Study: Blacks pay more on auto loans

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Local auto dealers declined to comment on the report—which can be found online at www.nclc.org -- saying that they had not yet seen it and citing the current lawsuit against GMAC.

The report showed significant differences among individual states. For example, it said African Americans paid 3.1 times as much as whites on markups in California. That was the lowest among 18 states and the District of Columbia that are jurisdictions without "race-coded" driver’s licenses.

Among 13 states with race-coded driver’s licenses, Wisconsin African Americans paid five times more than whites in markups, according to the report.

GMAC spokesman James Farmer was quoted in Wednesday’s Washington Post as saying the auto-lending giant was reviewing the report.

"There are percentages and dollar amounts paid that we don’t understand," Farmer said. He also was quoted as saying that GMAC does not ask a borrower’s race in the credit-application process.

Cohen’s report was filed Aug. 29 in U.S. District Court in Nashville. It was prepared in connection with one of the suits that was filed against major auto-loan firms in the past few years.

A class-action suit against Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp. was settled in February, when Nissan agreed to inform consumers that interest rates on loans can be negotiable. Nissan also agreed to offer preapproved credit without dealer markups to 675,000 African American and Latino auto buyers over a five-year period.