As if buying a car wasn’t already a headache, uncertainty over tariffs is now making things even more complicated for American consumers. The latest round of tariff talk isn’t just affecting new vehicle sales, as it’s having a noticeable effect on the used car market, too, as inventory tightens and prices start creeping up.

Read: Trump Hints At Lifting 25% Auto Tariff Just As Carmakers Start To Panic

On April 9th, President Trump paused most of the administration’s tariffs but not the 25 percent levy imposed on imported cars, car parts, and imported steel and aluminum. Parallels are being made with how the market reacted during the pandemic, with demand for new and used cars increasing.

Used Car Prices Start to Shift

One individual, who had bought a used Honda CR-V during last year’s Thanksgiving period, was shocked when he received a call from the dealer that sold the car to him. Writing in Bloomberg, Kiel Porter related how the dealer offered him “substantially more” than what he paid for it, as it was the kind of car that could be sold again quickly. The dealer in question claimed his lot was usually stocked with around 100 cars, but that inventory had dropped to below 40.

Porter’s experience is echoed by others. A report from iSeeCars states that used car prices had been stable for the previous six months but started to rise in March. The site predicts that prices could increase between $890 and $5,169 if trends similar to what was experienced during Covid continue.

Here at Carscoops, our editor John Halas has been tracking the value of his base 2018 Honda CR-V, and the numbers have been climbing fast. In December, resale offers from CarMax and Carvana hovered in the low $15,000 range. By February, they had crept up to $16,000. As of April, they’ve hit $18,600. That’s a staggering 23 percent increase in just four months, for a seven-year-old crossover that hasn’t changed a thing.

Similar stories are surfacing from buyers. “Recently, I’m looking at the prices, and I notice that they shot up,” said Angelica DeLeon, a used car shopper based in Connecticut, speaking to NPR. DeLeon had been saving money for two years after her car was repossessed due to pandemic-induced unemployment.

Now with a full-time admin job, DeLeon wonders what she can buy within the $10,000 range. She had been looking at a used Subaru, but the only options available are over the 135,000-mile mark, which she feels is too much wear for her to trust.

There are some outliers. Six-figure luxury and high-end vehicles aren’t always following the same pattern. One recent example was a nearly-new 2025 BMW M850i that sold at a $35,000 loss for the owner, despite having fewer than 2,000 miles on the odometer. But stories like that remain rare and mostly limited to segments where depreciation has always played by its own rules.

For now, it looks like tariff uncertainty is here to stay, and that’s keeping both buyers and sellers on edge. While the broader economic outlook remains mixed, one thing is clear: for Americans trying to get into a reliable used vehicle without breaking the bank, the road ahead doesn’t look any smoother.