Used Ford Explorer Prices May Be Normalizing: Study

The onset of the pandemic in early 2020 had massive, lasting impacts on a number of industries, including the automotive sector. There, automakers struggled to build enough vehicles to meet demand for some time, which had a ripple effect on the used vehicle market. In fact, used car prices hit new record highs multiple times in the ensuing years, though the market has started to cool as new vehicle production increases and inventory swells. That’s good news for those in the market for a used vehicle – including shoppers seeking to buy a Ford Explorer, specifically.

According to a new study from iSeeCars, the Ford Explorer has seen the fourth-largest decrease in terms of average pricing over the past year – a 7.4 percent decline, from $34,667 to $32,105 – though it’s still 31.3 percent more expensive than 2019, when the average used Explorer could be found for $26,412. Regardless, that ranks the Ford Explorer behind only the Tesla Model 3 (it’s experienced a 22.6 percent drop year-over-year), the Jeep Grand Cherokee (9.2 percent), and the Ram 1500 (8.2 percent) in terms of the biggest declines in 2024 versus 2023.

iSeeCars derived this data after analyzing more than 17.9 million one-to-five-year-old used vehicles sold between January and August of 2019, 2023, and 2024. List prices and average odometer readings were tallied and aggregated to compare the share of cars at various price points across the three periods, as well as to compare the average mileage of those vehicles. Overall, this data found that used car prices have dropped by 4.7 percent since 2023, and the availability of sub-$20,0000 vehicles has risen 30 percent, though the average price for a one-to-five-year-old used model is still 40.1 percent higher than 2019.

This is indeed notable for the Ford Explorer, regardless, as it was among the most popular used vehicles in 2023, regardless of price. That popularity has led to some of the sharpest price increases since 2019 of any vehicle, however, with models selling for sub-$20k getting harder and harder to find. Regardless, used vehicle pricing across the entire Blue Oval universe has declined as of late, which is also true of the used market as a whole.