CARY, N.C. -

Last month, Honda broke a certified pre-owned sales record that had stood for almost five years.

There were 26,192 Honda CPO units sold in May, the strongest ever for the brand’s certified program.

The previous record was set in August 2013, when Honda sold 25,139 CPO vehicles, the automaker said in a news release.

Honda moved 23,257 certified vehicles in May of last year, according to data provided by Autodata Corp. in 2017.

Through five months of 2018, Honda has sold 107,920 CPO vehicles.

In the same period of 2017, it moved 107,532 vehicles.

The automaker credits its gains in CPO sales this year in part to a revamped Honda CPO website and said that its dealers saw more traffic in May thanks to offers on the Odyssey, CR-V and Pilot models, which helped drive record certified sales.  

"We're excited to see a more customer-friendly Honda certified pre-owned vehicle program contribute to the success of Honda dealers," said Dan Rodriguez, American Honda Motor's manager of auto remarketing and certified pre-owned, in a news release.  "We will continue our momentum this summer with our Certified Dream Deal event, and special deals on the certified pre-owned Accord and Odyssey."

The Certified Dream Deal event includes 1.49-percent APR financing for up to 36 months on the CPO Accord and Odyssey models.

Industry-wide numbers climb

The overall CPO market was up 5 percent year-over-year in May, Cox Automotive said in an Industry Update released Thursday.

In the first four months of 2018, year-to-date certified pre-owned car sales had climbed 2 percent, even though there was a 5.7-percent year-over-year decline in April’s sales, Cox Automotive said in last month’s Update.

In the first quarter, industry-wide CPO sales reached 674,297 units, up from 647,388 units a year ago, according to the latest Used Car Report from Edmunds.

First-quarter CPO sales have climbed each year since at least 2013, which was the first year included in this particular Edmunds data set.