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August recall alerts are being finalized on CDG’s Recall Tracker… Give it a look/bookmark it to keep up as they come in!
— CDG
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Welcome to the Market Pulse—your cheat sheet to auto retail, built to help dealers price right, stock smart, and stay ahead.
49–50%: That's used vehicles' share of the market as of mid-2026, now more even with new than before.
60%+: Chevrolet's used share, up from the low 40s in 2020, the biggest brand-level swing toward used we found.
~30%: Toyota's used share, holding steady since 2020 and the clearest holdout from the industry-wide shift.
(Source: Finsight Auto Loan Level Data, custom CDG analysis / Based purely on loan originations that were securitized, not franchise isolated)
Used vehicles are holding even with new, and that's probably not changing anytime soon.
As of mid-2026, financed originations (vehicles purchased with a loan, not cash or lease) are splitting roughly 49–50% used to 50–51% new.
That’s a nearly even ratio that's held steady for a few years.
Custom CDG analysis
Why this is: Used inventory today is better equipped and more CPO-backed than in previous years, so it feels less like “a compromise” on quality or safety than it once did.
Some of what's driving this could still shift. Think… rate cuts, new-vehicle incentives, etc. But directionally, a near-50/50 split is likely the new normal.
NOTE TO DEALERS:
It's easy to treat new and used as two separate businesses, but that's not really true anymore.
There's still nuance, more control over used allocation, stocking, pricing, and direction than you have with new, but at the end of the day, it's one pool of shoppers looking for the right tech, safety, or mileage under the right total cost of ownership.
There's only upside in training your team to see the two as one connected business, worth understanding hand-in-hand, rather than running them separately like before.
Even with the industry near 50/50, the split isn't hitting every brand the same way.
Treating "the market" as one uniform shift misses what's actually happening on each lot.
Take a look…
Put simply: Chevrolet has flipped hard toward used. Toyota, meanwhile, has barely budged from new.
Ford and Honda sit somewhere in between, closer to the industry average but still leaning more used than they did a few years ago.
WHY IT MATTERS:
The nameplate you sell determines how urgently this applies to you, not the industry average.
For example, a Chevrolet store leaning on old new-vehicle-first playbooks is leaving used volume on the table.
Toyota dealers aren't under the same pressure, given how much new-vehicle demand still exists, but that doesn't mean used isn't worth building out.
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Earlier in the newsletter, we mentioned the nuance that will continue to exist within the used side of the business via what you acquire, why, and how you price it. With that in mind, I want to highlight some of the "nuance" we dug into in August.
Here are some of the dos and don'ts we found:
Do: Update your acquisition targets to match today's market.
A few years ago, a shopper looking to spend $15,000–$20,000 on a used car could expect something close to 3 years old. Today, that same budget buys a car that's about 6 years old on average and has picked up roughly 30,000 more miles along the way, according to Edmunds.
"The 3-year-old used car that you're looking for is actually the 5-year-old used car.” — Joseph Yoon, Edmunds
Which means: If your acquisition targets are still built around "3 years old" as the standard for that price point, you're chasing inventory your budget-conscious shoppers can't actually get anymore. Mileage and condition, not model year, are the more accurate filters now.
Do: Update your pitch to match how buyers actually shop today.
Similar to Yoon’s suggestions above, it’s worth noting that years ago, leading with the model year was the norm. A newer sticker made the pitch easier, but a recent Bumper survey of more than 2,100 shoppers found most buyers today barely factor age into their decision.
Here’s what the survey asked: What age does a used car become too risky to buy?
And here are the findings:
A majority (59%) said no age at all, and that mileage and vehicle history mattered most.
The second most popular answer was 8 to 10 years old.
And the third most frequent response was 11 to 15.
What this tells us: Leading with condition and documented history lands better, especially since older, higher-mileage stock now makes up a much bigger share of what's actually selling.
Don’t: Ignore which model years of a nameplate are actually moving right now.
Even within one nameplate, we found in August that demand isn't close to evenly spread across model years.
The 2025 Toyota RAV4 sold in just 33.59 days, the fastest mover under 3 years old, while a 2019 RAV4, same model, just older, took 55 days, and the 2018 took 58.
Honda's 2025 Pilot and 2024 HR-V are both moving in 38 days.
Among 4- to 6-year-old vehicles, the 2023 Tesla Model 3 was the fastest overall seller at 31.73 days, and gained $2,778 in price in a single month.
Yet despite that fast mover, Tesla as a brand posted the slowest average days-to-sell of any manufacturer, at 52.66.
In other words: Avoid overpaying for units that only look good on paper because of their nameplate or brand. Keep your team current on what your specific market is asking for, down to the age, mileage, trim, and powertrain, and stay disciplined with acquisition dollars so you're covering the full range of what shoppers might be looking for.
Two truths are happening right now…
1. Used is nuanced, and the more your team understands that nuance, the more money you can bring in.
But 2. There's never been a better time to have a uniform team chasing a uniform goal.
What I mean: Look at the market like one pool of shoppers, and look at your inventory like a spectrum.
Use the nuance we've covered (age vs. mileage, model-year turn speed, brand-level noise hiding real signal) to stock across that spectrum. But then take a holistic approach so that whoever walks through your door, whether they're shopping the top of your lot or the bottom, has two to four legitimate options in their range, in the right condition and quality.
Then work your way down the spectrum and make sure that's true again and again, all the way to your most affordable unit.
