First came housing loans and the subprime-mortgage crisis.
Now, signs of stress are creeping into another key consumer area: auto loans.
Delinquencies in the auto-loan market are ticking up to their highest level in several years. Lenders are tightening terms in some cases, and interest rates have risen from the rock-bottom levels of a few years ago. About $575 billion in loans for new and used cars are made annually, according to the National Automotive Finance Association.
About 4.5 percent of auto loans made in 2006 to top-rated borrowers were at least 30 days delinquent as of the end of September, up from 2.9 percent the previous month, according to a Lehman Brothers survey of companies servicing these loans. That is the biggest one-month jump in at least eight years. Lehman says 12 percent of subprime borrowers, who have poorer credit records, were delinquent on their 2006 auto loans as of September. That is the highest level since 2002 and up from 11.1 percent the previous month.