Best way for me to build with this new car loan i just got?

[Legions36]

Last week I bought a car for 15k put down 3k and financed the rest but interest is 13%, I haven't even made my first payment yet but I have some different option I can do on paying this for the best results with my credit building. I want an auto loan on my history but I don't wan't to get raped on interest and I have the money to pay this thing off now. 

Which way should I go? 

1)Pay this for a year and then pay it off?

2)Make first few payments then take out a few secured loans at my Credit Unions(Navy Fed, DCU, and local CU) for the amount and then pay it off and just get the lower interest rate from that with monthly payments?

If u have any other ideas i'm open because I didn't even think I would get approved to begin with since im building. 

Also the guy at the car place said to pay it off in a year to have 1 year of payments but he didn't know i could just pay this thing off.

[J-H]

This is far from my area of expertise, but given you have cash on hand to pay the entire balance, did you try offering 50% down to see if the lender would qualify you for better rates?  It doesn't always work, but from my experience, money talks.  The more cash you invest initially, the more you look committed to the loan. 

You might try doubling payments for 6-12 months.  After that time has passed, try to refinance with NFCU or whoever you feel will work with you the most.  Before you pull the trigger, call the potential lender and talk to some one.  I did this very same thing last week with an unsecured credit card from NFCU.  I really didn't think I had the slightest chance, so I called and talked the someone in their issuing department and gave them all the details.  She told me to apply, and I got approved the next day. 

Maybe someone else can chime in about the secured loans, because I really don't know if that would be beneficial.  You'd be closing an account with solid payment history and opening up multiple brand new ones.  I could be wrong, but I think that would hurt your AAoA. 

[guiness56]

I would just keep paying on it until you can get a lower interest rate if that is what you want.  Your on time payments for a year will really help your score.

Getting a secured loan won;t really help because it is also an installment loan. 

Closing an account that is paid as agreed won't hurt your AAoA as all OC accounts, open, closed, good or bad factor in.  What would hurt, as mentioned, is having multiple new lines reporting which would affect your AAoA.

[Legions36]

I think I said it wrong. I meant pay the loan off for car at 13% interest, then ask the CU to do a collateral loan on my car when i get the title. Wouldn't that be ok? I would be paying a lower interest on collateral loan and building my credit the same way right? Once i make a payment on my current loan doesn't it stay on for 10 years?

Or I could just go with what you guys told me to do with just paying it for a year then refinance or payoff. But I just don't like paying $80 a month on interest which amounts to about $1000 for the year, i'm cheep like that I guess.

[guiness56]

If you have the funds and want to pay off the car, then pay it off so you aren't paying interest.

Getting the secured loan isn't going to help with credit mix as you already have an installment loan.  What will help is making an on time payment history for a year.

Do you currently have any credit cards?  That will help you the most.  Secured work just as well as non secured.

[Legions36]

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@guiness56 wrote:

If you have the funds and want to pay off the car, then pay it off so you aren't paying interest.

Getting the secured loan isn't going to help with credit mix as you already have an installment loan.  What will help is making an on time payment history for a year.

Do you currently have any credit cards?  That will help you the most.  Secured work just as well as non secured.

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Yeah sorry I didn't get into full details. I'm actually hitting my 1 year mark for my builder cards. These next few months are going to be big for me my 2 negs are coming off, my student loan rehab with be complete, and 1 year of ontime cc payments. I have 4 cards and I also have a few cards that i'm an auth user. I pretty much did everything right so far, even last year I took out a secured loan from a CU and its been paid off for a while. 

The 4 are Orchard bank, Credit1, Cap1 secured, and First Premier. By the end of the month i'm closing both Orchard Bank and First Premier because they want to high annual fee, Orchard bank tried to charge me $59 this year as a fee. Credit one just upped me to $550 for free and I am going to up my Cap1 secured card from $200 limit to the full $2000 also. Then I think I'm ready for a spree of good cards.