> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://blog.dgactual.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Used Car Prices Are Falling. Also at a Record High. Here's How That's True. - URL: https://blog.dgactual.com/market-brief-september-23-2026/ - Published: 2026-09-24T13:18:39.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-24T13:18:39.000Z - Description: DARPI's 11th straight down week, the Fed's first rate hike since 2023, and why the 'record high used car prices' headline you saw this week isn't wrong, it's just measuring something else. Plus: FSBO opportunities, service-lane recalls, and what Wendy's has to do with any of it. - Author: Daniel - Tags: Monday Brief, Market Intelligence JUMP TO SECTION [The Record High Confusion](#recordhigh) [DARPI](#darpi) [The Rate Hike](#fed) [Off the Lot](#wendys) [FSBO Desk](#fsbo) [Safety Desk](#safety) Here's a number that should stop you: used retail prices just fell for an eleventh straight week. Now here's the number everyone else is running with: used car prices just hit their highest level since December 2022, up 7 percent year over year. Both are true. Neither is lying. And if you only saw one of them this week, you were looking at half the picture. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates on September 16, its first hike since 2023, a quarter point to 3.75-4 percent, landing right on top of that eleventh down week. Financing just got a little more expensive, at the exact moment the index tracking what dealers are actually asking for comparable used inventory kept sliding. This week we're untangling why 'prices are falling' and 'prices are at a record high' can both be headlines about the same market, on the same day, and what that means for your lot. ## Overview Quick hit before the deep dive: DARPI's near-new read is 96.04, down 0.05 points week over week, the eleventh straight weekly decline, now 3.96 points below the June 8 baseline. The retail-wholesale spread widened to -1.71 from -1.66\. The Fed's quarter-point hike to 3.75-4 percent adds a little financing pressure on top of an already-softening market. Three vehicles clear real driveway-acquisition opportunities in this week's FSBO scan: Honda CR-V, Nissan Rogue, and Tesla Model Y. Three recalls carry real service-lane angles, the biggest a 223,472-unit Ford F-150 fuel tank strap issue. And this week we're also settling the record-high-prices confusion and sizing up the fast food chain everyone's suddenly writing about. ## Wait, Aren’t Used Car Prices at a Record High? Let's kill the contradiction before it kills your credibility with a customer who read one headline and quotes it at you on the lot. The 'near-record' number, $27,239 average used-vehicle listing price in August, the highest monthly figure since December 2022, is a single blended average across the entire used market: every age, every mileage band, every segment, mashed into one line. It's real. It's also not measuring the same thing DARPI measures. DARPI is built to isolate price movement within fixed, like-for-like segments, so mix shift can't fake a signal. And there's real mix shift happening: Edmunds found the average age of a vehicle selling in the $10,000 to $15,000 price band jumped from 4.7 years in 2019 to 8.7 years now, and average mileage in that band nearly doubled, from 58,250 to 98,222 miles. Certified pre-owned, which skews older and pricier for its age, made up 15.2 percent of used retail sales in August. Stack enough older, higher-mileage inventory that still commands a premium price for its age, and the blended national average climbs even while apples-to-apples asking prices, the DARPI way of measuring it, keep softening. Neither number is wrong. They're answering different questions: 'what's the market average doing' versus 'is this specific car, at this age and mileage, getting cheaper or more expensive to buy.' For a dealer pricing inventory, the second question is the one that actually matters, and it's the one that's been saying down for eleven weeks straight. ## DARPI: Eleven Straight Weeks Down First, the plain-English version, because we say this every week and we mean it: DARPI tracks used retail asking prices from dealer listings across 11 vehicle segments, indexed to 100 at June 8\. Think of it as a scoreboard that only compares a car to itself over time, never to a different, cheaper category of car that happens to be selling more of late. This week's near-new read is 96.04, down 0.05 points week over week and down 3.96 points versus that June 8 baseline, the eleventh consecutive weekly decline. The value cohort held up slightly better at 96.49, up 0.09 for the week. The retail-wholesale spread, which compares DARPI's retail read against a rebased Manheim wholesale figure, widened to -1.71 from -1.66 the prior week, meaning retail asking prices are falling faster relative to wholesale than they were seven days ago. Segment moves were mixed, not a uniform slide: Luxury Sedan actually climbed 0.36 points on the week, while Midsize SUV and Fullsize SUV each gave back roughly a quarter point. Read that split carefully. This isn't a market falling apart evenly, it's specific segments still finding buyers while others keep drifting down, all happening underneath a national average that's telling a completely different story. ## The Rate Hike Landed on a Soft Market