Too bloody right! Run a mile.
I’m glad I’m coming in here with my story after you found out you may have gotten ripped off, but here it is anyway:
I was looking for a very specific, slightly used car ('06 Charger Daytona), and was only able to find it through Carmax. The closest one is in Albuquerque, and I live in Santa Fe. I only had a three day window from the day it arrived on the lot until the day I had to pick it up. By the time I got down there and the car was ready, my credit union was closed.
Carmax financed the loan through another institution, and I signed all the paperwork. Fortunately, they had a three business day “refinance guarantee”, and I was able to go back to the CU on the next Monday. If I had waited longer, I would have incurred fees for trying to do it that way (and had to pay 7.25 instead of 5.5).
When I was trying to go through my bank, they considered it a used car (worse rate) since it had more than 5,000 miles on it, while the credit union had the same rate for both new and used.
It took me about forty five minutes at the CU, including waiting. The longest part was trying to track down my references addresses, I thought they already had them in their system.
Smaller must be the key word. On several occasions I have been approved for a loan with a 5 minute or less call to the branch manager of my CU. I’m pretty sure she has authority to approve loans based on a credit score above X.