Need a little advise

[Anonymous]

I'm looking to trade in my car and I'm currently around $7K underwater. I have the money to offset the difference to make the trade in even. ( I know this isn't ideal but I need to move on from the current car)

My question is should I pay that amount directly to the loan or just put the money down at the dealership?  

I'm assuming paying down the loan would also boost my score? 

I'm currently sitting around 682 on EX and 671 on TU  FICO scores and looking to hopefully push these into the low 700s before I trade in.

I have around $6.5K in CC  debt (quite a few lates back in 2017, no lates currently) $2K will be coming off report in a few days

2 auto loans ( 1 at $54K and 1 at $22K) the $22K loan will be  the one being traded in. 

Does anyone know if Navy will do an early update if the consensus is to pay the $7K on the auto loan?

Thank you for your time. This forum has been very helpful in correcting past mistakes. 

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

Depends on if paying the loan down causes it to cross a threshold. If it were to bring the balance to below 8.9%, that would be optimal. If you go from 86% to 81%, you would see no score change.

[Anonymous]

The balance paid would go from 18% to 46%

[Anonymous]

No bucket of points there, just a few.

[Anonymous]

First let me say, it is not usually favorable to be upside down on any loan. Although in your case you could consider rolling the upside down amount into new auto loan if possible, some or all. Assuming auto loan will have lower interest rate than credit cards, take your cash and pay off all credit cards except one, leaving less than $100 balance on that one. This will make your scores bounce when all report and possibly get better interest rate on new auto loan. Paying down existing auto loan will not do much for scores.

If you do this, pay EXTRA on new auto loan instead of paying cc companies each month to chase down value of new auto to balance owed on new loan. You will have no cc debt but still upside down for awhile.

This call is of your sole discretion of course, just a though.

Good Luck!