Best Car Deals

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Spring is on its way, marking the traditional start of the car-buying season. After a long winter that felt even longer due to continuing pandemic restrictions, there’s hope on the horizon that life in America may soon return to normal. The economy is slowly reopening, people are aching to get out of their houses and back on the road, and soon, tax refunds will be arriving in bank accounts.

America’s automakers and their dealers are set to help you find a new car this March, with loads of excellent cash back and low- or no-interest financing deals. You’ll want to move especially fast this month, though, as microchip shortages are putting a crimp in auto production. The supply of popular new cars is likely to dwindle over the coming months.

Auto interest rates remain low, allowing automakers to offer generous financing offers, including many 0% deals. In some cases, qualified buyers can get a five- or six-year interest-free financing deal plus a healthy amount of bonus cash.

Taking advantage of an automaker's special car deal takes some research. You need to know how to find a deal, evaluate it to figure out whether it’s right for you, and compare it to other options. Figure all this out, and you could potentially save thousands of dollars off the price of your new car.

What Are March’s Best Car Deals?

Among the best deals this month are offers with massive amounts of cash back on vehicles such as the 2021 Ram 1500 full-size pickup, the subcompact 2021 Jeep Renegade SUV, and, in some regions, the 2021 Toyota Prius Prime plug-in hybrid. The 2021 Chevrolet Equinox is available with a six-year 0% financing deal plus $2,150 bonus cash.

This March brings some surprising financing deals, including 0% offers on the 2021 Mercedes-Benz GLC luxury SUV, both the two- and three-row 2021 Lexus RX luxury crossover, and the 2021 Volkswagen Atlas. There’s a seven-year 0% deal available on the 2021 Nissan Titan pickup.

There’s also a fantastic deal available on the just-refreshed 2021 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan. First, there’s cash back as high as $6,750, depending on where you live and the trim level you buy. Then, since it’s a plug-in hybrid with a large battery pack, many buyers will qualify for a $7,500 Federal Electric Car Tax Credit, plus state, local, and utility incentives.

How Can U.S. News Help You Get a Deal?

You’re not getting a great deal on a new car unless you're choosing a great model that fits your needs and budget. The expert researchers and journalists of U.S. News & World Report offer many resources to help you through the car-buying and ownership journey.

Our researchers analyze thousands of car reviews from the top automotive journalists in the country. We combine that analysis with measurable data about every vehicle’s safety and predicted reliability to form the scores that we use to rank vehicles against their peers. You can find nearly every new car, pickup, minivan, and SUV in our new vehicle rankings. To ensure that our reviews remain fair and impartial, our staff does not accept trips or expensive gifts from automakers, and an independent company handles the advertising on our site.

Our site also features tools that you can use to compare vehicles side by side based on the factors that buyers tell us are critical in their purchase decisions, such as safety, predicted reliability, and vehicle performance.

Ready to buy or lease? The U.S. News Best Price Program connects you with local dealers offering guaranteed savings. Buyers save an average of more than $3,000 when they take advantage of the program.

We also offer resources to help you navigate the complex car-buying process. Our articles teach you how to buy a vehicle, how to get an auto loan, and how to choose between buying and leasing. An essential part of car buying is having the knowledge and confidence to negotiate a great price on the car you want, avoid buying budget-busting add-ons, and finalize the deal. Expert advice, such as making sure that you have an approved financing deal in place from an outside lender before you start visiting dealers, will give you that confidence.

Our support does not end when you drive your new car home. We offer advice on how to get the right car insurance and how to avoid killing your car, which can save you thousands of dollars over the life of the vehicle.

What Is a Car Deal?

Carmakers offer specials for many reasons. Sometimes, a vehicle simply does not meet the sales goals the manufacturer expects, and they need a bit of a boost to pick up the pace. It's not unusual for sales to slow as a vehicle nears the end of its product life cycle. At the same time, dealers need to move those older models off their lots to make room for updated versions.

Buyers can save thousands of dollars by taking advantage of automakers’ and dealers’ efforts to move certain vehicles off the lots. The best part? You don’t have to haggle to get the savings.

Three types of incentives are common. Lease incentives, which you’ll find on our lease deals page, offer low monthly payments, reduced amounts due at signing, or both. Cash back offers and financing deals reduce the price of the car or the cost of financing.

