Subprime auto 60+ day delinquency
Share of subprime auto loans 60+ days delinquent.
Reading
The household-balance-sheet signal that surfaces first because the loans are short-tenor and the marginal borrower has no buffer.
Thresholds
- watch6 — above the post-GFC stress band
- alarm7 — approaches GFC-era subprime stress levels
Context
Why this matters
Subprime auto 60+ day delinquencies are the household-balance-sheet stress signal that surfaces first because the loans are short-tenor (most 60–84 month) and the marginal borrower has no buffer. The mortgage market hides stress (long tenor, slow foreclosure process); the credit-card market hides stress (revolving balances mask the underlying inability to pay down); the auto market does not. When the marginal subprime borrower stops paying, the print appears within months. The 32-year record reading is not noise; it is the household-fragility floor expressed in one data series.
Who watches this
- Cox Automotive (Jonathan Smoke) — produces the most cited monthly auto-credit data; Smoke's commentary is read across the industry
- Fitch Ratings — publishes the structured-finance perspective on subprime auto ABS performance
- Jim Bianco (Bianco Research) — has tracked subprime auto as a consumer-stress proxy for over a decade
- Danielle DiMartino Booth (QI Research) — references the series in her macro-credit commentary
- Cleveland Fed consumer-credit team — publishes the regional-fed view on household-credit stress
Recent history
60+ day subprime delinquencies broke a 32-year record in 2025 and have held above the prior 2009 peak through 2026-Q1. The average loan-term has stretched (84+ months a meaningful share of originations) which mathematically pulls forward the delinquency curve.
What would change my read
A sustained reversal would require either (a) real wage growth at the bottom quintile that closes the auto-payment-to-income gap, or (b) an actual subprime-borrower defaulting-and-clearing cycle that resets the population. The former is the counterweight-signal question; the latter typically only happens after a recession.