Used truck prices expected to stabilize as new deliveries and trade-ins rise heading into 2027

What’s happening with used truck prices, and what to expect as we round out the year and head into 2027.

Hey everybody – welcome back to The 10-44, a weekly webisode from the editors here at CCJ. I’m Jason Cannon and my co-host on the other side is Matt Cole.

Truck fleet managers and operators have experienced a wild ride in 2026, driven by a mix of unpredictable global events, shifting emissions standards, and changing inventory levels. But used trucks have not been immune from the craziness that has made up this year. The biggest shocker came late in the summer, specifically around August and September, when new stroke pricing actually increased.

bump was driven by a tight confluence of factors. A slow level of trade ins due to depressed new truck deliveries, coupled with an increase in drivers entering the market looking for clean news trucks that were less available.

I think the biggest surprise was was recently, specifically around late summer August, time period used, truck pricing increased.

think we saw a confluence of two factors. One is slow level of trade ins because truck deliveries have been fairly depressed. You know, throughout the 27 model year. So there are fewer truck deliveries means fewer trade ins. And the supply of drivers entering the market finally started to increase in the late summer.

So you've had, in that period more drivers looking for clean use, trucks that were less available than they had been. So that resulted in a fairly substantial increase in used truck pricing around the August time period, and that seems to have continued into September.

So that was the biggest surprise, prior to that.

know, it's like you mentioned, global events. don't think any of us are allowed to be surprised at anything that happens anymore, because the only certainty is uncertainty, and crazy stuff is going to happen day after day.

Disruption to the global oil supply is just another thing that came out of left field and is disrupting every aspect of the economy, including trucking. But specifically focused on use trucks. Yeah. The late summer increase in use truck pricing is the biggest surprise to me.

Going into the year, a lot of folks were anticipating a massive pre-buy ahead of upcoming emissions regulations. But that didn't really materialize the way people expected. While order books were running roughly 45% to 47% ahead of last year, actual new truck deliveries lagged behind by about 9% to 10%.

Fleets found themselves in a wait-and-see situation, and with the freight market remaining flat, brand-new trucks weren't critically required to move the limited freight volume available.

On the new truck side. We are still not seeing many deliveries of new trucks. Which is another surprise to me. I figured by now, with deliveries would have increased to match the orders that you mentioned.

You know, we're somewhere around 45, 47% ahead of last year on orders, but like nine, 10% behind last year on deliveries. So that's a huge gap. That can only be rectified by delivering more trucks in the fourth quarter of this year and into next year.

So yeah, you're right. The You know every fleet was in a wait and see situation. And finally got some clarity late spring early summer. But the freight market is what it is. And, new trucks weren't necessarily necessary critically move the limited volume of freight that we have.

A massive gap formed, meaning unfulfilled 2027 model year orders are rolling over to become model year 2028 builds, featuring a mix of older and newer emissions technologies.

I think we're going to have to see increased new truck deliveries, to round out the 27 model year.

lot of the orders that were placed this calendar year are going to be converted to model year 28, built next year. So, you know, the side effect of that is model year 28 trucks are going to have a combination of 27 emissions and 24 emissions built with older engines in line. Compliance penalty trucks.

So yeah, that's my message going forward is for the remainder of this year, we'll probably see increased new truck deliveries, which means an increase in use truck trade ins because, you know, like we said, the freight market isn't changing. So it's going to be essentially a one for one.

Looks like, know, along with that's correct.

Increased trade ins means headwinds for the use truck bump in pricing that we saw in the late summer. what I see for the remainder of the year.

Well the OEM offerings are more different than they have been in previous new emissions regimens. Some are know, our coolers are different than entire engineering of how they meet. The 27 emissions is different among each OEM. But I think we'll probably see, differing opinions on on the relative value of lot of these new trucks, new engines 27, 28, based on the solution that each manufacturers come up with.

some ways there's limited differences. In other ways there's a lot there's new technology and just, added after treatment.

See change in valuations on trade ins. Probably not think the engineering has been done. I don't think anybody's expecting a reliability disaster. So it's really just cost based, know, new price based.

As we round out the final two months of the calendar year and look ahead to 2027, what’s the outlook on supply and pricing? Chris expects used truck supply to increase because those orders placed for the 27 model year aren't being canceled and will be delivered through the end of the year and into next year. While more trade-ins will hit the market, a steady rise in spot and contract rates is drawing more buyers into the market for clean, late-model used trucks.

Rather than a dramatic shift, Chris forecasts that the increased supply will pull us out of the summer price-spike mode and return the market to a standard rate of depreciation—around 2% to 2.5%

I would think use truck supply would have to increase because these orders that we saw for 27 model year, not by and large are not going to be canceled. they're going to be delivered through the end of this year and into next year as 2018. But that's regardless of model year. It means that there are going to be more new trucks delivered, which means more use trucks entering the supply.

And know, that's counteracted to an extent by the increased number of drivers who are coming into the market because, as you said, not just spot rates, but also a contract rates have increased. So they're not only going to be buying new trucks, they're also going to be buying clean late model use trucks that could counteract increased supply of used trucks.

At the end of the day, though, I think, increased supply of used trucks is going to be the more important factor. And, it's not going to sea change. It's just going to be a return to depreciation as opposed to price increases that we saw this summer.

That's it for this week's 1044. You can read more on cc j digital dot com.

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