More Americans are trading in underwater vehicles. That does not mean the vehicles are submerged. In a sense, the drivers are. More than one in four trade-ins had negative equity in the third quarter of 2025, Edmunds reports. In auto industry parlance, the loans were underwater. Of all used vehicles traded in toward a new car purchase between July and September, 28.1% had negative equity. That means the vehicles were worth less than the owner owed on a car loan. The figure marks a four-year high. Amer ...