“More Americans are finding themselves upside down on their car loans, according to the car shopping experts at Edmunds. Q3 2025 data from Edmunds shows that a growing share of owners are trading in vehicles worth less than what they owe – and the debt they are rolling forward is only growing: More than one in four new vehicle trade-ins are underwater, a four-year high. 28.1 percent of trade-ins toward new-car purchases had negative equity, up from 26.6 percent in Q2 2025 and 24.2 percent in Q1 2025. This is the highest share Edmunds has on record since Q1 2021, when 31.9 percent of new-car trade-ins were upside down,” says auto industry house Edmunds in a report.

“Americans with upside-down car loans owe more than ever. The average amount owed on upside-down loans hit a record $6,905 in Q3, edging past the previous high of $6,880 in Q1 2025. Nearly one in three underwater car owners owe between $5,000 and $10,000 in debt – a new record. 32.9 percent of negative-equity trade-ins fell into this range in Q3, up from 32.6 percent in Q2 and continuing a steady climb since last year. A record share of underwater car loans are carrying five-figure debt. Nearly one in four trade-ins with negative equity carried more than $10,000 in debt in Q3, surpassing the previous high of 24.6 percent set in Q4 2024. Another 8.3 percent of trade-ins with negative equity carried more than $15,000 in debt, up from 7.7 percent in Q2 2025.”

The February 6, 2024 Breitbart report headlined “Credit Card and Auto Loan Delinquencies Surge on Back of Bidenflation” won’t display on the page, despite other articles from around the same period loading just fine. Similarly, despite picking up the quarterly Edmunds report in March 2024 and headlining it with “Americans increasingly upside down on auto loans as used car values fall,” Fox Business News has not once this year covered the analyst group’s updates. Interesting, huh?