Got a car (payment) now! Yippieyiyiyay!

My car finally went kerplunk! So, last weekend we spent time looking for a new car. I was *really* hesitant and nervous about this. Like I mentioned we have been car payment free for SO long, about 4 years! It took almost 2 days for us to look around and finally decide! We ended up buying what we wanted to begin with! We bought a 2003 PT Cruiser Limited Edition (low mileage!)! Its fully-loaded with a sunroof and all the "works", including heated seats and MP3 plugins! Our car payment is only $219.00 a month, paid off within 36 months @ 11.9%. We dont have PERFECT credit, so I was thinking our payments would be about $300+ a month no matter what car we got. We also got financed through the first bank we tried! I was kinda surprised there, super thankful! No buy-here-pay-here stress like all of the years before! I'll post pictures as soon as I can this has always been my "dream car"! If anyone would like to see! We've already planned when we pay the car payment that we will send it $250 each month to help pay it off a little sooner, then send $275-$300 when we can REALLY spare to do that. Is it true that you can be penalized for doing that? Any insights?