The best thing to do is look at your monthly bill. Somewhere on there there will be a pay off. This will be the amount you owe if you pay the car off today. That's only good for the day the bill was issued. Call who ever you got your loan through and ask them for your pay-off and your per-diem. That's the amount of interest you accrue every day. Simply, if you owe $10,000 today and your per diem is $1.50 tomorrow you'll owe $10,001.50 and so on. Depending on what state you are in, it can be illegal to charge interest up front on a car loan. If you pay the loan off now, you won't have to pay interest on all the years you didn't have money loaned to you. I know Its against the law in Jersey (I sold cars here for 2 years) and I'm 99% sure this is the case in NY and Pa. There are a couple of other factors to think of. Prius's are the "hot" hippie car right now and dealers are still charging a premium for them. That helps you from a negotiating stand point. You also can't get a car loan for used cars under $10,000 in most places, and almost no banks will give you a loan on a car with over 85k miles. So even though that civic or accord still has another 100k in it, you'll have to get a personal loan, use your home equity, or pay cash. If you need good fuel mileage try to find a diesel VW preferably with a manual trans. A buddy of mine had a diesel Jetta with a 5 speed and averaged about 60mpg on the highway and he drove like an absolute idiot, as in 110mph plus any time he was on the highway. As for in-expensive new cars look at the new mitsubishi lancer. Phenominal cars with a 100k warrenty, and I hate to do it but I really have to recommend that you do some research before buying a hyundai/kia. They were among the brands I sold and the number of horror stories I could share would take up more of my time then I'm willing to spend typing. Suffice it to say that at the dealership the common consensus as to the reason why kias get good gas mileage was that they spent most of their time on flatbeds. Food for thought,
Shawn