How much interest you’ll pay on a loan for South Africa’s favourite cars

You’ll pay roughly 30% more than the original purchase price for a new car if you opt for a finance plan.

The average motorist in South Africa cannot afford to walk into a dealership and buy a brand-new car, instead, they are reliant on vehicle repayment plans that can take years to pay off.

According to data from Lightstone Auto, most car purchases in South Africa now involve a finance plan, and these plans are getting longer and longer.

Additionally, most consumers cannot afford to put down a deposit, which is a portion of the car’s value paid up front to reduce the cost of the monthly repayments.

However, the true cost of a car loan is the interest that motorists will need to pay over the course of their contract, which can easily add up to more than R100,000, depending on the car.

With this in mind, we looked at how much interest motorists will pay for South Africa’s 10 most popular cars right now.

The table below shows the interest paid for an entry-level version of the 10 best-selling cars from February 2026.

The figures were calculated for a standard 5-year/60-month contract with no deposit, based on the current prime interest rate of 10.25%.

In all cases, the final sum paid by the owner is roughly 30% more than the original value of the car.

This cost is exacerbated by the fact that the car will have depreciated during the time you’ve owned it, while the repayments are calculated on the value of the car when it was new.

Even on an affordable model like the Suzuki Swift, the interest adds up to almost R70,000, while Ford Ranger buyers will pay R180,000.

Bear in mind, these calculations are for the base models, meaning the interest paid will be far greater on the higher-level trims.

South Africans are taking out even bigger car loans

While 5-year/60-month finance plans are considered the industry standard, Lightstone Auto found that motorists in South Africa are becoming increasingly reliant on longer contracts.

It noted that applications for 6-year/72-month plans skyrocketed during the 2010s, at one point representing 73% of all finance deals in the country.

While this figure has gone down in recent years, this is only because applications for 8-year/96-month plans are starting to take off.

A longer finance plan means the cost of the car is spread out over a longer interval, meaning the monthly repayments are lower.

This makes them more appealing to cash-strapped households looking to minimise their monthly expenses, but it comes at a substantial long-term cost.

A longer plan also means the interest has more time to add up, resulting in an even larger final bill.

To use the Hilux example from earlier, a 96-month contract would result in R256,656.51 in interest, which is roughly 50% of the purchase price.

By the end of the term, you would have paid a total of R788,056.51 for a bakkie that is now eight years old, which is only worth a fraction of that sum on the second-hand market.