well, my last two cars have been leased and used and I did negotiate the residual with the dealer ( im sure they do negotiate with the bank as well behind doors ) but I did manage to get the residual to be where I wanted it to be in both cases. ( first a 2006 BMW 650i Cab and now a Maserati GT 2008 )
You sure you weren't negotiating from an artificially low residual value? The residual value and money factor are set by the manufacturer. It is fixed and will always be fixed. However, it doesn't necessarily mean that the dealership won't mark it up to make more profit from uninformed buyers.