McLEAN, Va. -

In a used-vehicle market that slowed moderately in September but is still rather steady, NADA Used Car Guide found that several truck segments were relatively healthy.

For instance, looking at the two- to five-year-old segments, executive automotive analyst Jonathan Banks said the values of large and midsize pickups  fell roughly 1.5 percent month-over-month, on average, “which is very strong this time of year.”

There was greater depreciation for cars and luxury vehicles. Their losses ranged from 2 percent to 4 percent on a month-over-month basis.

In particular, cars between the 2006 and 2009 model years had “relatively steep” drop-offs, which were expected. Some, though, were worse off than the rest of the pack, Banks noted.

“Chevrolet passenger cars, including the recently redesigned Malibu, underperformed cars as a whole, with 2006–2009 models posting fairly sharp declines,” he shared.

Banks gave the example of the 2008 Malibu and the 2008 Chevrolet Impala, which showed around 4-percent dips August, as well as two- to three-year-old Ford cars, whose upward movement in July and August was cut off in September as their values fell.

Showing relative strength, though, were Honda, Hyundai and Toyota cars, “especially on 2008MY vehicles,” Banks said.

Banks also pointed that one-year-old off-fleet vehicles have been problematic, as they have softened the values of several segments.

“2009 and 2010MY vehicles with high fleet penetration contributed to the downward movement in the intermediate compact, midsize and large-car segments, as high off-rental volume placed downward pressure on auction price performance,” Banks pointed out.

“On the truck side, prices on 2008 and 2009MY midsize vans were also dragged down by large numbers of off-rental vehicles returning to the secondary market,” he added.

As a whole, though, the used market is healthy.

With economic conditions still up in the air, many shoppers are leaning toward “value-based purchases,” Banks noted. Automakers have adjusted how many vehicles they are producing thanks to the economy, and this is restraining inventory and incentives for new vehicles.

“These factors create strong demand in the used-car market and constrained supply, resulting in price stability,” he added.

Sharing some year-over-year AuctionNet price data for September, one- to five-year-old vehicles showed the greatest improvement from September 2009, as their values were up more than 7 percent. Pickup trucks climbed about 6 percent, while vans showed what looked to be a 5-percent uptick.

CUV prices jumped more than 2 percent, while car prices were down less than 1 percent year-over-year.

Looking forward to what may be in store for the current month, a similar month-over-month pattern to the one seen in September is likely, Banks predicted. The values of major segments are projected to soften an average of somewhere between 1 percent and 1.5 percent on a month-over-month basis, he noted.

Luxury vehicles, however, are predicted to show deprecation of almost 2 percent.

“September auction prices have validated this decline and we do not expect immediate recovery for many luxury marques until economic conditions improve,” Banks highlighted.

“In addition, the dramatic used supply declines witnessed on many truck segments will not come into fruition for many luxury makes until 2011,” he added.

New-Vehicle Sales

Moving over to the new-vehicle side of the market, Banks said that sales were stronger than projected. Since August 2009, which included Cash for Clunkers, the industry has seen only one month where the seasonally adjusted annualized rate was higher than September’s.

The SAAR was close to 12 million units.

“This was achieved with nominal changes in incentive spending, which according to Autodata are down slightly on a YoY basis,” he shared.

Trucks have shown more strength than cars in sales, and their incentives have decreased.

Specifically, during September, truck sales climbed 16 percent from the year-ago period and cars were up just 6 percent. Automakers spent 9 percent less on incentives for trucks than they did a year ago, but they hiked spending for cars by 6 percent.

Banks noted that the spike in new-vehicle sales has been pushed strongly by fleet sales. However, models with heavy fleet numbers can often see their resale values drop because of this.

“This aside, most analysts believe that the new vehicle sales will follow a path of slow growth, with estimates for CY ‘10 coming in slightly below 11.4M units and forecasts for 2011 hovering around 13M,” Banks stated.