Dealers found a small piece of price relief in the wholesale vehicle market last month.

Though still historically high and well above year-ago and pre-pandemic levels, wholesale vehicle prices have shown their first month-over-month decline since the summer, according to respective used-car price indices from Cox Automotive and Black Book.

The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index for February came in at 231.3, down 2.1% from January when adjusted for mix, mileage and seasonality. Unadjusted, the index was down 2.2%.

This marked the first sequential decline in wholesale vehicle prices since August, according to a month-by-month rendering of the Manheim index.

Compared to February 2021, however, Manheim’s price index was up 36.7% on an adjusted basis and 32.4% on an unadjusted basis.

Meantime, Black Book’s Used Vehicle Retention Index came in at 193.0, which was down 4.0 points (or 2%) from January.

This is the first month-over-month drop in Black Book’s index since July, the company said.

Still, the index is 68% higher than the year-ago period and 46% higher than February 2020 levels.

“In February, we saw an accelerated decline of wholesale prices in all but two (full-size and compact vans) segments. That led to a decrease in the overall monthly seasonally adjusted retention index,” Black Book chief data science officer Alex Yurchenko said in a news release.

“So far, it looks like the tax season boost to the retail demand is weaker than in a typical pre-pandemic year,” Yurchenko said. “We still expect a slower rate of decrease in prices in May with possible appreciation is some segments as the spring buying market arrives.”

Similarly, the Cox Automotive analysis around the Manheim index shows softer used retail demand. 

Citing a dealership data set from its Dealertrack unit, Cox said that while used retail sales climbed an estimated 3% month-over-month, they “failed to show the typical seasonal increase driven by tax refund season.”

In fact, the same data shows an estimated 7% decrease in used retail sales compared to February 2021.