Credit availability just hit a four-year high according to the April numbers. Everyone in the industry will celebrate that headline. Nobody wants to talk about what is underneath it. Average new vehicle payment is $773 a month now. Nearly one in five buyers is committing to over a thousand dollars a month. And 84-month loans are at an all-time high, over 22 percent of all financed new purchases. From where I sit in F&I, these customers are already stretched before they get to my desk. I am not adding margin to their stress, I am adding products to a payment stack they can barely hold. The music has not stopped yet but the chairs are getting harder to find.
Dealership - F&I
May 12, 2026 - 23:21
0
0
Total auto loan debt is $1…
Total auto loan debt is $1.68 trillion. Subprime 60-day delinquencies hit 6.9 percent in January, the worst in over three decades. Nearly a third of trade-ins are underwater. Banks are expanding credit while captive lenders and credit unions are pulling back. The buyers getting loans right now are being approved by institutions with less skin in the game and more appetite for risk.
The customer sitting across…
The customer sitting across from me who just got approved at 8.4 percent on a 78-month term knows something is wrong. They feel it. They are not celebrating the approval. They are doing math in their head and hoping it holds. Three years ago that same customer bought at 4.1 percent on a 60-month term and walked out feeling good. Today they walk out quiet. That shift in how customers feel about their purchase is not in any of the industry data. It shows up six months later in owner loyalty scores and service retention and it is going to show up in portfolio quality at the lenders before this cycle is done.
Add new comment