April Delivers Another Shock to the Buying Process

April witnessed another whipsaw in customer experience at the dealership. Historically, April has been a rather pleasant month with our top indicator “Was it easy to buy your car?” hitting 87% in 2024 and 90% and 2025. Last month, it was similarly high at 88%. April this year dropped significantly to 81% and a number of problems that have eased over time have resurfaced according to the buyers we surveyed.

Over the years, robust vehicle availability has often been tied to higher Ease of Purchase scores. Buyers in April told us they had a much harder time finding the vehicle they hoped to buy, falling from 78% last month to 69%. That 69% was also the average for 2023, the first full year of the Ease of Purchase Scorecard and when supply chains slowed manufacturing capacity. The latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis showed North American domestically produced inventory at the lowest point it’s been since July 2023.

This is being highlighted in two areas we track.

Inventory challenges have dramatically shifted how buyers secure the car they eventually buy. In April, less than half (44%) of buyers found the car they wanted in stock. That fell dramatically from 57% in March and is far below the lowest average CDK recorded in 2023 at 48%. More than a quarter (26%) bought it in transit, and while that, too, is higher than any annual average we’ve tracked, it doesn’t break high numbers witnessed in August (29%) and December (31%) of 2025. The number of people opting for an alternative car in stock also was historically high at 14%.

This hunt for the right car also meant that buyers had to visit more than one dealership to find it. And while we’ve seen a steady trend of more buyers getting their purchase done at just one dealership, that number fell to just over a third (37%) in April. That’s down from 43% in March and is more in line with trends we saw in 2023 (32%) and 2024 (34%). Thankfully, the number of people having to visit three or more dealerships remained the same as in March at 23%, lower than historical averages.

And if having to visit another store to find the car was a bigger burden, every step we track in the buying process also fell from March and from April 2025.

The time it takes at the dealership can impact Net Promoter Scores as years of the CDK Friction Points Study has shown. In April, time expectations shifted considerably. Less than half (43%) said the purchase process took the time they expected, down from 54% in March and is below the lowest annual average of 48% in 2023. It won’t come as a surprise that the 40% who said it took longer than they expected also hit a historical high, up from 28% in March and 35% in 2023.

All these historical marks aren’t likely just related to a tightening inventory picture. The most recent report from the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment study showed that March 2026’s 53.3% confidence level was the sixth worst rating in over 70 years of the study. Four of the others were in 2025 and two others were in 1980. Adding this low consumer sentiment to the multistep process of purchasing a car likely contributed in some way to all the lower results in this month’s Ease of Purchase Scorecard.

The American consumer needs to be able to find the car they want to buy in the time they expect to bring these numbers up and combat the overall sentiment in the market.