NORFOLK, Va. -

What’s the top-selling used-vehicle brand in your state? Dominion Dealer Solutions recently shared some of its Cross-Sell data with Auto Remarketing to shed some light on this.

Based on February used-vehicle sales data provided to Auto Remarketing that covered 17 states, Ford was the top-selling brand in eight states, as was Chevrolet. Toyota was the top seller in one state.

Shane Marcum — the general product manager for Cross-Sell at Dominion — explained that the “data is derived from title transfers and therefore includes dealers, individuals and other types of businesses such as rental car companies.”

Drilling down further, Chevrolet was the top seller in Arkansas, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana and North Dakota.

Ford topped Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Maryland, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Washington.

Toyota was the No. 1 seller in California.

The complete Cross-Sell data set is below:

The company also provided Auto Remarketing with a data set regarding February used-vehicles for these luxury brands: Acura, Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, Lincoln, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche.

Based on the data reported to Cross-Sell, here is how their used-vehicle sales stacked up in February (Marcum noted that 25 states provide data):


 

While BMW and Cadillac were at the top of this list, individual states can tend to vary as far as which luxury is most popular, Marcum says.

For example, luxury vehicles with all-wheel-drive might perform better, sales-wise, in states with inclement weather.

“When you take states like Florida, Texas and California that have much nicer weather, you’ll see a company that does more convertible sales in the luxury market,” Marcum said.

Likewise, even seasonality trends can vary among the states.

“It’s really very regionally specific. Even drilling down to the states … luxury models, specifically, are affected more greatly by the economy than the (mainstream brands) cars are. When you get into the basic transportation (models), I don’t think those swing as quickly with the economy as the luxury models, just because the demographic that buys that vehicle is more sensitive to the economy,” Marcum explained.

“And as we know, the economy in one state can take a turn down, while the economy in another state is on an upswing. So I think it’s all very demographically based. I don’t think there’s a predictive pattern,” he said. “I think one thing that stands true across the test of time in most states is that most dealers will agree that seasonality of a lot of these vehicles depends on the weather.”

For instance, in the North, the recent harsh winter has certainly had some seasonal impact.

Offering another example of seasonality trends, Marcum pointed to his experience in the car business in Florida. As one might expect, there would typically be a “migration of retirees” into the Sunshine State during the winter.  

“So we’d see an influx of sales in the wintertime in Florida, whereas the hot summer months would be more comparable to those inclement winter months in the North,” he added.

“I was a Ford dealer here in Kentucky before I joined Dominion, and our weather is very seasonal, and our sales were very seasonal along with that. I think this is probably true throughout the Midwest, the more centrally located states across the country,” Marcum continued.

He went on to mention that four-wheel-drive vehicles — luxury and mainstream — “really start to gain traction in August and September” as the market moves into the winter months and dealers head to the wholesale markets to grab these vehicles before the price increases hit.

“At the same time, you see these sports models and these convertibles take a down turn during this same time of the
year,” Marcum added, noting that a “significant weather pattern” like the Northeast snowstorms from earlier this year can have a nationwide impact.

Joe Overby can be reached at joverby@autoremarketing.com. Continue the conversation with Auto Remarketing on both LinkedIn and Twitter.