Our Auto Loans Consumer Survey Results Explained (2023)

The first questions we asked were about how people choose a lender. Forty percent of people said they used customer reviews on the internet as their primary tool for researching loan companies. Another 35% said recommendations from friends and family had the most influence on their choice of loan providers.

Borrowers’ top priority was a good annual percentage rate (APR), which was ranked “most important” 29% of the time. A nearly equal number of respondents cited favorable loan options, such as term lengths and loan amounts, as the most important factor in choosing a loan.

The majority of respondents (53%) said they had a new car loan, while 45% said they had a used car loan. Because some people have loans for multiple cars, consumers were allowed to choose more than one option for this question.

We also wanted to know if people were choosing the same lenders. In the survey, we listed 15 companies as well as an option marked “Other.” If a respondent chose “Other,” they would be prompted to enter the name of the lender they used.

Of the listed companies, Bank of America was selected the most, with 365 of the 2,000 pollees, or 18% of those polled. In a close second was Chase, with 14% of respondents choosing the lending company. The most common answer, however, was “Other.” A large number of the written answers, at around 7% each, were Ally Auto and Capital One.

The table below lists the 15 most popular lenders in our survey.

*The same number of respondents selected Auto Approve and Wells Fargo. All percentages are rounded.

Type of Lender

When respondents were asked where they got their car loans, around 53% reported getting them in person at dealerships. Nearly 17% got their loans at credit unions or online lenders.

While many brick-and-mortar banks and credit unions let consumers apply for auto loans through their apps or websites, online lenders like Ally Auto operate entirely on the internet. There are also online marketplaces, such as myAutoloan, that match potential borrowers with lenders rather than providing loans directly.

Because some people have more than one auto loan, those we polled were allowed to select more than one option for this question.

How Long Did the Loan Application Process Take?

Our auto loans survey also asked how long the application process took. Nearly half of the respondents were able to secure their loans within one day. The process extended to one to two days for around 22% of those surveyed. Less than 2% of respondents reported their loan application process extending past 10 days.

We included a few questions that asked about the terms of respondents’ auto loans. Most of these questions were all open-ended, so while we got a wide array of responses, there were significant commonalities.

Source: Automoblog

Length of Loan Term

About 19% of respondents reported having 60-month auto loans. The second most common term length was 36 months, at about 16% of those polled. Twelve-month loans and 72-month loans weren’t uncommon either, capturing about 10% and 14%, respectively. Both 24-month and 48-month loans received about the same number of responses, each hovering around 9%.

APR

We got the most varied responses when asking what APR pollees have, as no rate garnered over 10% of respondents. A 5% APR was the most common, with close to 9% of those polled.

Loan Amount

Consumers also had a wide range of answers for the amount they financed, but most responses fell between $5,000 and $50,000. Just over 5% of people polled reported financing $20,000, while just under 5% financed $25,000 or $15,000.

The table below shows the most common loan amounts in our survey.

**The same number of respondents selected $18,000 and $35,000, as well as $22,000 and $50,000.

Did You Have a Co-Signer?

Only about 30% of the people we surveyed said they had co-signers on their loans. Because a co-signer agrees to pay a debt if you default on it, having a co-signer can help you get loan approval if you have bad credit or a short credit history.

It’s often a good idea to get loan prequalification, loan preapproval or both. Prequalification gives you an estimate of the financing options that might be offered to you, and it doesn’t affect your credit. Preapproval gives you official approval for financing after a hard inquiry on your credit.

We asked survey participants if they’d done either, and most responded that they had. Almost 62% got prequalified, while just over 65% got preapproved for their loans. Preapproval and prequalification can give you an idea of the rate and loan amount you could get. They can also help you negotiate if you want to get financing through a dealer.

Comparison Shopping

One thing we encourage in nearly all of our guides — whether it’s a review of a loan company or an explanation of part of the loan process — is for customers to compare a few lenders. This not only helps you find the best loan for your needs but also gives you an idea of how certain companies weigh the factors used to determine the terms of an auto loan.

We asked survey participants if they compared companies, and nearly 32% said they didn’t. Many of these borrowers may have only considered dealer financing, as 53% of people in our survey reported getting their loans in person at dealerships and 49% said their loan application process was completed within a day.

About 31% of respondents compared two additional companies, and nearly 22% compared one other lender. When consumers were prompted to name the companies they compared, Chase, Bank of America and Capital One were often mentioned.

So much of what we do has migrated online, including the loan application process. The number of survey participants who valued having an online option to apply for a loan was nearly equal to the number of people who valued an in-person option instead. Considering 53% of our survey participants got their loans in person at dealerships, we were surprised by these results.

We asked participants to rank online and in-person options on a scale from “extremely important” to “not at all important.”

• Online option: Nearly 38% of respondents considered it “extremely important,” followed by 32% who said it was “very important.”
• In-person option: The responses for the in-person option were more or less identical, with 36% of consumers ranking it “extremely important” and 31% ranking it “very important.”

Regardless of how they actually apply for auto loans, people seem to take comfort in knowing there are multiple options available.

High-dollar transactions like buying a vehicle can be very stressful, so one important factor we wanted to measure was customer satisfaction. In one question with an open-ended format, we asked respondents to state what, if anything, they would do differently.

Most of the responses were some variation of “nothing,” but many wrote that they’d do more research or compare more lenders. Most people seemed to find the entire loan application process pretty simple, which again tracks with the number of respondents who got their loans in one day at dealerships.

When asked to rate their overall experience from zero to 10, with zero being “completely unsatisfactory” and 10 being “completely satisfactory,” about 25% of respondents selected “10.”

Expectations vs. Reality

Another way we sought to measure respondents’ satisfaction with the auto loan process was through their expectations. We asked them about their monthly payments and their interest rates and whether each was more than, less than or exactly what they expected.

• Roughly 57% of respondents got the interest rate they expected.
• About 67% got the monthly payments they were expecting.
• Significant numbers of pollees, around 30%, reported paying more per month or having a higher interest rate than they anticipated.

Overall, the results of our survey suggest people are able to navigate the car loan process pretty easily. Our survey participants generally got the terms they wanted and the monthly payments they expected. Most people were able to get auto loans quickly, and many said they wouldn’t do anything differently the next time they want to finance a vehicle.

In collaboration with Pollfish, we conducted an online survey asking 2,000 people about their experiences with getting auto loans. Survey participants were asked 19 questions relating to how they chose lenders, how they felt about lenders’ application processes and how the loans they were given compared to their expectations. Guides Auto team writers and editors provided the survey questions.

***Data accurate at time of publication