Financing Glossary

Here are the terms you are most likely to encounter when you finance a car through a bank or at a car dealership.

APR: This stands for Annual Percentage Rate. This is related to, but slightly different than, the interest rate. This is the interest rate times the number of periods in the year. If an interest rate is 4 percent quarterly, the APR would be 16 percent. The APR supposedly makes it easier to compare different loans because it always translates the loan to a yearly figure. But some experts caution putting too much stock into the APR because hidden ... Back to article