give you a personal loan if you have collateral that you can put up for the loan, such as another paid-off vehicle or property.