Cash back deals are a bit of a misnomer. You’re not going to leave the dealership with a stack of cash, though that would be cool. Rebates simply discount the price of the vehicle. They go by several names, including rebates, bonus cash, cash allowances, and cash back incentives. No matter which term the automaker uses, they all lower the amount that you have to pay. Take advantage of the $5,750 rebate available in some areas on the 2021 Jeep Renegade Trailhawk, for example, and you'll lower its price from $28,700 to $22,950.

One of the major car-buying costs is the amount of interest you pay when you finance your purchase. Though many buyers don’t consider this cost, it can add up to thousands of dollars. Taking advantage of a financing deal can slash that price tremendously. In the case of a 0% financing offer, it can take the cost of financing completely out of the picture. Finding an automaker with a low interest rate offer is like seeing a bank with a huge "Sale" banner. By lowering or eliminating the cost of financing your new car, you can shorten the length of your car loan, score a lower payment, or possibly afford a nicer vehicle.

To show you how a 0% offer can save you thousands of dollars, we’ll look at the six-year 0% financing deal available this month on the 2021 Volkswagen Atlas. We’ll say that you found a midrange Atlas SEL, are paying the full $39,545 sticker price, and aren’t making a down payment or trading in another car.

Since there’s no interest to be paid on a 0% offer, you simply divide the $39,545 price into 72 equal monthly payments of $549.

Without the special financing deal, you would have to pay interest on the auto loan. The average loan rate for a six-year loan is currently around 4.18%, so we’ll use that number for our example. The math to figure interest can get complicated to do by hand, but we can quickly accomplish the task with the U.S. News car loan calculator. When we enter the length of the loan, the interest rate, and the price of the car, it shows us that each monthly payment would be $622.

That’s $73 more per month. Over the life of the loan, you would pay more than $5,200 in interest.

The best financing deals are 0% offers, because they eliminate the cost of financing. Any offer that's well below market rates will save you money, though. In most cases, buyers need excellent credit scores to qualify for new-car deals. It's a good idea to check your credit score long before your car-buying odyssey begins. That way, you can take steps to maximize your chance of getting one of the most generous financing offers available.

Also, even though you're getting a rebate or financing deal from an automaker, you should still negotiate with the dealer to get the price even lower.

Interest rate and cash back specials come loaded with fine print and restrictions. Most offers are restricted to specific models or even trim levels of those models. Some are limited to a certain percentage of dealer stock or to consumers who live in specific locations. You can find the best deals available in your area by using our Best Price Program, contacting your local dealer, or chatting with an online sales rep. It's critical to pay attention to the expiration date on any rebate or financing deal, as missing by even a day can disqualify you from getting the discount.

Investing a little time and travel can reap big rewards. Different dealers can pay different prices to automakers to get the cars on their lots, so if one dealer paid substantially less than another dealer for the vehicle you're considering, they'll have more room to negotiate a final price. You can also save money by checking with dealers in areas where your car of choice isn't terribly popular. Full-size pickup trucks, for example, may be a bargain in cities but not in the suburbs or at rural retailers. At the same time, hybrids may not be as in-demand in rural areas as they are in the city.

How Do You Know if It Is a Good Deal?

Consumers should never assume that an advertised deal is automatically a good deal. It takes a little bit of homework to analyze a deal, but fortunately, the math is pretty simple. Most people base their car-buying decision on the monthly payment, but that's not a good way to buy a car. Instead, look at the total cost of the vehicle, including the cost of financing. You'll want to do the math yourself, as it's easy for a trained salesperson to shuffle the numbers around to give you a low monthly payment, even if the overall deal is horrendous. Not considering the total cost of a vehicle is a financial mistake with consequences that last years.

To figure the total cost, multiply the monthly payment by the number of months in the loan and add any down payment that you are making, plus the value of your trade-in. If, for example, you have monthly payments of $400 on a five-year loan and put $5,000 down, the total cost of the car would be $400 times 60 months plus $5,000, which works out to $29,000. You can find your monthly payment by using a car loan calculator that is capable of computing auto loan interest.

The first thing you want to remember is that there are three main components to a car-buying transaction: the cost of the car, the cost of the financing, and the value of your trade-in. You’ll want to keep them separate, while the dealership will want to lump them all into one confusing deal.

Comparing Car Deals

It’s common for automakers to offer a choice of cash back or special low- or no-interest financing. To illustrate how to compare different offers on the same vehicle, we’ll look at the financing and cash back deals available this March on the 2021 Nissan Titan pickup. Nissan is offering either 0% financing for 84 months or $4,000 cash back. With most incentives, you can’t have both; you have to pick one or the other.

