The Average Ford F-150 Buyer Is Paying Over $900 A Month
The days of a cheap Ford F-150 are dead and buried as the average payment folks made for the truck in the fourth quarter of 2024 reached $919 per month. That's almost unbelievable, but it continues a trend that happened throughout 2024 where the Q2 average was $919 per month and the Q3 average was an eye-watering $953 per month, according to Experian's Q4 2024 State of the Automotive Finance Market report.
The slight drop comes as Ford's average transaction price dropped in the final two months of the year, Ford Autority reports. Luckily for buyers, prices have continued to fall for the first couple months of the year as well. As of February of this year, the average Ford will cost a buyer $54,082 — 0.6 percent higher than the same time last year. The average transaction price for the overall market was $48,039 — a percentage point higher than February of 2024.
The fact that F-150s are this expensive — while shocking — isn't exactly surprising. I mean, the most basic version of this truck starts at $39,060 for a no-frills, regular cab, XL work truck. Prices quickly balloon once you add in a Super Cab or Supercrew cab, longer beds and higher trim levels.
Everything is expensive now
In the fourth quarter of last year, pickup trucks were the second-most financed vehicles on the market with 16.36 percent of all transactions being financed. It was beaten out only by "SUV & Wagon," where 61.39 percent of all transactions were financed.
Experian didn't list out any of the F-150's competitors, but when you look at the average monthly loan payments for the 10 most leased vehicles (I know this is a weird metric, but hey, this is what we're working with) the F-150 had by far the highest loan payment. The Toyota Tacoma came second on that list with an average $758 per month loan in Q4 of last year. Other notables were the Honda Prologue ($713 per month), the Tesla Model 3 ($678 per month) and the Tesla Model Y ($626 per month).
Aside from the high prices, it's hard to pinpoint exactly why folks are paying so much for F-150s. If I had to guess, I'd say a lot of it was down to folks spending beyond their means to get in the driver's seat of the most popular vehicle in America. Buyers will see the high monthly payment and low downpayment and jump at the opportunity to buy, feeling they're able to pay that amount monthly, but not all at once. They are braver than me.