1.2M Google reviews from 18,000+ U.S. dealerships show price complaints falling as underwater trades peak. See where the strain actually shows up.
Welcome to the REV. A weekly briefing on what the Auto industry can learn about customer experience from millions of Google reviews. Every Thursday, we Rank, Explore & Visualize automotive reputation & sentiment data.
Our latest research report dropped last week. It analyzes 1.2M Google Reviews from 18,000 U.S. dealerships across Q1, revealing what customers are saying across the auto industry. Check it out below:
Report: Q1 2026 Voice of the Customer Report
Read online. Subscribe to REV
Underwater trades hit a four-year high. Price complaints fell anyway.
That's one finding we're pulling out of the Q1 2026 Voice of the Customer Report, which is now live. Read it here →
The report is made up of 1.2 million Google reviews across 18,000+ U.S. franchise dealerships, broken out by sales and service, luxury and mass market, and region by region.
The industry headline this quarter was affordability. The market backs it up.
In Q1, 31% of trade-ins toward a new vehicle were underwater, the highest first-quarter share since 2021. The average upside-down borrower owed $7,183 and stretched to a 77-month loan (Edmunds).
You'd expect that strain to show up at the desk. It didn't.
Complaints for every transaction topic we track fell or held this quarter (except one).
And this is more than a one-quarter read. Widen the lens to three years and price negativity has held in a narrow band the whole time, roughly 18% to 20% of negative sales reviews. Even now, with underwater trades at a four-year high, it's sitting right where it usually does. The market pressure isn't pushing price complaints out of their normal range.
Negativity on the people side moved too. Honesty complaints fell the fastest of any sales topic (−14.6%), professionalism close behind (−13.5%). Under real financial pressure, the floor held the deal together.
Warranty was the only transaction topic that climbed, up 2.3%, while everything around it fell. Why was it the exception?
Our read: affordability isn't showing up as pricing frustration. A buyer can stretch to a longer term and a bigger payment and still walk out happy — which may be why price, financing, and trade-in complaints all fell. What changed is the question in their head. Not "Can I make this work today?" but "What does this cost me over the next six years?" Warranty is where that worry lands.
There's a normalization angle, too. The era of big price jumps is behind us. JD Power has the average new-vehicle transaction price at $45,859 in March, up just 2.5% from a year ago. Recent buyers and lease returners already signed on at that level; the real sticker shock is likely for people who last bought six or more years ago. A high price isn't a surprise now. It's the baseline. And remember who's in this data: everyone bought. These reviews tell you how the customers who made the deal feel, not the whole market.
It's not just us seeing the shift. Extended-warranty sales ran ahead of last year, which F&I teams read as buyers trying to lock in the cost of future repairs (JM&A Group, 1,700+ dealerships). The strain is showing up in the financing and the long game, not in a wave of price complaints.
One thing before you go. The report has a few interactive pieces worth checking out — search your own store to see where you land against other dealers in your state.
If your numbers don't match what you're seeing on the floor, shoot me an email. That gap is usually the interesting part, and I'd be happy to take a look with you.
The Q1 2026 Voice of the Customer Report
See you next week - Emily, Marketing @Widewail
U3GM Blog Post Comments