ATLANTA -

With so much industry talk about pent-up demand being a spark for vehicle sales, a dealer recently asked Manheim chief economist Tom Webb to explain why his story wasn’t enjoying the traffic and turn uptick experienced by other dealerships.

In the October Auto Industry Brief from Manheim Consulting, the dealer told Webb that “I see continued reports that attribute the gain in new-vehicle sales to pent-up demand and ‘need’ buyers, but that is not what I see at my dealership.

“To be sure, my customers have older trades than in the past, but the buyers are well to do, and their current rides are more serviceable. Indeed, I retail most of the trade-ins received,” the dealer continued.

Webb began his response by telling the dealer the patterns displayed at that store are not uncommon.

“Even with the growth in subcompact and compact offerings, and models geared specifically to younger buyers, the typical new-vehicle buyer today has become increasing skewed to higher-income households. That’s a trend that has been going on for decades,” Webb said.

“Despite the depth of the recession, many upper-income households did not suffer a significant, or any, loss to current income. They felt the pain in their balance sheets — the plunge in equity prices and real estate values. Many measures of the broader equity market are now back to, or above, their pre-recession levels And real estate values are now in a nascent recovery,” he continued.

“Thus, what we have seen in reality is simply a return of the traditional new car buyer — a return that was delayed by the anemic recovery and the dearth of scheduled lease terminations,” Webb went on to say. “It can be called ‘delayed buying,’ but not ‘need buying.’”

Webb elaborated on his answer by asking the dealer to consider these data points. Citing information from Experian Automotive, he said new-vehicle registrations in California were up 26.3 percent in the first nine months of this year, versus an increase of 14.5 percent for the U.S. overall.

Moreover, Webb noted California has the third-highest unemployment rate in the nation at 10.2 percent.

“Furthermore, the No. 1-selling model in California is the Prius. Buyers of the new Prius fall into many income and demographic categories, but ‘need buyer’ is not one of them,” Webb said.

More Discussion about Gas Prices

In the latest industry brief, Webb also returned to a popular subject — gas prices.

It appears the recent decline in gas prices — almost 20 cents in the past two weeks — should be very beneficial to low- and middle-income households, what he considers the mainstay of the used-vehicle market.

“Much of the last uptick in pump prices was the result of temporary factors so the decline was anticipated, and it should prove lasting,” Webb said.

“But, unfortunately, the relief that household budgets receive from lower gas prices will be more than offset by higher food costs and the coming expiration of the payroll tax holiday,” he added.