Ford holds the No. 3 US sales spot by 1,195 vehicles; Cox had Hyundai ahead by more than 7,000

Ford remained the third-best-selling automaker in the US in the third quarter, narrowly ahead of Hyundai Motor Group. Hyundai had been forecast to pass it for the first time. Ford's sales release, filed with the SEC on Friday, puts total sales at 509,764 vehicles, down 6.6% from a year earlier. Hyundai, Kia and Genesis together sold 506,200, up 5.4%, CNBC reported. Ford shares were down 1% at $12.15 early on Friday, according to Nasdaq.

The margin depends on what you count

CNBC compared Hyundai with 507,395 Ford light-duty vehicles. That figure excludes Ford's largest heavy-duty trucks, which are classified differently. Counted that way, Ford won by 1,195 vehicles, about 13 vehicles a day across the quarter. Counted by Ford's reported total of 509,764, it won by 3,564. On either count it was close enough that a single week of the F-150 production problem Ford flagged at the end of September could have changed the order.

The thing everyone got wrong: the forecast missed in both directions

A week ago, Cox Automotive forecast that Hyundai's group would sell 511,421 vehicles, up 6.5%, while Ford would fall 7.1% to 504,172, CNBC reported at the time. That called for Hyundai to win by 7,249. The actual results:

Neither miss is large, about 1% each way. But both went in the direction of the headline, which is how a forecast flip turns into no flip at all. Hyundai's brands still set records. Hyundai Motor America sold 246,896, its best third quarter, with hybrid sales up 35%. Kia America sold a record 236,659, up 8%. By our subtraction from CNBC's group figure, that leaves about 22,600 for Genesis.

Why Ford's decline is smaller than it looks

Ford says the 6.6% drop reflects the planned phase-out of the Escape and Corsair. Excluding them, it says total volume was "essentially unchanged," against an industry decline of about 1%. It estimates its retail share rose about 0.4 percentage points to 12.1% on that basis. That is Ford's own adjustment, not an independent figure.

The trucks were the strong part of the quarter:

• Super Duty production was 110,275 trucks, up 4.4%, its best quarter in 19 years. F-Series production rose 4.5% to 266,777.
• F-Series sales reached 561,508 through September, more than 140,000 ahead of Chevrolet Silverado. September F-Series sales rose 2.4% to 67,448.
• Maverick Hybrid sales rose 59.6% to a record 27,793. Bronco set a third-quarter record of 38,020.
• An F-150 supplier issue at the end of September, which Ford says is unrelated to aluminum, is "containable" within its full-year adjusted EBIT guidance of $10.0 billion to $11.0 billion.

Who it actually hits: the trades that buy Super Duty and Transit

For contractors, the production numbers matter more than the ranking. Ford says it holds a 41% share of the Class 1-7 commercial truck and van segment, based on registration data through July. Transit van sales totaled 119,185 through September. A 19-year high in Super Duty output means more heavy pickups reaching dealer lots heading into the fourth quarter, after supplier fires last year disrupted F-Series supply. Watch whether the late-September F-150 problem spreads into October, since that is the light-duty truck many small crews run.

141,913 independent construction and contractors are listed on CheckThisBiz, a directory of 7,704,724 independent US businesses, including 12,896 in TX, 12,642 in CA, 11,414 in FL. Chains and franchises are excluded from that count, so these are the owner-operated businesses that actually apply for funding.

Related: GM's third-quarter sales and our story on the Cox forecast.

Sources: Ford Q3 2026 sales release via SEC EDGAR; CNBC; Hyundai Motor America and Kia America sales releases; Cox Automotive forecast as reported by CNBC; Nasdaq quote at 9:52 a.m. ET; CheckThisBiz business counts. Margins and forecast misses are our calculations. This is market information, not investment advice.