Over the course of about three months I went on a desperate auto loan shopping spree. I was trying incredibly hard to get approved under my own name with only a year worth of credit history because I have no willing/able co-signer.

I've recieved about 20 inquiries and my credit score dropped over 50 points from the original 730 I had, bringing me from excellent credit to between fair and poor.

Now I know that people usually say that you should stay away from "credit repair" agencies. However, I feel cheated to have these inquires draining on my credit report for the next two years when I've been responsible with my credit cards as I don't have a single late payment and I usually pay off half my debt or more every 2 weeks.

Please advise.

As to your first question, no you can not remove inquiries if they are valid. There is nothing that says you can't dispute it, but they will probably not be removed. In your case a credit score is not given a lot of weight. This is because you have what is considred a "thin" credit history. So even though you had a 730 you found it was still hard to get approved.

When were these inquires done. The credit scores allow inquiries in a 14 day period to be treated as only one. So if you have 10 in a 14 day period, and then 5 in the next 14 days they will only be treated as 2 inquiries.

Now the good news. The inquiries will remain on your report for 2 years. However, they are only used in scoring for the first year. Also, most of the negative effect is in the first 6 months.

Just continue to do what you are doing with paying every bill on time and keeping your CC balances low. As time goes on you should find it easier to get approved for auto loans.