GAINESVILLE, GA – The second week of February has been another interesting week and the weather has been in the forefront at many of the auctions, according to Black Book. The most consistent comments by the dealers and the Black Book survey personnel this week related to the cold and snowy weather and its effect on the auctions and even the retail activity.

According to Ricky Beggs,VP and managing editor for Black Book, even the auction in Phoenix started with the temperature sitting squarely on 30 degrees. Granted, that doesn’t compare to the 0 degrees in Denver or the bitter cold in East Windsor, Conn., but for Phoenix it was cold!

“The editors were extremely busy adjusting the largest number of vehicles since the week ending Nov. 5, 2010, with an average of 1,718 per day. Of the adjusted vehicles, with 59 percent being a reduction in value, the overall change was a very reasonable -$28,” noted Beggs.

The overall change of all vehicles had the car segments declining by $14 for the week. This was the smallest decline since the week ending May 21, 2010 and compares as much more stable than the -$41 change of the matching week one year ago. There were four car segments that increased this week, led by the entry mid-size cars that were up by $24, the compact cars up by $15, followed by the upper mid-size cars increasing by $7 and the entry level cars up $4. The most volatile segment continues to be the prestige luxury cars that went down by $110, according to Black Book.

“The truck segment changes finished stronger this week, but just barely, with a $1 improvement. With five segments going up in value and one with no change, of the remaining eight segments that declined, the largest drop of an individual segment was the compact SUVs going down by just $36,” said Beggs. The full-size pickups, which had the largest declines of $100 plus the previous two weeks, declined by only $21 this past week. The two largest segment increases were a strong +$74 with the full-size crossovers and then the compact crossovers increasing by $35. The remaining crossover segment, the mid-size crossovers, trended the opposite direction at -$25.

“Just a week I ago returned from the country’s largest dealer convention and exposition. It was a great few days as the atmosphere about the industry was extremely upbeat. The interest in new technology was at the forefront and the number of dealers who loaded used vehicle value applications on their smart phones was tremendous. Most of those downloads included the VINScan solution and in-your-hand access to the Carfax vehicle history reports,” noted Beggs.

For more information on fleet's dealing with the snowstorms, see the various news items listed at Government Fleet.