GAINESVILLE, Ga. -

Black Book’s Ricky Beggs admitted the mixed news headlines are giving dealers an unclear outlook as they head to the wholesale lanes to find inventory.

Beggs pointed out there were some upbeat expectations on new-vehicle sales levels for February, as even a couple of forecasters bumped up their annual projections slightly after only two months.

“That’s good news for all of us,” he emphasized in his latest edition of his online video series, “Beggs on the Used Car Market.”

The Black Book managing editor continued with, “On the other hand, both industry and consumer headlines have highlighted the recent rapid rise in retail gas prices.

“With some predicting we might see $5 per gallon by Memorial Day, we at Black Book won’t speculate on the values of various models that might improve or decline in value as a result of fluctuation at the gas pump,” Beggs asserted. “We are already tracking the activity and values of vehicles that reside on each extreme end of the mpg levels, and will report what happens when it happens.”

Turning away from the latest headlines and moving over to what Black Book witnessed a week ago, editors discovered only one car segment finished the span with an increase as entry level cars tick up by $10.

The average car price slid down $20, which Black Book determined was the smallest decline for the cars since the week ending July 15.

Beggs noted premium sporty cars dropped the most (down $55) but other segments including compact cars (no change), upper mid-size cars (down $6) and entry midsize cars (down $9) all helped to keep the average change low.

Beggs went on to mention the four best performing segments within cars are all relatively fuel-efficient models, prompting him to ask, “Is this already a sign of adjustments due to gas price changes?”

Turning to trucks, Black Book found two segments that had price increases for the week and both were pretty strong levels of change — a $59 increase for compact SUVs and a $41 jump for midsize SUVs.

Showing more stability for the trucks were four segments with minimal single digit declines. That group included midsize crossovers (down $4), compact pickups (down $5) and full-size SUVs and passenger minivans (both down $6).

Where two weeks ago there were significantly more average condition values adjusted than clean, Black Book found last week that the condition adjustments were almost identical in volumes at a little more than 1,900 per day.

During this early spring market, editors indicated only 38 percent of the adjustments were increases this past week, the smallest level since the week ending Jan. 6.

“As I looked over the Black Book survey personnel summary reports, I noticed a major shift in comments about the market as the week progressed,” Beggs shared.

“These seemed to be related to the news headlines regarding gas prices. As I mentioned earlier, we’ll be on top of the market reporting the values on a daily basis,” he continued.

“The late-model vehicles continue to appear in the used wholesale marketplace,” Beggs surmised. “In many cases the low volume 2011s and the early 2012s are in enough numbers to report a market based value. This week we were able to add 15 models, and these are already in your electronic data products.

“It should be an interesting week on the lanes,” he went on to say. “I recently saw that one auction had an 80-plus percent sale — even more of a reason to visit your favorite auction to check on the activity. We’ll see you on the auction lanes.”

Beggs’ video can be viewed below.