The Squeezed Buyer: Sentiment Hits 46.3, DARPI Slides for 14 Straight Weeks | Week of October 12, 2026

Three numbers from this week tell one story from three angles. Consumers rated their current economic conditions at 44.7, the lowest reading in the history of the University of Michigan survey. Sixteen of the eighteen Fed officials who submitted forecasts expect another rate hike before the year is out. And our own price index slid for fourteen straight weeks. A buyer who feels poor, expects borrowing to get pricier, and keeps watching prices drift lower is not a buyer about to rush the lot.

Overview

Here's the week in one breath. Consumer sentiment fell to 46.3, mortgage rates climbed to 7.40%, and the Fed minutes point to another hike, which is why the Squeezed Buyer Board below reads the way it does. DARPI, our weekly read on used retail asking prices from dealer listings, fell 0.44 points to 94.59, led by Fullsize SUVs. Our FSBO (for sale by owner) desk, which compares private-seller listings with dealer prices, flagged three real discounts: the Model Y, CR-V and Accord. The other five dissolved once mileage was matched.

On the showroom floor, September's SAAR (the seasonally adjusted annual rate, which projects a month's new-vehicle sales pace across a full year) came in at 16.0 million, and hybrids now hold 15.6% of the market. Our monthly dealer scoreboard refresh found reputations barely moved while review volume kept climbing. Also on the desk: a 31,000-vehicle Toyota RAV4 Plug-in Hybrid recall, an FTC dismissal and a settlement within three days, and a Stellantis strike vote in Canada on Saturday and Sunday, October 17 and 18. Looking ahead, our model projects SAAR at 16.44 million for the fourth quarter, below the 16.65 million third quarter that just closed.

Money & Mood

Start with the mood. The University of Michigan's preliminary October sentiment reading came in at 46.3, below the 47.6 economists expected and down from 48.1 in September. The standout is the current conditions gauge at 44.7, the lowest on record, down from 50.9 a month earlier. Consumers also rated buying conditions for durable goods at a record low, citing high prices and interest rates.

Money is tight at both ends of the borrowing spectrum. Freddie Mac's 30-year mortgage rate rose to 7.40% on October 8, up from 7.28% a week earlier and 6.30% a year ago. At the pump, AAA's national average sat near $4.36, down five cents on the week but the highest ever for this time of year, and up from $3.12 a year ago.

Then the Fed's minutes landed on Wednesday, October 7. The September hike was unanimous, and 16 of the 18 officials who submitted forecasts expect another increase this year. The minutes didn't say when. The next decisions are October 28 and December 9, and recent inflation data and Fed comments suggest October is unlikely. Inflation is the reason: August's personal consumption expenditures price index ran 3.4% headline and 3% core, against a 2% target.

That is the backdrop for the car payment itself. Edmunds data shows the average new-car payment hit $787 in the third quarter, up $31 from a year ago, on an average loan of $44,664. A quarter of new-car loans, 25.5%, now run 84 months or longer, and 21.2% carry payments of $1,000 or more. The average APR is flat at 7.0%, so the squeeze is coming from price and loan length.

Our read, not the survey's: shoppers are arriving cautious, so expect more price comparison and more payment-first conversations in the showroom.

Showroom Floor

September's SAAR came in at 16.0 million, 3.6% below a year earlier, according to NADA's Market Beat as reported by CBT News. The year-to-date pace is 16.1 million, down 1.9%. One quirk: Labor Day sales counted in August last year and in September this year, which flattered September's volume. Our model's third quarter figure of 16.65 million reads higher partly because it comes from the federal total vehicle sales series, which includes medium and heavy trucks.

The powertrain mix keeps shifting toward hybrids. Battery EV sales are down 29.2% through September, partly because buyers rushed ahead of the federal EV tax credit's expiration in September 2025.

The used lot tells the same story from the other side. Used 2026 RAV4 Hybrids are listing above new MSRP on average, a sign of how tight hybrid supply is. Meanwhile used EV inventory is climbing and prices are falling, which gives dealers room to move EVs priced under $32,000, according to CarGurus.

DARPI

DARPI tracks used retail asking prices from dealer listings across 11 vehicle segments, indexed to 100 at June 8. Near-New fell to 94.59 this week, down 0.44 points from last week and 5.41 points below the June 8 baseline. That makes fourteen straight weeks of decline. The Value cohort slipped 0.32 points to 95.45.

The retail-wholesale spread widened to negative 3.16 points from negative 2.72 a week earlier. The spread is the gap between DARPI's retail asking-price read and the Manheim wholesale index, rebased to the same June 8 start. Wholesale had its own soft month. CBT News reports the index fell 1.1% in September to 205.9, more than is normal for the month, with EV values up 0.6% from August while non-EV values fell 1.7%. Retail now sits even further below its wholesale yardstick.

