Stupid question... should I refinance?

[Anonymous]

Backdrop: I'm a new permanent resident in the US, moved down here from Canada a couple years back, got married and applied for residency. I was granted such last year. I have one tiny little credit card from CapOne with a $300 limit. I have an auto loan for 15,000 with wells fargo that I acquired with the use of a co-signer who had less than stellar credit. None of my accounts are very old, 5 month average age and I haven't pulled an actual credit report yet as I'm trying to develop an action plan before I use up any of my free pulls. My FAKO from creditinform is 704. I'm guessing my actual FICO is lower than this.

My auto loan is through Wells Fargo and has a ridiculously high APR of 16.24%, so I'm paying 323 a month on a 72 month term. On one of the many sites I have been to in learning about the system suggests that I may be able to refinance through Capital One with an APR of 5.99, which would save me over 5k by the time the loan was paid off. I'm not so naive as to suspect this is a guarantee, but the possibility is darn enticing.

Should I ask Wells Fargo if I can refinance through them by myself, w/o cosigner first, or jump on trying to get the CapOne? Between me and my wife we only make about 30k a year, and I was working seasonally for UPS after being granted residency and just started a new job with Firestone in the past month, so my employment history is brand spanking new as well.

My FICO isn't going to be that great yet no matter what. But I am worried about prolonging other potential beneficial experiences by putting another hard inquiry on my report and dropping the average age to next to nothing. Should I just pay out my rear for another 6-12 months and try to bring another CC on line before refinancing? I've gotten a lot of good information from these boards but I still feel a little tenuous at best about jumping on anything.

[pizzadude]

I believe that someone else recently posted here about getting Wells Fargo to refi their own loan ~ I would certainly give them a call and ask if they will do it.

Hopefully it will work out ~ did you need the co~signer originally to qualify based on your lack of credit ?  Or was their income a factor in helping too ?

[Anonymous]

Their income and length of accounts was, at least according to the salesman, why they were able to cosign for me even with lower auto enhanced scores. They were required because at the time I didn't have a score, I only came back as "thin file".

The thread where that was mentioned wells fargo refinancing their own loan is also what I saw leading me to ask that. As a personal opinion though do you think I should try right away or accept the larger payments for now in order to lengthen the average age of my accounts?

[pizzadude]

Well do you know for certain if you have a FICO score yet ?  I believe that you would need at least 6 months of payment history on one of your accounts in order to be able to have a FICO score.   

I would at least go ahead and inquire with WF about a refi ~ they might want at least 9 or 12 months of payments first before they will do it. 

Your auto loan will help your AAoA regardless of being open or closed ~ it won't really hurt to close it.   Opening a new auto loan will require inquiries and a new account, both of which could slightly lower your FICO score, but if you save $$$ on your car loan then IMO it would be worth it.