Question here that I feel I should know the answer to however I'm not 100% confident. I have an auto loan from NFCU. Original loan was about $44k and current balance is under $3K. I could pay off at any point. I have been making additional payments and my next payment due date is currently 03/27/2023 
Is there any real advantage to getting to under say $1k and then letting it sit there for 2 years and age? I do have a mortgage so I don't think this car loan is really helping me and my gut says paying it off won't hurt me because I have the mortgage but am I missing something? The interest for keeping it open would be minimal but I'm just thinking that with the current mortgage that I'm really not gaining anyting by doing so since I have another loan. Other than the above referenced car loan and mortage I have an open HELOC with $144k available but a balance of $0 (and it only reports to one CRA not all three) and I practice AZEO on my CC's.
Thoughts?
@eg2222 wrote:Question here that I feel I should know the answer to however I'm not 100% confident. I have an auto loan from NFCU. Original loan was about $44k and current balance is under $3K. I could pay off at any point. I have been making additional payments and my next payment due date is currently 03/27/2023
Thoughts?
There are 3 discussions to be had. One relates to your mortgage scores. One relates to your FICO 8's and 9's. And the third relates to life.
1. Paying it off is unlikely to hurt, and may actually help, your mortgage scores.
2. As to the effect paying it off would have on your FICO 8's and 9's, we would need to know the balance on the mortgage and the original amount of the mortgage. It's possible the payoff could hurt your scores, and it's possible the payoff would have no effect, but we would need the mortgage information to say which is likely.
3. IMHO, the importance of having a clean title to your vehicle greatly outweighs the importance of gaining or losing some points in your FICO scores. So I would pay it off, regardless.
@eg2222 wrote:@SouthJamaica Thanks for the insights. As far as the balance goes, I'm currently at about about 43% remaining from the original loan amount on my mortgage. I was reviewing a few things after I posted yesterday on my credit reports and unfortunately was reminded that my mortgage only reports to 2 of the 3 CRAs so If I pay off the auto loan my Experian will have no open instrallment loans. I'm thinking I may be better off from a FICO aspect (I definitely agtree with Finances over FICOs 99.9% of the time) to pay the auto loan to under $1k and let it sit for awhile. I am wanting to purchase a vacation home in the next year or so so it might be worth paying a little minimal interest to not tank (not really tank but take a hit for no open installment loans) my Experian score.
1. Your mortgage scores, which would be the relevant scores for your vacation home I assume, would more likely be helped rather than harmed by the payoff. Mortgage scores pay scant, if any, attention to installment utilization percentage, and a lot of attention to number of 'accounts with balance'.
2. You still haven't mentioned the dollar amounts of the mortgage so I still can't even guess as to the effect on your FICO 8's and 9's.
3. I personally am not a believer in the 'Finances > FICO' mantra; I firmly believe that one's FICO scores are an integral part of one's finances. It's just that having a lien on your car is an inconvenience, one which can sometimes lead to complications. I once bought a car from a relative who had long since paid off his auto loan, but had never gotten the release of lien filed, due primarily no doubt to negligence on his bank's part. I had to jump through some hoops to get the process completed.