WELCOME TO THE NATIONAL DEALERSHIP STANDINGS SUMMARY REPORT JUNE 2018

If you believe automotive industry articles analyzing June sales numbers, sales of new cars haven't fallen off the cliff as expected. If you look at new car sales numbers in May or June of 2017 compared to May or June of '18 (calendar month sales), some dealers in the big markets are doing OK, but most are seeing a distinct fall off of new car sales. Are we at the precipice of that major downturn in new car sales? Are we already in it?  You be the judge.

LOS ANGELES MARKET: (Sans Luxury car sales and F-150 trucks), new car sales in the LA area are down 14% on a survey of 321 dealers.  3 new dealerships have no previous June to compare against so if we remove the new downtown stores of Kia, Toyota, and Nissan, only Subaru Pacific has had a better June of '18 than June of '17 out of the top 25 car dealers by calendar month sales.  Galpin Mazda, and Puente Hills Subaru were the only other two dealerships who sold over 200 cars with better showings this June than last June.  

WASHINGTON DC MARKET: Four of the Top Ten dealers are showing increases in sales over June of 2017 but the sales fall offs of some of DC's biggest dealers tip the scales to the dark side. Based on 260 DC area dealerships, new car sales are down a whopping 18.04%.  Dealerships doing well in the DC Top Ten, include Carmax Laurel Toyota up 4.37%, Honda of Chantilly up 3.06%, and Autonation Honda Dulles which is up 14.45%.  Dealerships that showed drop offs include Koons Tysons Toyota 16.22%, Darcars 49.34%, and 355 Toyota 18.94%.   

DALLAS MARKET: Unlike the rest of the country, Texas is it's own nation. Although they are down on a survey of 185 dealers 4.5% overall, the Top Ten Dealers are actually doing pretty well in comparison to the rest of us.  Of their Top Ten, five dealers are showing sales growth. David McDavid Honda was up 7.25%, Vandergriff Chevrolet spiked up 142.64%, Clay Cooley Nissan jumped 4.14%, Huggins Honda up 7%, and Toyota of Richardson did a 7% vert.

CHICAGO MARKET:  Based on a survey of 278 dealerships, the windy city was off 16.84% from June of 2017.  Of the areas Top Ten Dealers by calendar month sales, four dealers showed improvement over last June. The Honda Superstore of Lisle was up 16.8%, Castle Honda had a 9.3% lift, Zeigler CDJR calf-raised 2.92% and Sherman CDJR pole vaulted 30.83% over June of 2017. Car sales performances throughout the Midwest look very dodgy when compared to the same month last year.  Overall, Chicago's Top Ten Dealers experienced a 5.56% drop off in new car sales June 2017 over June 2018. 

As loans get more expensive and difficult to get, and folks with less than superb credit scores get rerouted onto the used car lot, we can expect new car sales to suffer accordingly.  I continue to read articles about how new car sales aren't lagging as bad as experts thought they would be.  Still, as I review monthly comparison data dealer by dealer, I see a trend that may suggest the new car stall is happening now, we're just looking at the wrong data sets.