The vast majority of people who work in dealership finance departments treat all customers fairly and equally. Dealers are retailers. The lending institutions that serve as the source of funding are the wholesalers in these transactions. Because dealers buy credit in bulk and provide the retail infrastructure for serving individual customers, they get lower rates than a consumer would if dealing directly with the bank. In other words, a consumer who goes directly to a bank will also pay a retail markup.
Financing is a service and there is a cost for that service.
This includes personnel, office space, computers, and other expenditures. To cover the costs of this retail infrastructure, dealers are entitled to a retail markup and like any other retailer, they are also entitled to make a profit. It is not valid to compare the rate a consumer gets from the dealership with the bank or finance company s buy rate. The appropriate comparison is the rate the consumer gets from the dealership versus what the same consumer could have gotten from a bank on their own. When judged by that standard, dealers not only provide very competitive rates, but also the convenience of one-stop shopping.