Tidbits #3

In 2013 new vehicle sales increased for the 4th consecutive year – NADA predicts 2014 to be a banner new car year with sales of better than 16 million.
Rental fleets have been adding to their inventory at record levels – the highest vehicle procurement pace since 2007
To end 2013 Subaru had the fewest vehicles in stock of any manufacturer
Every manufacturer had fewer cars in stock on January 1, 2014 than they did on December 1, 2013.
A Morgan Stanley analyst noted that since new car sales dipped in December to a 15.4 million sale annual rate from 16.4 million rate in November 2013, the market is “in an increasingly aggressive incentive environment”.
There was a new high in December for outstanding vehicle loan balances and a sharp increase in subprime repossessions – this could eventually lead to credit pullback and higher interest rates.
Repo volumes increased 5% in 2013 to 1.37 million vehicles
According to NADA, in 2013 luxury cars depreciated 21%, large suvs and pickups depreciated 8.4% while compact and midsize cars were at 17.2% and midsize suvs hit 15.7%
Toyota and BMW agree to develop a joint sports car platform – who would have predicted that alliance even 5 years ago?
Leasing at 3.2 million units in 2013 hit it’s highest output since 2000 – this bodes well for future decreases in used car prices due to the burgeoning inventories of end of lease units. This will give all of us opportunities.
NADA reports that “an increasing number of dealers are purchasing, repairing and selling salvage titled vehicles to retail customers. Another reason to be very careful about who you buy your used vehicle from.
BMW is working on a production vehicle that will hit the showroom within 5 years that will be able to change lanes without driver intervention. Self driving vehicles will be here before you know it.
If anyone is interested we have access to Black Book actual wholesale and projected used vehicle residuals. This info projects future values to help us plan.
CarMD released its vehicle and manufacturer reliability rankings for 2013. This Index is based on 151,000 specific repairs done on 2003-2013 vehicles from October 2012 until October 2013 and ranks the top 10 manufacturers and top 100 vehicles. In 2013, after 2 years as #2 Hyundai topped Toyota as the number 1 reliability champ. For the third consecutive year a Toyota was the top ranked vehicle – this year the 2012 Camry took top honors. In 2012 and 2011 the 2010 and 2009 Corolla earned top ranking. Nissan was well represented in the top ten with the 2012 Altima (#2), 2011 Rogue (#5), 2012 Rogue (#6), the 2012 Sentra (#7) and 2011 Sentra (#9)
The most common repair is the replacement of the O2 sensor which accounted for 8.31% of all check engine light related repairs according to CarMD.