The Fed's move was unanimous, 12 to 0, and policymakers signaled at least one more quarter-point increase before year end. The federal funds rate doesn't set your customer's auto loan rate directly, lenders price off the prime rate and their own funding costs, but the direction matters to anyone financing a deal this fall. Edmunds' Joseph Yoon put it plainly to CNN: a quarter-point move works out to a few dollars a month on a typical $40,000 loan, not a payment-breaking shift by itself. The real story is what it's stacked on top of. CNN reported the average new car transaction price at $49,121 in August, up from $48,658 in January, average amount financed climbing to $44,658, and loan terms stretching to 70.4 months on average. None of that moved because of this specific rate hike, it was already the trend heading into September. What the hike does is close the door on any near-term hope that financing gets cheaper from here. ## Off the Lot: What Wendy’s Has to Do With Any of This One more thread we're pulling on this week, and it's not automotive, but the lesson travels. INC just ran a piece on Wendy's 245 net restaurant closures this year, and it's a good piece: the warning is that a brand's reputation can't save an operator when unit economics break. Fair point. It's also not the story we told three days earlier when we looked at Wendy's, Burger King, and Cava side by side. Same beef inflation, same soft consumer sentiment reading, same category. Two of the three are growing. The difference isn't brand strength, it's which of two tests a chain passes: is it clearly cheaper, or is it clearly better. Wendy's is passing neither test right now. That's a consumer-sorting problem, not a franchisor-governance problem, and it's the same sorting behavior showing up in DARPI's segment splits this week, buyers rewarding specific things and punishing everything else. Full breakdown, with the traffic numbers, is on the blog. ## FSBO Acquisition Desk The FSBO desk compares private-seller listings, for sale by owner, not dealership inventory, against dealer retail listings in the same 20,000 to 60,000 mile band, so the spread reflects a real driveway-acquisition opportunity rather than a mileage-mix illusion. Three nameplates clear the bar this week. Honda CR-V shows an n of 11 matched listings with a band spread of -2,431, private sellers running well under dealer retail even after matching mileage, both sides in the 2022-2025 cohort. Nissan Rogue matched at n of 13 with a band spread of -658, same cohort years. Tesla Model Y is the standout by sample size, n of 149 matched listings with a band spread of -1,640, the largest verified sample of the three. Toyota Camry and Honda Accord both come back ANCHORED, meaning private sellers are pricing at or above dealer retail even once mileage is matched, not a buying signal despite what a raw unmatched comparison might suggest. Jeep Grand Cherokee, Toyota RAV4, and Ford F-150 all land ANCHORED as well, private-seller asking prices running higher than dealer retail in the matched band. ## Safety Desk Three recalls carry real service-lane angles this week. The largest: 223,472 model year 2023-2027 Ford F-150 trucks, where front fuel tank straps may be improperly assembled, risking a leak or detachment. Owner notices went out September 21\. Second, 208,724 Volkswagen Tiguan and Atlas units plus Audi Q3 models, where a steering rack mounting bolt can corrode and break, risking loss of steering control. Third, a smaller but safety-critical campaign: 2,404 Freightliner Cascadia trucks with corroded front-axle brake modulator valves that may cause the vehicle to pull during electronic stability control braking, owner notices scheduled for November 8\. All three are straightforward inspect-and-replace service work, real opportunities to get affected owners back in the service bay. ## **Notes** One methodology note: the Fullsize Car segment's vs-baseline figure is still excluded from this brief. The June 8 baseline pull returned zero listings for that segment, so any comparison against it would be measuring against a broken starting point, not a real market move. We'll bring it back once the segment is properly re-anchored. ## **Sources** Sources: Federal Reserve, September 16 2026 FOMC statement (https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20260916a.htm); CNN (https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/16/economy/fed-rate-decision-sept-2026-your-money); CNBC (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/16/fed-rate-hike-consumer-borrowing-and-savings-rates.html); NADA (https://www.nada.org/nada/issues/industry-data); Edmunds (https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/insights-q2-2026-used-car-report.html); Autotrader (https://www.autotrader.com/car-shopping/should-you-buy-used-car); INC (https://www.inc.com/michael-tasner/wendys-has-closed-245-restaurants-this-year-the-reason-should-worry-every-franchise-owner/91409218); NHTSA, Ford F-150 recall 26V578 (https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2026/RCLRPT-26V578-3276.pdf); NHTSA, Volkswagen/Audi recall 26V590 (https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls?nhtsaId=26V590000); NHTSA, Freightliner recall 26V583 (https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls?nhtsaId=26V583000). 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