Does Capital One Auto favor Carmax for some reason?

[Anonymous]

So I filled out the pre qualify for Capital One Auto a little less than a month ago and was pre-approved for around 50k I think. When using their Auto Navigator, I noticed that, at least on vehicles I am looking at (Acura MDX, Lexus GX460) the only place where I don't have to put a lot of money down (3k to 4k) is Carmax. To test this, I found two Lexus GX's with same exact features: year, mileage (within 300 miles of each, dealer vehicle has 33050, Carmax is 33353), features same, exterior and interior color same. Price on both were within $260 of each other. Both had similar vehicle history. 1 owner lease vehicles. For the Carmax vehicle, the Auto Navigator says I only had to put down $571 to qualify, but at the Toyota dealer, Auto Navigator wants $3371 down to qualify.

I was wondering if Capital One made some kind of deal with Carmax or does Capital One just look favorably to CarMax for certain vehicles? Just struggling to figure out the why behind this. Thank you for reading!

[Anonymous]

Auto dealers in your area pay for this feature to get pre-approved buyers into their dealership. If the book value is the same on both vehicles (in your case exact same model year, options, etc.) then you should get the same approval at the dealer when they submit to Cap One.

EDIT: Also the Toyota dealer can probably certify the Lexus and Carmax cannot. Plus if they can't work out the deal with $600 down you can leave and go get the other one.

[Shooting-For-800]

They may like carmax buying policies better for used cars.

Terms vary dramatically depending on the deal.