Most Steps in the Car-Buying Process Improved in October

In what’s rare, car shoppers reported a lower score when it came to their overall car-buying experience in October despite saying nearly every individual step of the process improved. The 85% Ease of Purchase score is down from 89% in September and August, and 87% in October 2024. This month’s survey comes at a time when buyers rushed to purchase vehicles ahead of both EV incentives expiring and tariffs pushing overall prices higher as 2026 models arrived at dealers.

More than half (55%) of buyers found the car they wanted in stock, up from 48% last month and the highest since March’s 56%. Generally, the more people who find what they want, the higher the Ease of Purchase score, like in March when it was 89%. Again, this month’s overall score bucks that trend too. All other means of vehicle acquisition fell whether buyers tried to buy a car in transit (18%), ordered from the factory (21%), or picked an alternate in stock (6%).

No matter how they landed on their final vehicle, far more people said it was easy to find what they wanted in October, 87%, compared to 77% last month and is also the highest score so far in 2025. In June that number had fallen to 67%. This aligns with higher inventories at dealerships as the 2026 model year slowly rolls into stores.

This added inventory meant buyers didn’t have to look as far and wide as they had even in recent months. Four out of five (80%) visited one or two dealers, up from 70% last month. And the number who had to visit four or more dealers fell from 12% last month to just 5% in October.

The positives kept rolling when it came to the financial side of the ledger as well. Both agreeing on the final price and agreeing on the trade-in value were increasingly easy in October compared to September. Determining which F&I products to purchase saw the largest increase with nearly three-quarters of buyers (74%) finding it easy in October compared to 61% in September.

There was one dark spot in October’s Ease of Purchase results.

More people said they spent more time than expected to complete their purchase. That number rose from 23% in September to 27% in October. And while the change isn’t as significant as some others mentioned above, we don’t usually see swings this large. Although, there was an even larger swing in terms of exceeding time expectations last October. One buyer, who had a long wait, had a helpful tip for dealers in these situations, “They could have had snacks because the process was very long. That would have helped.”