SANTA MONICA, Calif. -
The tail-end of the month could be a boon for auto dealers should consumers respond to what TrueCar.com has called the most ideal days to make a vehicle purchase in January.
TrueCar projects that Jan. 31 will have the month’s strongest discounts off MSRP, with possible price reductions at 8.03 percent. Mere inches behind is the preceding weekend, where potential discounts are likely to be at 8.02 percent and 8 percent on Jan. 30 and Jan. 29, respectively.
“The beginning of the year is traditionally slow for the automotive industry,” explained Jesse Toprak, TrueCar’s vice president of industry trends and insights.
“With the momentum manufacturers and dealers are experiencing from a solid 2010, dealers are going to want to get off to a great start to keep trending upward,” he added. “This is definitely shaping up to be a great time to buy a car.”
Rounding out the top five days are this coming Saturday, which is expected to have potential discounts of 7.53 percent, and Tuesday of next week (7.49 percent).
Continuing on, TrueCar also shared what it believes were the five best deals for 2010 model-year units when January started, as well as the strongest deals on the 2011 class.
At the top of the 2010 model-year list were the Volkswagen Routan and the Volvo S80, each of which offered potential discounts of 25 percent.
They were followed by the Nissan Titan (23.3 percent), then the Lexus HS 250h and the Chrysler PT Cruiser Classic, each of which showed potential discounts of 21.5 percent.
For 2011 models, the heftiest price reduction (20.5 percent) was found on the Chevrolet Impala, followed by the Mitsubishi Galant (18.8 percent).
The Titan was third (17.6 percent). Rounding out the list were the Toyota Tundra 2WD (16.6 percent) and the Buick Lucerne (15.4 percent).