Paying off my car help my score?

Question

I've been struggling with bad credit recently, mostly medical, and in the process of getting it back in shape. My score is 586 as of right now. I have 6 more payments left on my car, total of $1800. (Financed for 5 years, total of 15k). Will paying it off in 6 months help my credit score go up? About how much?

Answer 1

The short answer to your question is yes, it will help your score, however it will be hard to tell how much especially with that. This is how your score is broken down:

1. Payment history- 35%

2. Total debt owed to available credit ratio-30%

3. Length of time establishing credit-15%

4. Types of credit established-10%

5. Inquiries and New accounts-10%

Paying the off the note will affect factor #2, which is a good percentage of your score, almost a ⅓. Another thing that you can do to help yourself is by taking care of those medical collection accounts, but the best thing you can do is negotiate a "pay to delete", which is a payment in exchange for removing the collection from the report, because if you simply pay the collection without it, it doesn't help your score that much, matter of fact, it may even lower it even more because the account will be updated with the payment, especially when it comes to debts that are older than 2 years.

Answer 2

As long as the car payment was paid on time it should increase your credit score