Grim October sales pace worst in 25 years

As predicted, October’s U.S. light vehicle sales weren’t pretty. A tough economy and severely tightened credit produced a seasonally adjusted annual rate of just 10.56 million sales, the lowest SAAR since February 1983. Combined reported sales numbers missed even September’s anemic levels, coming in at about 838,000 units, 130,000 units less than last month and over 393,000 fewer than October 2007. The sales volume hasn’t sunk so low since January 1991, when the country was still in a recession.

Chrysler sales were down again last month, but not as much as the experts had predicted. The average of predictions from analysts polled by Bloomberg News called for Chrysler to report a 38 percent drop in sales and Jesse Toprak of Edmunds.com had predicted a 40.4 percent plunge. When the numbers were tallied, Chrysler’s shortfall came in at just under 35 percent, only slightly worse than the 32 percent industry deficit.

While the Chrysler numbers look grim viewed in isolation, it is important to realize similar totals were being reported across the industry. Nissan, Hyundai and Kia all missed their year-ago numbers by similar margins.

The same is true of individual models. Most Jeep models fared as well, or better than, competing products from Ford, GM and Nissan; Toyota’s lineup was just a couple percent ahead. The Dodge Charger was in the running, as well, since the majority of American passenger cars saw reduced sales in October. In fact, in year-to-year comparisons, Dodge Division did better than Ford’s namesake brand.

The Challenger and Journey continue to rack up decent numbers for the market conditions. The Journey is miles ahead of the new Ford Flex and it’s in the ballpark with the well-regarded GMC Acadia.

A little bad news: while the folks in Auburn Hills were kicking off the celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the Chrysler minivans, Honda’s Odyssey was knocking the long-dominant duo off their perch atop the segment. The Honda minivan now has a 10,482-unit lead on the second-place Caravan for the first ten months of the year. The Chrysler Town & Country and Toyota Sienna are still sparring for third place.

GM paid the price for its aggressive incentives of late August and September, posting the worst performance of any of the major automakers. GM sales volume was down over 45 percent last month; paced by a 51 percent nosedive in light trucks that cost the automaker nearly five percentage points of market share. GM’s YTD sales are now more than 20 percent behind 2007.

For merger fans, it’s worth noting that GM’s and Chrysler’s combined sales in October would still have been over 14 percent behind GM’s sales from October 2007.

Ford’s domestic brands picked up a bit more than a half-point of market share after reporting sales that were down a comparatively small 29 percent. The addition of another disappointing month from Volvo, where sales plunged more than 52 percent, dragged down the final total to just over 30 percent.

The Ford F-Series pickup regained the top spot in light vehicle sales and now has enough of a lead that it will probably rack up another in its long string of years as the best-selling vehicle in America.

The Detroit automakers’ domestic brands combined to claim less than 47 percent of the light vehicle market last month. That’s a couple percent more than the Asian car companies’ share.

Toyota sales continue to tumble; the top Japanese automaker is now 11.5 percent behind last year, thanks in large part to a continued slump in sales of its premium Lexus brand. In October, Lexus, which has been the best-selling luxury brand, fell more than 35 percent, dropping behind BMW for the month. BMW is now just 4,666 sales behind Lexus in YTD sales.

Toyota light truck sales were off 34 percent, which is just slightly better than Chrysler’s light truck results.

American Honda sales fell by more than 25 percent, dragging the second-best-selling import brand into the red for the year. Big shortfalls were posted by the Accord, Fit and Odyssey and Acura’s two SUVs, the MDX and RDX.

Nissan North America tanked in October, down more than 33 percent. A 54 percent drop in Nissan light truck sales and tumbles by several Infiniti models did a number on Nissan’s results.

Audi and BMW’s Mini were the only automotive brands to post improvements over their October 2007 numbers. Audi came through with an October sales record and Mini sales were up more than 56 percent, thanks to the new Clubman.

Volkswagen sales fell about eight percent, one of the smallest declines of any automaker. The Routan, the rebadged Chrysler minivan being promoted by Brooke Shields, posted 789 sales in its first month on the market.

While October’s numbers were bad, and no one is expecting a major recovery anytime soon, there were signs of an uptick in showroom traffic toward the end of the month. With the available discounts and incentives, the deals are there; if the availability of credit for new auto loans can be eased a bit, the last two months of 2008 could be a bit brighter, especially for the Detroit automakers.