‘We’re Full,’ Car Dealers Say as Auto Sales Slow After a Long Boom

Authored by nytimes.com and submitted by zsreport
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Over the past decade, the auto industry enjoyed a boom unlike any other in modern history.

Sales of new cars and trucks rose steadily from 2009 to 2016, the longest growth streak since at least before the Great Depression. Millions of Americans traded up to bigger and more sophisticated vehicles decked out in leather and outfitted with gee-whiz electronics and safety features.

But sales to individual buyers are now falling. Even once popular sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks are sitting on dealer lots for longer stretches.

Car dealers around the country said that the upgrade cycle they rode to rich profits in recent years appears to be ending and that they are seeing fewer buyers despite offering discounts and other incentives. So, dealers say they are ordering fewer vehicles from manufacturers.

“We are turning down cars and are being more picky on the cars we stock,” said Brian Benstock, general manager of Paragon Honda in New York City. “We just can’t take more. We’re full.”

VroomVroom905 on July 24th, 2019 at 14:04 UTC »

I stopped reading after they quoted J.D.Power and Associates

Arjak987 on July 24th, 2019 at 12:16 UTC »

The industry does this every 10 years or so. We’ll go into a downturn and near death experience, and in a few years it’ll be booming again.

Gilclunk on July 24th, 2019 at 11:13 UTC »

On Tuesday, AutoNation said it too has been paring inventory for the last three months, and now has 64,000 new vehicles in stock, 9,000 fewer than a year ago. The company has been limiting orders to top-selling models and cutting back on vehicles that tend to languish for weeks or months and often need to be heavily discounted or sold at a loss.

And this is how niche enthusiast favorites like wagons and manuals die. It's not that they'd never sell, but dealers don't want to pay "floor plan" interest on them while they sit for months waiting for a buyer, so they don't stock them in the first place. And people don't buy what the dealers don't have.