There’s a secret in the car industry that few will spill: The best time of the year to buy a car is upon us.
Car shopping experts say that between Black Friday and New Year’s Day, consumers typically see some of the best discounts on new cars. They anticipate that will hold true this year, too, although some say the deals might be more brand-dependent rather than a broad sweep across the car industry as in years past.
That’s because of the complexities the industry has had to navigate this year. First, there is the impact from President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on imported vehicles and auto parts potentially adding cost to some vehicles.
Also, there are some supply chain challenges for certain brands such as an aluminum shortage for Ford Motor Co. That has disrupted some Ford truck production. Also, there is a potential semiconductor chip disruption from a political situation between the Dutch and Chinese governments. The chips are used in a variety of car parts so, without them, production across many manufacturers could be interrupted and create a shortage of inventory, thus causing new car prices to spike.
Then there was the Sept. 30 expiration of the federal tax incentive, which offered up to $7,500 back on the purchase of qualifying electric vehicles. In some cases, automakers are offering discounts on gasoline vehicles to offset the big dip in EV sales that followed the incentive’s expiration. But in other cases, some automakers can’t afford to offer big discounts across the board as they now must bear the full load of incentivizing EV sales.
Cox Automotive’s Chief Economist Charlie Chesbrough said in “normal” times, some carmakers will “juice holiday offers” to boost year-end sales and hit sales targets. The holidays are a critical time for luxury brands to sell down inventory, so they often offer low costs, and short-term leases.
“But with electric vehicle tax credits expiring and tariff costs building, (automakers) may might not be in a position this year to notably increase incentives in the final month of the year,” Chesbrough said. “Still, as always, various strategies are likely, and I would expect those brands with abundant inventory (Stellantis) will have to lean in with some good offers. But I wouldn’t expect much from those brands in short supply like Toyota or Honda.”
Overall, most car shopping experts and car dealers expect automakers to offer sizable incentives to move metal in December. General Motors has already started offering big discounts on Chevrolet Silverado pickups.
Likewise, many car dealers will negotiate more aggressively to get sales over the finish line to hit year-end targets. In fact, Tyson Jominy, vice president of data and analytics at J.D. Powers, said the best days this year to buy a new car will be Dec. 26 through New Year’s Eve. He calls it the “magic week” for car buying. Eric Frehsee, president of Tamaroff Auto Group, confirmed Jominy’s prediction.
“Dealers will lose money to sell cars at the end of the year,” Frehsee told the Detroit Free Press. “There’s all kinds of goals and targets to hit and no one wants to fall short.”
Although in the Motor City, those specific dates might not carry as much weight as in other parts of the country, said Katie Bowman Coleman, president and owner of Bowman Chevrolet in Clarkston.
“It could be true in some areas of the country, but that’s not typically what we see in this market,” Coleman said. “It’s an employee-driven market and it’s a heavy leasing market so most people know when their lease is up and they get ahead of it.”
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The kickoff to the sales season will be Black Friday, Jominy wrote in an article on the topic of year-end car sales surges.
He said most automakers’ annual sales are often “teetering between success and failure as the year comes to a close.” That is why so many car companies are willing to use discounts to hit sales goals.
“Similarly, dealers, who face annual sales goals of their own, become increasingly willing to ’deal’ if that’s what it takes to nail their sales targets,” Jominy wrote. “In short, the industry incentives and dealership dynamics at play make this six-week window between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day one of the most buyer-friendly times of the year.”
The reason for it being such a buyer-friendly time is because of a change in consumer sentiment over the years.
October typically marks the start of the new “model year,” and it was once the month when hype over the brand-new cars created a buying frenzy, Jominy said. But in recent years October has become a dead month for car sales.
That was especially true this year after the federal tax incentive on EVs came to an end on Sept. 30, which dampened car shopping enthusiasm across the board in October and so far in November. J.D. Power expects new-vehicle retail sales in the United States for November to come in at 1,058,500 vehicles sold. That’s a 4.8% decrease from November 2024.
