Cars are mighty expensive these days, so it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to learn that just about one-in-five new-car buyers are slapping down at least $1,000 a month for their auto loans. It’s a rate that has increased roughly sevenfold in the past decade and is definitely sustainable and not a sign of the coming apocalypse.
Between January and July of this year, about 17% of buyers who financed their new cars were saddled with monthly payments above $1,000. For reference, that number was just 2.4% back in 2015, according to Automotive News. Of course, cars are far more expensive now than they were a decade ago and high interest rates certainly aren’t helping, but good God, that is grim.
You probably won’t be too shocked at the makeup of folks who are spending at least $1,000 a month on car payments. 53.4% of them bought an SUV, and a further 36.8% bought pickup trucks. More specifically, about 5% of all new buyers are spending over a grand per month on a Ford F-150. That’s sort of mind-boggling, isn’t it? Behind that loan truck, 3.6% of buyers are financing sedans at those rates, 2% are going for minivans and 1.9% are getting coupes.
This troubling phenomenon really started during Covid as the proportion of high-loan-payment new-car buyers rose when inventory tightened. In 2021, about 6.7% of buyers were paying over $1,000. By 2022, that number jumped to 15.5%, and it never really went back down.
Even though inventory constraints subsided, people paying hand over fist every month did not. In 2023, 16.3% of folks who financed were paying over a grand per month, and in 2024, the number ticked up to 16.6%.
It’s easy to see why this is happening. In the second quarter of 2025, the average new-vehicle loan was $41,983 with a 6.8% interest rate, according to AutoNews‘ report. The more expensive a car is, the more buyers are going to pay every month. When you consider the average new car price is somewhere around $50,000 right now, it’s not a shocker at all. Don’t expect this to get any better with the end of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit and new tariff policies popping up like a bad rash.
Earlier this summer, we told you about another worrying trend: ultra-long car loan terms. Aside from high monthly payments, people are agreeing to long financing deals regularly. Seven-year car loans now represent about 21.6% of all new vehicle financing agreements, and six-year loans make up 36.1%. Hell, there are even some folks going for eight-year loans. This past March, late car payments hit their highest rate in 30 years. Things are getting bad out there, folks.

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