Silly question probably. I was just wondering if a car loan increases or deacreases scores.

Haily

an installment loan is IMO probably of minimal impact

depending on your overall credit profile.

YMMV

Scores are vastly overrated with regards to auto financing. More important is the satisfactory handling of your auto loans. Probably every F&I person would rather have someone with a thick credit file with numerous satisfactory paid out auto loans with a fico score of 660 versus someone with a very thin file and a fico score of over 800.

I lost 6 pts (fako) on TU when my new car loan appeared. Still not on EQ or EX

You will lose FICO points on the bureau that creditor pulled your report from, and you will lose points across the board (potentially) since you will be adding a new account which will lower the overall average age of your credit profile...however, as it ages, it will likely bump your score positively...but not tons...as Marv said, generally, any installment loan has minimal impact on your FICO...that is, unless you miss payments