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Like seemingly everything else in this age of tariffs and other geopolitical crises, new cars are getting expensive. Transaction prices reached an average of $50,000 late last year and have hovered there since. And according to a recent study, those looking for relief on the used car market are increasingly out of luck.
Published by Edmunds, the study found that truly affordable used cars are becoming rarer, forcing budget-conscious shoppers into older cars with higher mileage. Researchers found that used cars priced between $10,000 and $15,000 today are almost nine years old on average, with approximately 98,000 miles. It’s true that the average age of cars on U.S. roads has crept up, but that’s still four years older than the average $10,000-$15,000 used car in 2019, with 40,000 more miles.
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This is the result of what Edmunds aptly calls a “striking” shift in the used-car market. In the second quarter of 2019, used cars sold for under $20,000 accounted for 55.2% of that market, but that shrank to 31.8% in Q2 2026. The share of cars sold for under $15,000 went from 31.6% in 2019 to 17.8% in 2026. Meanwhile, the share of used cars sold for $50,000 or more nearly quadrupled from 2.3% in 2019 to 8.3% in 2026.
This shift is being enabled by strong demand for used cars—even at higher prices. According to Edmunds, the average transaction price of a three-year-old used car in the second quarter of 2026 was $32,461. That was a record high for Q2, up 4% from the same time last year and 15.5% from Q2 2021, when pandemic-related supply constraints began to artificially raise used-car prices. Yet three-year-old used cars sold just as quickly in Q2 2026 as they did in Q2 2025, averaging 38 days on dealer lots in both quarters. Dwell time on lots is a key industry metric of sales pace.
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As Edmunds notes, prices for used cars have been increasing steadily since the pandemic thanks to a drought of used inventory. That’s likely to continue to be a problem for used-car shoppers, as even the relatively short production stoppages necessitated by the pandemic meant lots of cars were never built, leaving a smaller pool of used ones.
The unchanged sales pace of three-year-old used cars shows that shoppers aren’t balking at higher prices. Given the current situation, it would admittedly seem naive to expect used-car prices to drop soon. Shoppers haven’t reached a breaking point… yet.
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Stephen has always been passionate about cars, and managed to turn that passion into a career as a freelance automotive journalist. When he’s not handling weekend coverage for The Drive, you can find him looking for a new book to read.
