Dealer financing is convenient, and convenience is what you pay for. The finance office is a profit center for the dealership, and one of the ways it earns is by marking up the interest rate above what the lender actually approved you for. You may never see the difference, because the conversation isn't about the rate. It's about the monthly payment.

That's the real cost of walking in unfinanced. When you negotiate a payment instead of a price, the term length becomes the adjustment knob, and stretching a loan from 60 months to 84 makes almost anything "affordable" while quietly adding thousands in interest. A preapproval from Firefighters Credit Union changes the footing. You arrive knowing your rate, your term, and your ceiling, and you negotiate the one number that matters: the price of the car.

Getting preapproved is free, can typically be done within a few hours, and doesn't obligate you to borrow from us. If the dealer can genuinely beat our rate, wonderful, take it. You'll just be in a position to know whether they actually did. Start an application at https://www.firefighterscu.com/loans/auto-loans/ or stop by any branch.