How We Rank Deals

The north star: Total Amount Payable

Total Amount Payable (TAP) is the sum of every payment you make over the life of a finance agreement: deposit + all monthly payments + optional final payment (if PCP). It is the number that represents how much money actually leaves your pocket.

We don't rank by monthly payment, because monthly payment can be artificially lowered by inflating the balloon or extending the term — both of which increase total cost. We don't rank by APR alone, because the same APR on different deposit and balloon structures produces different total costs. TAP cuts through the noise.

No sponsored positions

CarLoan24 does not accept payment from lenders, brokers, or manufacturers to influence deal rankings. No deal is boosted. No deal is suppressed. The ranking algorithm is a straightforward ascending sort on Total Amount Payable.

If we introduce affiliate links in the future, they will not affect ranking position. The deal order will remain a mathematical sort. Any commercial relationship will be disclosed in a clear statement at the top of the page, per ASA and FCA requirements.

The ranking algorithm

The algorithm is deliberately simple:

1. Load all deals from our data store.
2. Apply any page-level filters (e.g., PCP only, specific make, budget ceiling).
3. Sort by Total Amount Payable, ascending.
4. Display in sorted order with rank numbers.

That's it. No weighting factors. No proprietary scoring. No "relevance" adjustments. The sort function compares two numbers and puts the smaller one first. Users can also re-sort by monthly payment or representative APR using the sort controls on deal pages.

Where the data comes from

PCP deal data

Our PCP deals are sourced from representative examples published on Carwow.co.uk. These are the FCA-mandated representative examples that manufacturers are required to display when advertising credit. Each representative example contains: OTR price, deposit, amount of credit, number of monthly payments, monthly payment, optional final payment, total amount payable, total cost of credit, representative APR, and fixed interest rate.

We scrape these using a Python script that reads Carwow's model pages, extracts the representative example block, and saves structured data to a JSON file. The scraper runs manually — not on a cron schedule — so data freshness depends on when we last ran it. Each deal record includes the scrape date and source URL for verification.

Current data: 20 PCP deals from 9 manufacturers (Any, Citroen, Dacia, Fiat, Hyundai, Nissan, Peugeot, Renault, Toyota). Carwow publishes representative examples for budget and mid-market brands. Premium brands (BMW, Audi, Mercedes, etc.) don't have representative examples on Carwow — we're working on sourcing those from captive finance sites directly.

Benchmark rate data

The Bank of England publishes average personal loan rates in its Interactive Analytical Database (IADB), series IUMBV48. The latest figure is 4.1% APR as of March 2026. We reference this as the benchmark against which all car finance products are compared.

Lender APR data

Representative APRs for brokers and specialist lenders (CarFinance247, Zuto, Moneybarn, My Car Credit, CreditPlus) are taken from their own websites. The representative APR is the rate at least 51% of accepted applicants will receive, per FCA CONC 3.5.4R. We access and record these periodically — each reference on the site includes the access date.

What we don't do

• No "editor's choice" badges. These are subjective and often commercially motivated on other sites.
• No commission-based ordering. If lender A pays more commission than lender B, that has zero effect on position.
• No score aggregation. We don't combine APR, monthly payment, and "value" into a blended score. Blended scores are opaque and allow manipulation. A single sort metric (TAP) is transparent.
• No suppression. We don't remove deals because a lender asked us to. If the data exists in our source, it appears.

Why this matters: the FCA commission scandal

Between 2007 and 2021, the UK car finance industry operated under Discretionary Commission Arrangements. Brokers and dealers could set your APR within a range provided by the lender — and earned higher commission for charging you more. The incentive was to overcharge borrowers. Millions were affected.

The FCA banned DCAs in January 2021. The Court of Appeal's October 2024 ruling in Johnson v FirstRand confirmed that motor dealers owed a fiduciary duty to customers and could not secretly profit from inflating rates. Compensation claims are ongoing.

This is why transparent ranking methodology matters. The car finance industry has a documented history of prioritising intermediary profit over consumer cost. CarLoan24 exists to do the opposite: rank by what you pay, not by what we earn.

Limitations and honesty

• Our data covers 20 deals from 9 makes. This is not comprehensive — major premium brands are missing from our Carwow data source.
• Representative examples are illustrative. Your actual rate will depend on your credit profile, the specific vehicle, and the lender's assessment at the time of application.
• We update data manually, not in real-time. Deals may have changed or expired since our last scrape.
• We compare PCP deals against a bank loan benchmark. This comparison favours bank loans in most scenarios — because bank loans are cheaper for creditworthy borrowers. We state this openly rather than pretending neutrality.

If you spot an error in our data or disagree with our methodology, we want to hear about it. Transparency means being correctable.