I am the G.M. of a buy-here, pay here (or "We tote the Note" ) car dealership. I have also worked for several new car dealers in past years. When a dealer pulls your credit report they see pretty much exactly what you see when you pull your own report. Some inquiries of course, do not show up (i.e. current creditors reviewing your status, you pulling your own report, etc.) These "invisible" inquiries, while visible to you when you pull your own report, do not show up to commercial lenders.
Whether or not they see a "score" and what score they see is very dependent on the vendor they use to obtain the report, and how much they are willing to pay for the service. Credit reporting agencies, like any other service provider, offer a "menu" of services - my dealership, for example pays extra to have an inquiry analyses with each report that not only shows other inquiries, but the information like addresses and employment submitted with those inquiries so that we can spot someone applying for credit using several different addresses in a short period of time (this is not a good sign for a high-risk lender, it indicates a borrower may have no true fixed place of residence or is flat out lying about where they live). They may get your FICO, or one of the credit reporting agencies proprietary scores, and they may even use scoring programs provided to them by their lenders or developed in-house.
You asked in your question if we see specific "debits". If you are referring to bank account debits via a check card, they are not even reported to bureaus as they are not a form of credit (you aren't borrowing money, you are spending the cash you have in the bank). If you are referring to credit card or credit line debits, no, the ability to report individual transactions does not exist, period! I should know, I report our accounts to a national reporting agency every month.
To summarize, basically we see (with the exception pointed out above) everything you see in your own report. Total debt, collections, public records, balances/limits, payment history, max. delinquency, minimum payments, inquiries in the last two years, address and d.o.b., etc. etc. We also have additional analytical tools available to us on an agency by agency basis (i.e. OFAC database searches, HAWK alerts, Inquiry analyses, etc.).
As I said at the beginning of the post, I have worked for several new car stores over the years, and have been with my current employer (strictly used cars, and primarily with a focus on helping "credit-challenged" individuals begin rebuilding) nearly 11 years now. Everyone has heard all the jokes about car salesmen, and I have met a walking, talking, example of every one of them. I have also had the honor of working with some of the most honest, hard working and principled individuals you could ever hope to meet. Having said that, let me give you give you a few "insider" tips:
1) Some dealerships use your credit report as a negotiating tool. Once you turn in your application, they pull a credit report and use any negative information in it as a bargaining chip so far as payment amounts or interest rates are concerned. Dealers can and do "mark-up" interest on loans, though the amount they are allowed to do so may be regulated by law or agreements with lenders. Most dealers also attempt to sell you Credit Life Insurance, Accident and Health Insurance, and extended warranties while closing the loan. Some of these products make sense for some consumers, and not at all for others. They are all major profit centers for dealerships. The best defense to this is to arrange your own financing prior to visiting a dealer. If you are pre-approved for a loan, you know how much you can afford to spend and there is no need to even fill out a credit application at the dealership. Be aware, however, that occasionally manufacturers make insane financing offers like zero-interest or major cash back (be careful what you are signing, some dealers have you agree to let them keep the rebate). If your credit allows you to qualify for these, I think you'd be foolish to pass them up. On the other hand, if you have some "credit challenges", the dealer may be able to convince a lender to finance you when you yourself could not have arranged financing. They can do this because they send many loans to the lender (who is in the business of lending money, after all), and every once in a while they can convince the lender to take a marginal deal in light of all of the other business they send them. Having said that, I warn you to pay careful attention to the numbers. I have recently seen many people stuck in loans that had them borrowing nearly twice what a vehicle was worth for the purchase, and the total of payments were then twice again what they borrowed! I recently visited with some folks who had purchased a used Sable worth at most $10,000, but the total of payments over the life of their long-term loan was almost $46,000!!!! The vehicle brand-new probably stickered for around half of that.
2) When you go to a dealership and a salesperson greets you, keep this in mind: he or she is a person just like you. They get up every day, and feel like it or not, report to work, just like you (the difference being, they may work all day for free - tried that lately?) They are there to earn a living, and some (not all!) of them believe that the best way to get what they want in life is by helping others get what they want. I have seen master salespeople who could sell ice cubes to Eskimos go to bat with their managers for people they connected with and those people drove out with better deals than they ever could have negotiated on their own (hey, I was a salesman and I've done it). I have also seen salespeople "put someone away" who treated them like third class citizens. The best are when people swagger into the dealership and tell the salesperson "I know all about car salespeople and cars, and you aren't going to pull anything on me". They then proceed to treat the salesperson as their personal whipping post. Generally, they leave the dealership bragging to their spouse (or whoever else they brought to witness their glory) how they showed that so-and-so salesperson who was boss. The salesperson, on the other hand, is trying to decide whether to head to Jamaica or the Bahamas with the commission off of that sale. The moral is who's side do you want that salesperson on? Treat them accordingly! I won't lie, not every salesperson has great scruples. If you aren't comfortable, or are not sure about the deal, go shop it!
Ok, I just realized I may have posted the most long-winded response in the history of the forums, and for that I apologize. There are several other things I'd like to say, but this post is already insanely long. I hope that I have answered your questions, I know I have answered a whole slew of questions no one asked!
