Wholesale prices slipping
August 22, 2012
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Tidbits #1

  • According to the industry publication F&I magazine used car financing rates in July averaged 9.02%. We can get you 1.99% to 2.99% through AAA.
  • Experian reports that the average used vehicle loan is $17050
  • NADA data report shows that used vehicle revenue in June rose nearly 10% and that profit margins were 12.5%
  • An important statistic is the “days supply” of inventory. This calculates how many cars are in inventory based on the sell rate. If a dealer sells 10 cars in a 30 day period and has 10 cars in stock then his days supply would be 30. If he had 30 cars in stock his days supply would be 90 and so on. As of July 1 vehicle stocks have been growing – Honda was up to 58 days from 48 a month earlier, Toyota was up to 41 days from 32, General Motors is up to 76 days, Ford is up to 58 days, Chrysler is up to 67 days while hot sellers Hyundai is at 30 days, BMW is at 24 days and Audi Q5s and Q7s are at a paltry 18 days supply – no wonder you can’t get any deals on those.
  • North American vehicle production is expected to hit 14.9 million units. This is an increase of 13% from 2011 and is another reason that we can expect that price stability should reign for used vehicles.
  • Manufacturers have been adding gears to transmissions to pump up fuel economy. Amazingly, there are 8 and 9 speed transmissions in vehicles today. However, with Hyundai announcing the development of a 10 speed transmission for 2014, many engineering pundits think that this is more about marketing and bragging than improved efficiency because there is only an 11% gap between the most efficient transmission offered today and a theoretically perfect transmission.
  • Ford sells 35% of all its production to fleets including rental car companies, Chrysler sells 25%, GM sells a whopping 32% while Toyota sells only 9% and Honda a measly 2%. Consumers are still choosing non domestic manufacturers.