Liz Weston

Dear Liz: I had a 730 credit score and went shopping for a car. The inquiries on my credit report took my score down to 704. Now that I have the auto loan, does it help my score to make larger payments and reduce the principal faster? The payment is currently $375 but I could pay $500 a month if this is advantageous.

Answer: It’s unlikely the auto loan inquiries lowered your credit score by that much. An inquiry typically dings your scores by less than five points. Even if the dealership queried several lenders on your behalf, all the auto loan inquiries typically would be combined and counted as one. What’s far more likely is that other information on your credit report changed, affecting your score. A higher balance on a single credit card could have that effect.

By the way, you don’t have one credit score, you have many. Each credit bureau sells different versions of the FICO score to lenders, and auto lenders typically use a version of the FICO tweaked for their industry. It’s possible your lender used just one of these FICO scores to evaluate you, but others might use three — one from each bureau. Also, if you’re monitoring your score using a free service or one sold by a bureau, the number you’re seeing might not be a FICO at all but some alternate credit score that lenders don’t typically use.

To answer your question: Reducing the balance on an installment loan, such as a car loan or mortgage, would help your scores, but not nearly as much as paying down revolving accounts, such as credit cards. If you have any credit card debt, you’d be far better off using your extra money to pay off those bills. Not only would doing so help your scores more, but it also would have a bigger effect on your finances, since credit card interest is typically far higher than that charged on an auto loan.