Nearly one in five new car buyers' monthly payment now tops $1,000 per month
Since 2019, the rates of people paying more than $1,000 per month for both new and used cars have quadrupled.
A line chart showing the percentage of new and used car buyers with monthly payments of more than $1,000 from 2019 to 2025. The orange line shows the rate of new car payments over this threshold; it rises sharply from about 4% in the first quarter of 2019 to 19.3% in Q2 2025. The blue line — which shows the same rate for used cars — climbs from 1% to 5.6% over the same period.