Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of The Used Car Market Report with insight from Black Book. As the month of January came to an end the weather for a portion of the country was brutal. Ice, snow, and strong winds closed businesses and reduced local auto sales to a crawl. When the weather improves local auto sales will improve as would-be buyers will have now discovered a greater need to have more reliable or functional vehicles.

When we looked at all of the car segments that we monitor there was an average weekly adjustment of -$32 or .22% for the first week of February, the lowest level of change over the previous four weeks. This minor level of change appears to be reflecting the stabilization in fuel prices with gasoline prices rising 2 cents to an average price of $2.07 per gallon. However, diesel is still falling with a $.03 decrease to $2.83. The overall largest dollar adjustments for this start to February were led by the Premium Sporty Cars and Luxury Level Cars at -$73. The Premium Sporty Cars and the Luxury Level Cars also had much smaller monetary declines week over week. The Entry Levels cars saw the smallest level of change declining by only .01%.

The truck segments continue to retain their values better than the car segments. This week the trucks dropped -$25 or .18%, the lowest level of weekly change over the past eight weeks. The largest truck adjustments came from the Luxury SUV segment with a -$124. The Full-Size Pickup segment saw the largest increase with a bump of $14.

Looking closer into the truck segments, Compact and Full-sized Pickups along with Compact SUVs have held their values better than the other truck segments for 5 consecutive weeks. This trend has continued into February; the Compact SUV segment increased another $9 or .06%. Some of the strength and improvements in the wholesale market can be attributed to the continuation of low supply, increased demand and low fuel prices.

The Full-Size Crossovers have continued their depreciation, but at a slower rate. This can be explained in part by an increase in supply and lowering fuel prices.  With the average fuel price around $2.07, consumers are of course not as concerned about fuel prices as they have been. This has provided many consumers who are in the market for a utility vehicle with the option of purchasing a full size SUV instead of a more fuel efficient crossover. This time last year we were paying an average of $3.29 per gallon for regular unleaded. Last year, fuel prices increased after the first of the year and continued to climb until the last week in June when they were at the $3.70 level. Now, seven months later the national average has dropped by as much as $1.64 per gallon. Let’s hope this trend continues.

Overall we see the market movement for the first week of February returning to a more positive position unlike the “last week of the month” market we discussed last week. As always, we appreciate your joining us to watch this week’s video. Ricky will be back next week with more insight into the wholesale market. Have a great week and we will see you in the lanes.