GAINESVILLE, FL - “Higher no sales,” “some reluctant to buy,” “short on cars,” “sellers are adjusting floors,” “cheaper doing better,” “Extra Clean and Clean selling well” were just a few of the comments from the dealers that were reported to Black Book survey personnel during the past week.

“All of these comments reflect upon the existing fall seasonal market,” noted Ricky Beggs, VP and managing editor for Black Book. “When looking at the adjustments made by Black Book Editors over the past week, there were still a few vehicles that increased in value. This past week, 15 percent of the adjustments, or almost 675 vehicles, went up in value, at an average of almost $140.”

Many of these increases came from within three of the truck segments as the full-size passenger wagons (FVW) increased by $16 overall, the full-size cargo vans (FVV) increased $2, and the full-size pickups (FPT) increased by $5 for the week, according to Black Book.

“Random other vehicles increased throughout the week but not enough to make the total segment change to a positive change,” said Beggs. “Overall, many of the segment types were smaller drops in value this past week as four of the 10 car segments and eight of the 14 truck segments were decreases but by lesser amounts than the previous week. The overall truck segments declined $43 as compared to the -$63 change the previous week, while cars overall dropped $75, up slightly from the prior week’s -$68.”

A few of the vehicles with increases in value for past week included selected models and model years of the Dodge Dakota, Nissan Roque, Hyundai Azera, Ford Sport Trac, Mitsubishi Outlander, Mazda CX-9, Chevrolet and GMC G Vans, and the Toyota Highlander, according to Black Book. “These are not the only ones with increases but it is a good sample,” said Beggs.

“When expanding our view to include the last month, a few vehicle segments stood out. On the car side, the ones that declined the most were prestige luxury cars, down $580, and premium sporty cars, down $605. The trucks with the biggest declines were the luxury SUVs, down $352, and full-size CUVs, down $443,” noted Beggs. “On the other side of the coin were the segments that declined the least. Compact and entry level cars decreased only $80 and $83 respectively, and on the truck side, a pair of full size vans led the way, with passenger vans falling $87 and cargo vans dropping $109.”

Taking an even longer term view, cars, as a whole, have declined for the past 23 straight weeks, while trucks came in almost the same at 21. “As we get closer to the last two months of the year, the dealers are still needing and looking for additional cars and trucks in an extremely limited market, thus the values are holding better than in most years.

I made a quick trip to Las Vegas this week to join some of my colleagues as Black Book held a Vehicle Valuation Roundtable for a dozen of the industry’s leading lenders in auto finance. Their insight and our dialogue with them was well worth the time as the market moves and the economy has gradually started the climb back up for potential new and used cars sales,” said Beggs.