In each month of the third quarter, wholesale used-vehicle prices fell sequentially.

That’s according to data and analysis around the latest Black Book Used Vehicle Retention Index, which dropped 4.1% in September, the third straight month-over-month decline.

Still, the index, which came in at 176.5 for the month, was up 4.1% year-over-year and beats the March 2020 pre-pandemic level by 54%, Black Book said.

The 4.1% month-over-month decline in September is an acceleration from the 1.1% and 2.8% declines in July and August, respectively.

The price softening is likely to continue in coming months, Black Book said, but the drop will not be quite as steep.

“Wholesale prices for the 2-8-year-old vehicle segments that comprise of Black Book’s Used Vehicle Retention Index declined even further in September, falling close to one percent per week,” Black Book chief data science officer Alex Yurchenko said in a news release.  

“These declines are nearly universal (except for the van segments) and unseasonably high. We expect wholesale prices to continue their decline through the last quarter of 2022 at a slightly lower rate compared to September,” he said. “Used retail prices also began modest declines in the last several weeks.”

Wholesale prices closed September with a 0.77% decline in the last week of the month, which coincided with the arrival of Hurricane Ian in Florida, the Carolinas and other areas of the East Coast.

Black Book addressed this in its latest Market Insights analysis, as Auto Remarketing reported here.

In a seperate analysis, released in September,  the mid-month reading of Cox Automotive’s Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index was down 2.3% from August on an adjusted basis, and just 0.6% higher year-over-year, according to a Data Point report from the company. Unadjusted, prices were down 1.4% from August and down 1.5% year-over-year.

Cox Automotive is releasing the full-month reading of the Manheim index on Friday.