CARY, N.C. -

Certified pre-owned vehicle sales took a tumble in August, but remain just under 2% ahead of the record 2019 pace.

That’s according to a Cox Automotive analysis of Motor Intelligence data released Thursday, which said there were 222,942 CPO sales in August.

That figure is down 10% from July, off 7% from August 2020 and 14% softer than the “more normal period” of August 2019.

Through eight months of the year, there have been 1,935,262 CPO sales, according to the Cox report. That’s up from 1,732,399 through eight months of 2020 and 1,900,589 year-to-date sales through August 2019.

The latter (2019) ended up being the ninth consecutive record year for certified sales.

While current year-to-date figures are a little less than 2% from the same period of 2019, the margin has narrowed from 4% in June and July.

Will 2021 still be an all-time high for certified sales, in what would be the 10th best-ever year in the past 11?

Perhaps, but it could be a bumpy road.

“With four months to go, reaching the Cox Automotive CPO sales forecast of 2.80 million units — and matching the record-setting 2019 level — remains within reach,” Cox analysts said in the report.

“However, as the market slows, reaching that sales level will be a challenge. An analysis of the CPO percentage of used registrations for the first half of 2020 versus the first half of 2021 shows that 24 brands saw a drop in CPO share of used sales in the first half of this year,” they added.

Within the overall used-car market, Cox Automotive spotted similar slowdowns in August with a 12% drop in total used-car sales.

Cox estimated a 36.7 million SAAR for total used-car sales last month, against 41.6 million in August 2020. Meantime, the used retail SAAR (accounting only for sales from dealerships) was pinpointed at 20.1 million for the month, compared to 22 million in August 2020.