Forum: money.stackexchange.com
Tags: <credit-score><auto-loan>
Title: Should I worry about having my credit pulled multiple times while car shopping?
Question: I went to a dealership today and they pulled my credit after a test drive. I've heard that as long as you get your credit pulled for an auto loan within a few days, multiple pulls will only count as one. Well the salesman really wanted to keep me from leaving and when they finally realized that I still wanted to shop around, he told me he doesn't recommend me letting anyone else pull my credit.  Is his advice valid? Should I worry about having my credit pulled multiple times?

Answers:
sents: text: The salesman is lying to you.
text: His goal is to prevent you from walking away.
text: No lie and trick are too grave if they help him achieve that, as far as he is concerned.
text: He does not care the least bit about your credit score.
text: He cares a lot about wasting as much of your time as possible, so that it becomes more difficult for you to walk away.
text: The power to walk away (and shop elsewhere, or come back later) is the biggest trump card you have in this process.
text: To trick you not to use it is the salesman's motive.
text: It really is as simple as that.
answer_details: author: money.stackexchange.com/users/68131/void_ptr
score: 153
sents: text: If you are in the US, you're correct that most FICO scoring models will collapse multiple car loan inquiries into a single one (and I believe it's within 45 days for newer models and between 14-30 days for older models).
text: But now that you know your scores and have a copy of your credit report (because the dealer should have given it to you, and if not you have the right to go back and ask them to print it out for you), you could bring that to other dealers and most should be able to price out loans for you before actually checking your credit.
text: You'll only need to actually pull it again when you decide to buy.
text: But again, even if you let multiple dealers pull it, it shouldn't negatively affect your score beyond the initial hit.
text: The salesperson said what he did because he thought it would increase the chances that you would buy from him instead of someone else.
answer_details: author: money.stackexchange.com/users/17718/TTT
score: 50
sents: text: He's trying to scare you into thinking doing another search will negatively impact your loan rates / credit score.
text: If you believe that then you are more likely to buy from the place that has already retrieved your credit worthiness.
text: He's just trying to scare into buying from that dealer.
text: In my opinion that's a good enough to NOT buy from that dealer.
text: If he's willing to try and scare you into buying like this, good luck trying to get any defects sorted after purchase.
answer_details: author: money.stackexchange.com/users/26124/DaFoot
score: 40
sents: text: I see a number of people stating that it absolutely will not show up as separate inquiries on your credit report if the hard inquiries are within a certain time period.
text: I have had a much different experience when having a credit check done for a used car dealership.
text: I went to a single dealership and applied for credit.
text: That dealership worked with a network of banks to finance their car loans (I'm assuming they each had different standards for disbursing loans).
text: The following month after my loan application, I saw 7 hard inquiries within a week on my credit report (all related to the banking network working with the dealership).
text: These inquiries were not reduced down to a single inquiry and my credit was impacted by the number of inquiries in such a short time.
text: There may be a chance that the dealer you went to uses a similar system for financing loans and knew that it would show up as multiple inquiries on your credit report.
text: I recommend doing as another user stated and use the credit report done by the initial dealer to at least get rough pricing estimates from other dealers.
answer_details: author: money.stackexchange.com/users/86964/Matt
score: 1
sents: text: You can always do a soft credit check.
text: Credit Karma, for instance, will monitor 3 credit scores for you and you can check it daily.
text: It is not a hard hit and does not affect your score.
text: It also shows you events that impact the score, allowing you to monitor and possibly correct the score.
text: This could save you a lot of money down the road.
text: If there is a 'hard check' for a loan (of any kind), I would refuse to allow the hard check unless a copy is given to you.
text: I did this when purchasing a house.
text: The first finance officer that wanted to pull the credit - I required to give me a copy.
text: Then I provided that report to another finance officer to get a competitive bid and make sure nobody was taking advantage of me.
text: Yes a hard check will impact your score -
text: but it isn't necessarily a significant impact, and any finance company knows why that check is being made.
text: This is much different than delinquent bills, carrying too high of a credit balance, or having no credit history.
text: I honestly wouldn't even worry about it.
text: You will lose more money making a bad deal than you will by having your credit checked a few times.
answer_details: author: money.stackexchange.com/users/55466/Paul
score: 1

Summary of the answers:
These will most likely be pulled into a single one if you purchase within a certain time frame. Now you have your credit score, you can take it with you to other dealers.
In the US, most FICO scoring models will collapse multiple car loan inquiries into a single one. Once you know your scores and have a copy of your credit report, because the dealer should give this to, you could bring that to other dealers and ask them to roughly price out loans for you before actually checking your credit.