Paid off car & score went down - Need to buy new car

[acevesf]

Bare with me folks, kind of a long story here...

My fiances Nissan Pathfinder recently broke down (2 weeks ago) our last payment was the following week the vehicle needs a new transmission and radiator, smallest estimate I've received so far is ~5k! Apparently this is a common issue with these pathfinders and they extended the warranty to 100k miles, we have 106k! At this point we're just going to garage the vehicle until a used transmission pops up somewhere, afterall it's paid off!

Fast forward to today, I pulled our credit reports and our scores both went down with the car loan showing a $0 balance and status of paid or paying as agreed. Our credit is far from perfect but I was definitely not expecting our scores to go down after 5 years of perfect payments on that loan. 

Here is an outline of my credit report. 

TU 694 EQ 633

AAOA - 3 years, oldest 7 years, 8 months

Util - 43% - we recently bought some new appliances at best buy for 0% interest for 3 years so this brought our utilization way up

Accounts/limits - Barclays 4,500, Macys 1,500, Best Buy $4,800, Credit One(stupid card) 975, Jared 8121

Mortgage - 2 years old, 233k balance

Auto Loan - now showing $0 balance, original loan amount of 13k 

Collections - I do have 8 MEDICAL collections from my son when we did not have health insurance. 

My Fiances credit report

TU 642 EQ 617

AAOA 4 years, oldest 6 years, 7 months

Util - 73% This is due to the best buy card we spoke about above in my report, 

Accounts/Limits - Best Buy $4,800 Macys $1,500

Morgage - 2 years old, 233k balance

Auto loan - same as above but also had another loan paid off successfully for 3k

Collections - medical as well 

 income - 75k after bonus My fiance does not work as she stays home with the kids 

I guess to make a long story short I have 2 questions, any idea why our scores went down? and #2 what are the chances of us being approved for a loan on replacement vehicle? Probably looking for a chevy suburban type of vehicle and around 25-30k 

[Jutz]

There could have been multiple factors, but my guess is credit mix.  A mortgage falls into the installment type of account, but I believe it sits alone in its own category.  I don't see any reason you'd be denied outright for an autoloan, but I'd get your UTIL down ASAP.  Your scores will pop up, and you'll look more attractive to lenders.

[HoldingOntoHope]

Actually your scores probably went down due to the increased credit utilization and not the payoff of the auto loan. If your utilization with your previous scores was low (under 20%) then you have your answer. Also if the Best Buy credit card is brand new this would have an effect with a new account and inquiry. New account dings seem to take at least a few months to work off. Utilization can be handled by paying down the credit cards and waiting for the next statement.

As to getting another auto loan - your credit profile and scores should not be a hindrance. From the vehicle and price range you are obviously looking at used vehicle. Either go the dealership and let them find financing or try and set it up yourself before hand and let the dealer compete for the financing. As far as securing your own financing if you go that route then talk to your bank or CU that handles your primary accounts. Your auto loan FICO scores will be better than what you are seeing if they used auto enhanced, due to the paid off auto loan. So it is going to come down to income and debt. In the banks eyes - can you afford a car note alongside your mortgage and credit card payments.

[203bravo]

FWIW - last month I paid off my car and the ONLY other thing that was new to my CRB was 1 INQ for electric service.. and my score fell. 

[MovingForward_2012]

I just bought a new car and traded in my old vehicle, which the dealer paid off my loan. The only thing that changed on my credit report was the auto loan was paid off and closed. No change in Utl, and Acura Financial added no inquiries when they pulled my score from TU (weird). My score dropped 5 pts just because the account was closed...guess it affected my AAOA. The new loan hasn't reported yet but I made my first payment on the 15th.

[princechristian]

@ acevesf Thats a short story! Lol.

"Util - 43% - we recently bought some new appliances"

As Holdingontohope mentioned, from your file, your scores went down from Utilization. 

"Collections - I do have 8 MEDICAL collections"

I'm sure you already know but medical collections are often times easy to get deleted. I got my only 3 removed within a month.

[HoldingOntoHope]

Well a few other posters seem to indicate that the closed loan affected their credit scores so I guess depending on your credit profile (bucket) it is not out of the question. But with the paid as agreed auto loan the OP should have no problem with another car loan. And that was the primary concern.

[acevesf]

Well it looks like I better pay those appliances off instead of taking advantage of the 0% interest!

PrinceChristian - as far as the medical are you talking about paying them and then doing the whole hippa thing? or something else?

thanks everyone for your responses!