Auto Loan Rates Split;
Used Crosses 6.50%

Auto loan rates went separate ways over the two weeks since our July 6 report, and the split fell along the market’s oldest fault line. Used auto financing rose 0.041 points to 6.539%, crossing above the 6.50% line, while new auto APRs eased to 5.761%, ending the climb they carried through early July, and the general average fell back under 6.00%. The gap between new and used financing widened to 0.778 points, its largest of the summer. The overall benchmark eased slightly to 6.190%, but for used-car buyers the direction was unmistakably the wrong one.

📊 Full auto loan data: 2,235 institutions tracked across all 50 states.

NATIONAL: Auto loan APRs split over the two weeks ending July 20, 2026, with the used segment rising while everything else eased. Used auto loan rates climbed 0.041 points to 6.539%, crossing above the 6.50% line they had approached through early July. New auto loan rates went the other way, easing 0.014 points to 5.761% and ending their three-report climb, while the general auto average fell 0.047 points to 5.963%, back under the 6.00% line. The overall benchmark eased 0.014 points to 6.190%.

Used financing did the climbing, alone. The segment’s 0.041-point rise to 6.539% made it the only category to firm since early July, and it carried the average through 6.50% for the first time this summer. Used loans always cost more than new, the price of older collateral, faster depreciation, and thinner manufacturer support, but the premium had been shrinking through early July as new-car rates rose faster. That pattern flipped: with new financing easing 0.014 points to 5.761% at the same time, the new-to-used spread widened to 0.778 points from 0.723, adding back all the ground it had given up and then some.

The rest of the board leaned lower. The general auto average, which blends new, used, and refinance financing, fell 0.047 points to 5.963%, the largest decline of the report, dropping back below the 6.00% line it had held for two straight readings. Two-week windows produce bigger moves than single weeks, and the tracked universe expanded meaningfully over this stretch, so the general segment’s drop blends repricing with a broader pool of reporting lenders. The overall benchmark’s slide to 6.190% nets it all out: a slightly cheaper market on average, with the cost concentrated on exactly the buyers least able to dodge it.

For consumers, the widening spread has a dollar figure attached. A buyer financing $25,000 over 60 months at the used average of 6.539% pays roughly $4,377 in total interest; the same loan at the new auto average of 5.761% runs about $3,833, a gap of roughly $544 that has grown by about $40 since early July on the spread move alone. Rates within each segment still run from roughly 2% to the 18% ceiling across reporting lenders, so credit profile and lender choice swing the outcome far more than any two-week move; comparing several quotes on the same vehicle remains the surest way to beat these averages. See today’s best auto loan rates, compare what lenders quote on Texas auto loan rates, and follow the segments on the auto loan rate trends page.

A split like this one is worth reading closely, because the two halves of it come from different places. The easing in new and general financing fits the summer’s broader pattern of a parked, range-bound market drifting by hundredths. The rise in used financing, against that current, points at the used-car market itself: lenders price used loans off collateral values, depreciation curves, and the credit mix of used-car buyers, and when those inputs sour, used APRs climb even while everything around them softens. One report does not make a trend, and the expanded reporting pool this period argues for some patience before calling it one. But a summer-high spread of 0.778 points between the two segments is the market saying, in plain numbers, that it charges meaningfully more to finance the older car.

The Federal Reserve is the quiet backdrop rather than the cause. The Fed held the federal funds rate at 3.50% to 3.75% on June 17 for a fourth straight meeting, the first under new Chair Kevin Warsh, and leaned hawkish in its projections; its next meeting comes at the end of this month. Auto APRs take their cue from the broader rate environment, used-car values, and each lender’s own credit pricing more than from the policy rate, which is exactly why the two auto segments can move in opposite directions while the Fed does nothing at all. For a borrower, the levers that matter have not changed: credit score, loan term, and how many lenders you ask. On a used purchase especially, where the average rate just crossed 6.50%, a second and third quote is the cheapest insurance available, and segment-by-segment movement is tracked on the auto loan rate trends page.