For this example, we’ll say you’ve chosen a $42,730 Nissan Titan SV Crew Cab, you’re not making a down payment, and you don’t have another vehicle to trade.

The math is easy for the 0% offer, since there’s no interest to compute. You simply divide the $42,370 price into 84 equal monthly payments of $504.

Choose the cash back deal, and you subtract $4,000 from the price tag to find the discounted price, which would be $38,370. However, you’ll have to pay interest on your car loan. The current average rate is around 4.18%, and we’ll use it for this example. Plugging the price, interest rate, and length of the loan into a car loan calculator shows us a monthly payment of $528.

In this example, the rebate deal gives us a monthly payment that’s $24 per month higher than the 0% financing offer. That might not sound like much, but paying that extra $24 each month for 84 months means you’ll pay an extra $2,016 in interest.

There are a lot of variables involved with different car deals, so never assume that one type of incentive is always going to be better than another. Remember to include the value of your trade-in and any down payment you make into your calculations.

It is critical that you resist the urge, or a dealer’s suggestion, to stretch out your car loan past five years to lower your monthly payment or get into a more expensive car. Taking a longer loan puts you in a more precarious financial position. It usually increases the interest rate and overall cost of the loan. You never want to be forced to choose between paying for a costly repair on a car that is out of warranty or making your car payment.

Our guide to long-term car loans takes you through the reasons they’re bad ideas for most buyers.

Completing the Deal

Once you've negotiated an agreement with the dealer, it's time to sit down and do the paperwork. It may have been a long day of haggling, and you just want to hop in your new car and drive away, but you need to slow down and pay attention to the details in the paperwork. You must read each page, making sure that the numbers match what you agreed to. Sometimes costly add-ons magically appear in the final documents, and you’ll want them removed before you sign.

The most critical numbers to look for are the length of the loan, the price of the car, and your interest rate. Don't ever sign a document with blank spaces or errors, even if the finance officer promises to fix them later. If they pressure you to sign papers that are incorrect or that you don't understand, remember that your greatest power is to walk away from the deal.

If a dealer offers you the chance to take the car home while they process the final paperwork, you should politely decline. What often happens is that you’ll get a call saying you didn’t qualify for the deal that everyone agreed to, and you have to return to the dealer to fill out new paperwork. In many of those cases, the new financing deal is much more expensive than the original one.

We research deals based on representative ZIP codes across the country. We strive to keep this list up to date, but offers can change without warning. Some car specials are limited to a certain number of vehicles or a percentage of dealer stock, and inclusion on our site does not guarantee that a particular incentive will be available at your local outlet. The easiest way to find out if you can take advantage of an offer is to click the orange button next to the car that you're interested in, and we’ll search for a great price at a local new car dealer.

Our best car deals include purchase deals for Toyota, Nissan, Ford, Honda, Chevrolet, Hyundai, Kia, Dodge, Ram, Jeep, Mazda, Buick, GMC, Subaru, Volkswagen, Acura, Cadillac, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, BMW, Lincoln, Volvo, Infiniti, and Lexus vehicles. Our expert researchers and journalists also search the market for this month’s best lease deals and best used car deals. We’ve done the research to help you find a great ride at a great price.

Best Car Financing Deals:

• 2021 Chevrolet Equinox: 0% financing
• 2021 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid: 0% financing
• 2021 Honda HR-V: 0% financing
• 2021 Jaguar F-Type: 0% financing
• 2021 Jeep Renegade: 0% financing
• 2021 Lexus RX 350: 0% financing
• 2021 Mercedes-Benz GLC-Class: 0% financing
• 2021 Nissan Titan: 0% financing
• 2021 Ram 1500: 0% financing
• 2021 Subaru Ascent: 0% financing
• 2021 Volkswagen Atlas: 0% financing

Best Car Cash Back Deals:

• 2021 BMW X3: $2,500 cash back
• 2021 Chevrolet Equinox: $3,500 cash back
• 2021 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid: $5,750 cash back
• 2021 Jeep Renegade: $5,750 cash back
• 2021 Nissan Titan: $4,000 cash back
• 2021 Ram 1500: $4,500 cash back
• 2021 Toyota Prius Prime: $4,000 cash back