This is fine. Either paying earlier or paying just in time will help your credit. The important thing is not to pay late.

Paying it off early won’t do anything extra for your score. But you will save a lot of interest. You may want to take Spifman’s advice and take 18 months to pay it off to get the optimum credit value, even if it will cost you more interest.

Auto finance is what I do for a living and sorry but I must disagree.

Credit scores are 90% based on the last 24-months of history so to help your credit the most you need to pay at least 18-24 months on this loan before you pay it off.

There are lots of lenders that will not even look at approving someone if they don’t have at lest 18-months of paid as agreed credit history.

And by the way 9% is not high.

grate…it redues yer debt…that help.

It will not hurt you. The only that hurts is LATE payments or NON-payments.

I would pay it completely off AFTER a year.
A year’s worth of non late payments is perfect for your rating.
When you pay it off remember to pay a little extra in case they charge daily balance. They will send you a check in the mail for the extra amount. This is better than being a couple of dollars short.