But Jominy said the end of this month could start new momentum into next month.
“Black Friday now kicks off the auto industry’s winter sales cycle. This is when the first meaningful discounts on new model-year vehicles start to appear,” Jominy said. “The incessant drumbeat around Black Friday puts consumers in a buying mood.”
Ivan Drury, director of Insights at Edmunds.com, said there is a healthy supply of new vehicle inventory across the industry and sales are “very respectable” considering the impact from tariffs, the federal tax incentive on EVs going away and more. He said in December most consumers will see the best deals on new cars in years, but not as good as the last time many of them bought a car, several years ago.
“There is an increasing need to help entice customers with leaning into discounts, those are steadily trickling in and while the difference between the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price and average transaction price is getting closer to historical norms, the issue is, $2,000 off in today’s prices isn’t nearly as enticing when the (average) MSRP is up $10,000 from 2019,” Drury said.
He said the average trade-in age for vehicles that new car buyers are bringing in is nearing 6 years old. Therefore, with so many buyers having bought pre-COVID-19, Drury said, they will have a hard time coming to terms with today’s prices.
The average MSRP in October was $51,345 and the average transaction price — that’s the price a person pays after all discounts and a trade-in value are applied — was $49,105, showing the average incentives were $2,240, according to Edmunds’ data.
Compare that with October 2024 when the average MSRP was $49,426 and the average transaction price was $47,612, putting the average discount at $1,815.
“But when consumers begin to creep up on mileage milestones or nearing warranty expiration dates, a new car might be in the cards,” Drury said. “The question is, are the discounts being offered enough to sway someone from one brand to the next or just keep them away from the used lot?”
For two decades now, carmakers are counting on the discounts being enough to put people into new cars.
The year-end car shopping trend harkens back to Toyota’s luxury brand Lexus, which started running its “December-to-Remember” adds in 1999.
“Believe it or not, you can credit a lot of this holiday momentum to Lexus and their iconic red-bow ‘December-to-Remember’ ads,” Jominy said. “Those commercials didn’t just sell cars; they reshaped consumer behavior. They turned December from a slow sales month into a hotbed of luxury-vehicle purchases.”
Indeed, prior to those spots, dealerships had vacant sleepy showrooms at the end of the year. But according to published reports, the ad campaign boosted Lexus sales, with the last two months of the year contributing nearly a quarter of annual sales volume and helping Lexus gain market share.
Lexus marked the ad campaign’s 25th anniversary in a news release last year by saying: “Since its inception in 1999, ‘December to Remember’ has served as a hallmark of the brand’s marketing strategy. Ushering in the holidays with a signature jingle, big red bows, and heartwarming gift-giving moments, the campaign continues to resonate with audiences over two decades later — helping maintain the brand’s holiday sales leadership over its competitors.”
At Matick Automotive Group in metro Detroit, partner Paul Zimmermann said his stores are prepared to be open until midnight on Black Friday serving customers who come in expecting to get good incentives and sales like they do at most other retailers that day.
The group owns Matick Chevrolet in Redford Township, Matick Buick-GMC in Southfield and Matick Toyota in Macomb Township. The group will increase its advertising across digital and social media ahead of Black Friday, noting all the locations will be open from 8:30 a.m. and whenever the last customer leaves.
Still, Zimmermann is reluctant to call it the best time to buy a new car in comparison to the “old days.”
“Our domestic brands used to give employee discounts to everyone for a number of years. That was sweet because 50% of the population in Detroit that didn’t qualify for it, got a discount,” Zimmermann said of years past.
Now, however, he thinks it is “kind of debatable” as to whether it’s the best time of the year to buy a new car because the programs and incentives are pretty consistent year-round.
“I don’t know if (the automakers) are going to do more or not?” Zimmermann said. “Will dealers be more aggressive? Yeah, a little bit.”
