It’s Not Just You, Used Cars Are Super Expensive These Days

If you’ve gone shopping for a used car lately, you might have been shocked at prices these days. Rather than question your own sanity or memory of how things used to be, hard data shows prices of pre-owned vehicles have skyrocketed in the last six years.

Learn how heat wears down your tires and what you can do about it.

It used to be you could find a fairly decent ride for under $10,000, but those days are long gone and might never return. According to iSeeCars, three-year-old used car prices have risen almost $10,000 versus six years ago.

That’s right, the average three-year-old used car now costs $32,635. We can remember not too long ago when that was the median cost of a new vehicle. What a time to be alive.

“The pandemic may be a fading memory, but the lack of new car production five years ago has created a ‘pandemic hangover’ effect for today’s used car market,” said iSeeCars Executive Analyst Karl Brauer. “Many car buyers are now priced out of late-model used cars, forcing them to consider older models with more miles to fit within their budget.”

Even worse, the sub-$20,000 used vehicle options went from nearly half of the market in 2019 to a mere 11.5 percent of the market in 2025.

For example, the average price of a used Honda Civic, a popular option for younger drivers on a budget, was $16,472 back in 2019. Now in 2025 that figure has grown to $23,813. For a kid who’s just establishing themselves in a world where everything from rent to groceries and utilities are more expenisve, that extra almost $7,000 is crushing.

Even worse are used trucks. The GMC Sierra 1500 went from an average $33,567 in 2019 to $46,132 in 2025. The Ford F-150 has seen a similar increase in the used market, jumping from $31,489 six years ago to $42,663 today.

Interestingly enough, iSeeCars found out of the best-selling car models, the one that saw the biggest percentage increase in price is the Nissan Sentra. It’s average price grew a whopping 45.7 percent from 2019 to 2025, or $12,504 to $18,224 for reasons we don’t understand.

While the overall cost of trucks and SUVs are enough to make you choke, passenger cars saw the biggest overall increase in used prices. Maybe people have turned to sedans and coupes as a way to save money so much that prices in that segment have climbed considerably?

What this all boils down to is finding a real deal on a used car is a big challenge these days.

Check out the full study on used car prices by iSeeCars.

Image via Raymond Montiel/Facebook Marketplace