Dealers are still sorting through what the midterm results mean for the car business, but affordability is the bigger pressure on sales heading into the end of the year. It’s also pushing more shoppers toward certified pre-owned, and the industry isn’t capturing much of that demand yet.
On today’s edition of CBT Live, Micah Tindor, Assistant Vice President, Consumer Vehicle Disposal at Cox Automotive, joined Jim Fitzpatrick and Bridget Fitzpatrick to talk about where dealers can find growth opportunities in Q4.
Affordability is the number one issue dealers should be watching, Tindor said. The average new vehicle price up $11,000 and average APR up 3% since 2019 or 2020, which adds about $7,500 over the lifetime of the vehicle and leaves the average buyer funding roughly $18,000 more than six years ago.
That pressure is moving shoppers toward CPO. Cox Automotive’s 2026 CPO vehicle study found appeal for certified pre-owned at 74%, just two points behind new vehicles at 76%, compared with a 12-point gap in 2023, and affordability and peace of mind on mechanical issues are the two main catalysts. About 57% of the roughly 825 shoppers surveyed, all planning to buy within six months, said they’re open to CPO, yet only about 12% of used vehicle sales are. At the same time, 31% of new vehicle shoppers and 27% of used vehicle shoppers couldn’t say what CPO means. Those who do buy one tend to stay, with 72% of current CPO owners saying they wouldn’t go back to a traditional used vehicle.
Shoppers mostly learn about certified pre-owned from the dealer website and dealership staff, so that’s where Tindor wants dealers to start. Make CPO inventory easy to find online, explain the inspection, warranty, and reconditioning in plain language, and bring certified pre-owned up when a new vehicle shopper is price constrained, or the vehicle is six years old or less. He also said tech partners and AI tools need to be trained to surface CPO in search results, on vehicle detail pages, and when a deal is penciled, since customers will use AI for the legwork but still complete the transaction based on trust.