The segment moves match the wholesale story. Fullsize SUVs did the most damage, down 0.75 points, followed by Midsize Cars at 0.64 and Luxury SUVs at 0.56. Fullsize Pickups fell 0.55. CBT News says demand and values for large pickups and SUVs declined as fuel costs shifted what holds value, while older, more affordable vehicles depreciated less. The biggest listings in the Fullsize SUV slide are the 2023 Chevrolet Tahoe, 2024 Ford Expedition and 2024 Chevrolet Tahoe.

Next up is September CPI from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday, October 14. In August, used cars and trucks were down 2.3% from a year earlier and new vehicles were up 0.6%, so it is a clean outside check on our index.

FSBO Desk

FSBO means for sale by owner, a private seller listing directly instead of through a dealership. Every comparison runs both sides through the same 20,000 to 60,000 mile band, so a high-mile private car doesn't get credit for a discount that is really just a worse car. Four outcomes, in plain English:

• OPPORTUNITY: a real, mileage-matched discount, backed by at least 10 comparable private listings and a gap of more than $500 below dealer retail. Worth a driveway look.
• ANCHORED: private sellers are pricing above dealer retail even after you match mileage. No discount here.
• MILEAGE MIX: the raw discount looks bigger than the matched one. The private sellers mostly just had higher-mile cars.
• THIN SAMPLE: fewer than 10 matched private listings. We report it but do not call it a signal.

Three real opportunities this week, all 2022 to 2025 cohorts: the Tesla Model Y, the Honda CR-V and the Honda Accord. The Model Y gap is the deepest, backed by 138 matched private listings. Across all 234 private Model Y listings in the pull, the median has sat 127 days at the current listing, versus 19 for dealers. The CR-V has 11 matched listings, so treat it as the thinnest of the three. CarGurus puts the average used Model Y at 28.3 days to turn at dealers, so the 127-day private median looks slow by comparison.

Now the costumes. The Toyota Camry looks $948 cheaper on the raw numbers but only $295 cheaper once mileage is matched, a mileage mix story. The Toyota RAV4 flips hardest: $290 cheaper raw, then $3,741 above dealer retail when matched. The Nissan Rogue also flips to a premium, and the Ford F-150 and Jeep Grand Cherokee never looked cheap at all. If you are hunting a driveway deal on any of these five, you are hunting in the wrong place this week.

Scoreboard

Every month we refresh the Dealer Reputation Scoreboard at reviews.dgactual.com, which tracks Google ratings for franchise dealerships. After the October refresh it covers 17,107 dealers with 10 or more reviews and 28.1 million reviews across 43 brands. The headline from the month-over-month comparison is how little ratings moved.

Among the 14,834 dealers with at least 100 reviews in both months, 95.8% held the same rating from September to October. In total, 351 ticked up and 272 ticked down, and the average stayed at 4.52. No brand's average moved by more than 0.01. We set aside 3,241 of the 18,075 matched dealers, mostly stores under 100 reviews plus listings whose review counts shrank or surged in a way that points to a Google listing change.

What did move is volume. The same dealers added 264,431 reviews in the month, and the median dealer added 10.

Pace varies by brand, from 2.04% growth in review counts at Genesis stores to 0.63% at Ram. Porsche leads the brand table and FIAT trails.

The practical math for a store: one sitting at exactly 4.50 on 500 reviews needs about 56 straight five-star reviews to reach 4.55, the point where a one-decimal rating rounds up to 4.6. At the median pace of 10 reviews a month, that takes five to six months even if every review is five stars.

Dealer Desk

Two FTC moves landed within days of each other. On October 5 the agency dismissed its complaint against Asbury Automotive and three Texas dealerships, a case filed in August 2024. It cited the prospect of years more litigation and limited resources, and said it stays committed to price transparency for dealers. Then on October 8 it announced a settlement with Greenway Auto Group, which it alleged charged an average of more than $3,350 over the advertised price in over 92% of transactions. The proposed order requires ads to prominently include the actual price a consumer must pay and bars deceptive prize mailers.

The read for a store: one case ended, but the standard did not move. If your advertised price is not the price a customer can actually pay, that is the exposure.

Trade & OEM

Stellantis workers in Canada vote Saturday and Sunday, October 17 and 18, on whether to authorize a strike, with results expected Monday, October 19. Talks have been at an impasse for almost a month, centered on Stellantis' potential sale of its idled Brampton plant to defense manufacturer Roshel. A yes vote lets the bargaining committee call a strike. It doesn't start one.

Safety Desk

Toyota is recalling approximately 31,000 model year 2026 RAV4 Plug-in Hybrids in the U.S. An ECU fault in the plug-in hybrid system can shut the system down while driving, which can lead to a loss of motive power at higher speeds and raise crash risk. The fix is a free software update at Toyota dealers, and owners will be notified by early December. The campaign number had not been published when we checked. Stores that carry the model can prep software-update capacity and outreach before owner letters land.

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