Spring Used-Vehicle Market Strength Declines

Signs of a tiring spring tax season are occurring and this past week witnessed the largest drop-off for this spring for car and truck segments.

According to this week’s "Used Car Market Insights" report from Black Book, the Full-Size Car and Upper Mid-Size Car segments have continued to perform well in the used car market. Three drivers here may be that the low gasoline prices continue to place stress on smaller car segments; the continuously improving economy is incentivizing buyers to consider cars with a little more size; and relatively lower supply of full-size cars as compared to compact cars to meet the increased demand.

“The Spring market strength is starting to wane as most segments showed slight decline or remained flat in wholesale values last week,” said Anil Goyal, VP of automotive valuation and analytics.

• Overall, the volume-weighted car values decreased by -0.11 percent from last week.
• Overall, the volume-weighted truck values were flat from last week. 
• All car segments except Full-Size Car and Upper Mid-Size Car dropped in value. 
• Most truck segments did not change much except for Full-Size CUV, Full Size Passenger van, and Luxury SUV segments which dropped over 0.4 percent from last week.
• The top three truck segments with the most cumulative value increase over the past eight weeks are Compact SUV (+2.7 percent), Full-Size Pickup (+2 percent), and Full Size Cargo Van (+1.6 percent).
• The top three car segments with the most cumulative value increase over the past eight weeks are Upper Mid-Size Car (+1.5 percent), Entry Level Car (+1.5 percent), and Compact Car (+1.4 percent).