How long until my FICO recovers?

[chris2k5]

In January, I bought a car and took out a loan for $18,000. I instantly saw the hit from the inquiries (I think it was 5-7 hard pulls) and I think I also saw my score affected by a lowered average age of accounts.

I have a couple credit cards and student loans as well (I am not repaying the student loans at the moment).

Average age of accounts is around 1.8-2 years. Total accounts is around 10.

How long do you think it will take until my score will recover? I want to request some CLI increases (especially for my Chase Freedom) and am afraid of rejection due to a lowered score.

[fused]

Since your question is about scoring, I'm going to move your post to the Understanding FICO Scoring forum.

[Scene]

It will usually take about 1- year to see recovery to original scores since hard inquiries drop off at around that time but as always YMMV.

[Anonymous]

The inquiries might be stinging, but the AAoA is probably the big one. Your car note after a year (like Scene said) should provide some uplift, and all of your other accounts will only help as they age (assuming you keep balances low and pay in time).

Consider entering a "gardening" phase where you just nurture your existing accounts and let them age.

Also, I understand the desire for CLI, but is there a need? What does your util look like? 10 accounts? What all are we looking at there? What's the plan on the student loans? I'm not asking for these answers, just suggesting things to look at.

EDIT: If all of the inquiries were for car notes, and all within a month or so, the score hit should count them all as a single inquiry. No need to worry about shopping around for a car (or home) note in a short time.