With leasing rates declining somewhat over the past few years, the majority of both Ford and Lincoln shoppers have opted to finance their next new vehicle purchase as well. In the second quarter of 2023, a total of 57.60 percent of Lincoln customers opted to finance compared to 42.40 who chose to lease, in fact. Now, with the release of Experian’s Q3 2023 State of the Automotive Finance Market report, we’re learning that this trend continued into the most recent quarter, albeit at a slimmer margin than before.
In the third quarter of the year, Ford customers continued to show a strong preference for financing over leasing, with 81.37 percent of customers choosing to go that route versus 18.63 percent that opted to lease their next new vehicle acquisition. That certainly wasn’t the case with Lincoln, however, as just 51.84 percent of the luxury brand’s customers took out a loan to pay for their vehicle, versus 48.16 percent that chose to lease it instead.
In terms of all luxury brands, those numbers were quite similar across the board, which isn’t a surprise given the fact that customers in that space have long preferred leasing compared to their mass market-buying counterparts. However, many of Lincoln’s rivals touted higher lease rates than finance rates, a list that includes the likes of BMW, Acura, Infiniti, and Audi, while Mercedes-Benz, Buick, Cadillac, Genesis, Jaguar, and Land Rover all had higher finance rates than leases in Q3.
In terms of the overall market, a total of 79.09 percent of customers opted to finance their new vehicle purchase in Q3, versus just over 21 percent that chose to lease. That number has declined over the past two years after cresting at 86.44 percent in 2021 and 82.25 percent in 2022, however.
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