The numbers mimic a national trend — what industry analysts are calling a rebound to 2008 buying levels, when auto purchases peaked in recent years.
The improving sales suggest that some consumers, who had postponed the purchase of new cars and trucks, are being lured to showrooms by low interest rates, fully stocked inventories and the high value of trade-ins, analysts said.
“Things are going well. We count our blessings regularly,” said Rick McCollum, general sales manager at Jeff Wyler Springfield Auto Mall.
New car sales at Jeff Wyler are up 13 percent over last year, while used car sales are up 10 percent, McCollum said.
The used car market is now a seller’s market, locally as well as nationally.
McCollum said the industry still feels the effects of the hailstorm and the “cash for clunkers” program, both of which reduced the stock of used cars in the market, driving up prices.
Compound that with rental agencies keeping their cars longer, and a burgeoning market for service (which theoretically lengthens a car’s life), and used cars are now hot commodities, said Archie Teverbaugh, general manager at Bill Marine Motors.
“The shortage is the cars that are about three years old,” Teverbaugh said. “There’s a lot of the 1- to 2-year-old cars. And then the older cars are extremely hard to find.”
Although they declined to give specific numbers, Bill Marine Motors has seen increases in both new and used car sales between 10 and 15 percent this year over last year, Teverbaugh said.
A third dealership, Foreman-Blair Buick GMC Cadillac, did not return calls for comment.
McCollum and Teverbaugh said that because of favorable pricing and tax structures, 60 to 80 percent of all new vehicle purchases are made with a trade-in.
Across the country, light vehicle sales through the end of November were 11.53 million, up 10.4 percent from the same point in 2010, according to Autodata Corp.
About 994,721 passenger cars and light trucks were sold last month, up 14 percent from November 2010.
The pace of sales last month was greater than any month since the “cash for clunkers” program, which gave consumers an incentive to trade-in their old vehicles and buy new ones, analysts said.
Auto dealers are expected to sell 12.7 million light vehicles this year, up from 11.5 million in 2010 and 10.4 million in 2009, according to WardsAuto Group. It would be the most vehicles moved since 2008, when consumers purchased 13.19 million new cars and trucks.
Consumers “are feeling more confident about making a big-ticket item purchase,” said Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry trends and insights for TrueCar.com, a publisher of new car transaction data.
Ohio’s auto market is also on the road to recovery. There were 434,990 new-vehicle registrations in Ohio in 2010, up 9.5 percent from 2009, according to the most recent data from the National Automobile Dealers Association.
Still, new-vehicle registrations fell short of 2008, when owners registered 487,357 cars and trucks, the association said.
“People have positioned themselves where they live quite a ways away from their workplaces, and they put miles on them, and they just wear out,” said Teverbaugh. “The economy goes down a bit, people tighten their belts, but they’ll always need cars.”
Staff writers Thomas Gnau and Cornelius Frolik contributed to this report.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0353 or at bsmith@coxohio.com.
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