Zimmermann said automakers have their annual earnings coming up and they all want to “kill it” so he does expect that Chevrolet will do all it can to beat Ford.
“But I don’t like this narrative … from an execution standpoint, that we try harder to deal or give a better a deal at a certain time than others,” Zimmermann said. “A customer should have the same experience, which should be transparent, whether it’s 10 a.m. the first day of the month or 5 p.m. the last day of the month.”
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Bowman Chevrolet’s Coleman agrees with that sentiment, but she added that “dealers are really willing to work with you right now because there is a big push for year-end. EV sales built up to 25% of new car sales per month (ahead of the federal EV tax incentive expiring) and now we’re not selling as many EVs, so we have to fill the bucket with our (gasoline-powered) vehicle sales.”
But different dealers have different expectations for Black Friday sales. At Village Ford in Dearborn, owner Jim Seavitt said he is not going all out with ads for the retail shopping day because the modern Black Friday crowd is not as heavy as it was in years past.
“It isn’t the same as before. It’s changed dramatically,” Seavitt said. “We don’t get the traffic we used to get.”
Still, he expects Ford will have a moderate amount of incentives on its vehicles especially the big sellers such as the Explorer SUV and F-Series pickups.
At Bowman Chevrolet, Executive Manager Rhonda Jenson said GM is labeling its Black Friday sale as “red tag incentives” this year. She said the business at the store has been steady all month, but she does anticipate a sales surge at the end of the year.
“GM is really pushing the Silverado with Costco cash, which is $1,250 off a Blazer EV, an Equinox EV, a Silverado EV or a light-duty gasoline pickup,” Jenson said.
A person has to have been a Costco executive member for 60 days to qualify. For those who are not Costco members, she said, GM is offering good interest rates on loans for those same vehicles. There is 0% financing on a Chevrolet Equinox and Trailblazer for 60 months, for example. Also, on the Silverado, there is $1,500 bonus cash and other incentives that could lead to payments below $200 a month for a low mileage lease, Jenson said.
“You can find Silverados for less than Equinoxes right now, which is crazy,” Bowman Chevrolet’s Coleman added. “We’re running through Silverado’s … we’re scrambling to find Silverados. It’s an interesting time. But it’s exciting. It is what it is with what happened with EVs. Now we have to react. I think GM is stepping up.”
Across town at Tamaroff Auto Group, Frehsee said he expects a big turnout on Black Friday when his stores open at 9 a.m. and close at 6 p.m. Tamaroff sells Nissan, Honda, Kia and Acura brands at stores in Roseville and Southfield.
That’s because “affordability is key” right now, Frehsee said, noting that the brands he sells offer some lucrative leases now. Normally, his stores sell about 15 to 20 new cars a day; he expects to sell 30 to 35 on Black Friday.
“We’re ramping up for a big Black Friday sale. We’ve been planning it all month long,” Frehsee said. “We’ve been very fortunate with our brands from a tariff perspective because a lot of our brands are made in the United States. Less than 1% of our sales, as a company, are EVs so with the incentives going away on those, we were not affected.”
Frehsee said Honda has the lowest supply, but he has ample inventory across his other brands. Nissan is offering a 24-month lease on a Sentra sedan for $99 a month with $3,999 due at signing. The Kia K4 compact car is leasing for the same deal. Even with nothing down, he said, the monthly payment on those cars will be less than $300.
“We’ve got some really strong deals right now and a lot of the domestics are not selling sedans right now,” Frehsee said. “We have a nice lineup of sedans at a low price that are very fuel-efficient.”
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Frehsee said there are low financing offers, too, as automakers try to make up for the slow sales in the previous months and “factories are running as fast as they can.”
Meanwhile, he has increased his ads with a big push on year-end sales marketing across digital and social media sites.
“We’re anticipating a big push for the end of the year,” Frehsee said.
Jamie L. LaReau is the senior autos writer for USA Today Co. who covers Ford Motor Co. for the Detroit Free Press. Contact Jamie at jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. To sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.

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