Henry Ford’s great-grandson, William Clay Ford Jr., Ford’s current executive chair, told CNBC today that the spike in seven-year auto loans is not necessarily a good thing.
In the CNBC interview, he said, “I think we have to be careful because we don’t want to get into a situation like we did before, where consumers are over-extended. That doesn’t do anybody any good.”
He said Ford had been relatively conservative about those type of things. Nontheless, Ford said the underlying strength of the market has been very good.
A Ford Credit Spokeswoman confirmed to Auto Finance News that Ford does do 84 month loan terms.
Just last week, Experian Automotive said the 2Q average amount financed for a new car increased by $903 year over year to $27,429, compared to $26,526 2Q 2013. Experian also noted that 23.8% of new car loans were between 73-84 months, up from around 10% a year ago.
