Hello and welcome to this week’s Used Car Market Report, with insights from Black Book. As we just celebrated Thanksgiving and also just completed the first week of December, and the results of the market study show a level of change not familiar for this time of the year. The activity strength of the new car sales could be rubbing off onto portions of the used market. Both the average segment change of the cars at -$40 and the trucks at -$12 are well below year ago levels of -$50 on the trucks and similar on the cars at -$34, and the lowest level of weekly declining change since the May 2, 2014 -$3 with the cars and the -$9 for the trucks for the week of June 6, 2014. These most recent changes were the results of the most average daily adjustments at 2249 per day throughout the week since the week of April 18, 2014, when it topped out at 2336 per day.

Looking closer at individual segments the Entry Level Cars were the lone increasing car segment at +$14. The Compact Cars at -$17, also were pretty solid levels during the week. The levels of change of these segments are not a surprise until we look at the price of gas at the pump. It fell by another $.04 this past week to be at $2.78. Our first thought is the beginning of dealers trying to find inventory for the soon to be here tax season, that is just ignoring the four year record low gas prices.

The trucks are looking pretty good with the average segment change getting smaller each of the past four weeks. The positive trends are continuing within the Full-size Vans with both the cargo and passenger configurations increasing by $34. The Compact SUVs increased by $21 after no change the prior week. We also had positive moves within the Full-size Pickups at +$7 and the Compact Pickups at +$8.

If there was a big variance from this past week to the prior week it has to be the Luxury SUVs and the Full-size Crossovers both going from -$100 plus changes to -$37 and -$29 respectively this past week. There could be retail interest for these larger utilities due to the four year low gas prices.

With some unexpected changes this past week we will be back on the auction lanes again this week to report the most current market activity. Have a great week!