Trying to Rebuild Credit

[Anonymous]

I had stellar credit before going off to work abroad for the past five years.  I didn't keep my credit usage up to date, and was shocked (when I had a credit check done for a car purchase) to find out that my credit score has been wiped.  My Father cosigned with me on the autoloan in an attempt to build back my credit score.  Now I don't want to pay too much in interest, so I want to prepay as much of the loan as I can, to minimize my eventual interest payment (though I want to keep paying for the tenor of the loan).

My question is, will it be better for my credit score if I leave the loan as is and just prepay the remaining amount in about a year, or can I prepay most of it now, and then make a small monthly payment for the rest of the year?  Thanks. 

[Anonymous]

look at the terms of the loan.

Do you have any prepayment penalties?

if not i would make a huge payment now and then hold off a year or two of payments on the smaller balance.

And start reading more in the forums here about recovering

[Anonymous]

Thanks!   There are no prepayment penalties, I have about $16K left on the loan, and I was thinking of prepaying $14K to $15K on it, I'll go ahead and do that before the next payment is due.

It also turns out that my Father had left one of my credit cards open (one that I had since college) open this entire time, so I am starting to use it to so that I build up other forms of credit.  Thanks.