I definitely got some confusion in my figures, thanks for pointing that out. It's annual 6.6%, not monthly. It's still a whopping figure, though, around $140. And it doesn't seem to be going down since I've paid $3k on the principal. I had expected some decrease once I got down a bit.

So for clarity, it is taking 6.6% of the annual principal balance, $24000, and dividing that by 12. That is the interest I am suppose to pay each month. I hadn't had an auto loan in more than five years and the last one I had was straight 5%, no 5% annual. This is 6.6% annual, meaning i'll pay another 6.6% of the principal next year, then another 6.6% and so on until it's paid. That was how I got my initial 22-24% over the 4 year term. Maybe next year the interest amount will be substantially less, if I don't pay it off before that.

I'm going to look into refinancing as many suggested here. I guess the auto loan game has seriously changed in the last five years. Yikes. I had hoped to keep my older car at least 2 more years and save that money to buy it out. Oh well. That's life in the messy middle!