Automobile Sales

On the afternoon of April 24, Ryan Price walked out of her mother-in-law's Santa Ana home to her car. What happened next would launch Price into a three-month legal tiff involving her family, City Hall and the 1st Amendment. Attached to the windshield wiper of her silver 2000 Acura Integra was a traffic ticket. Price looked up and down the residential street in bafflement -- she had not parked near a stop sign, a fire hydrant or in a red zone.

American consumers spent their money in November at the slowest rate in five months, suggesting that the economy might not grow quite as fast as expected in the fourth quarter. Sales at U.S. retailers increased a seasonally adjusted 0.2% in November from October, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. Consumers gravitated toward cars and home electronics and spent less at bars, restaurants and grocery stores, government data showed. Excluding the volatile automobile sector, sales still rose 0.2%.

While some Americans are congratulating themselves on switching to fuel-sipping cars, their old gas guzzlers just won't die. Lowered trade barriers are giving them new life south of the border. Thousands of used vehicles from as far away as Colorado and Missouri jam tiny car lots and auto salvage yards in this gritty border city. An estimated 25,000 families make a living here hustling U.S. castoffs. Among them is Jose Zavala, a wiry used-car dealer with a trucker's cap and an eye for bargains.

Three auto industry research firms are projecting widely divergent new car sales for January. TrueCar Inc. of Santa Monica, which analyzes new car pricing, estimates that light-vehicle sales in January will be 728,019 units, down 29% from December but up a solid 11% from the same month last year, after adjusting for the difference in selling days. January's forecast translates into an annual sales pace of 11.3 million cars. (Most automakers believe that the industry will sell about 11.5 million vehicles in 2010.

The road to recovery for U.S. automakers could be jammed with hundreds of thousands of gas-guzzling used cars, which President Obama hopes will be traded in for more fuel-efficient vehicles -- with the lure of government money. So-called cash-for-clunkers programs in Germany and France have worked well this year to spur new car sales. But similar initiatives aimed at reducing smog in Southern California have not fared so well in recent years.

Southern California chief executives who operate automobile franchises selling imported cars make considerably more annually than those with domestic franchises, according to a recent survey. The average compensation of the 118 chief executives surveyed ranged from a low of $206,000 among single-point domestic dealers to $314,000 for those owning two import franchises, according to Parke, Guptill & Co.'

The monthly sales reports released by the world's automakers Wednesday carried a double dose of bad news for the U.S. Trouble in the housing market has spread to dealer showrooms, with worrying implications for the broader economy, and Detroit is no longer the carmaker of choice for the majority of Americans. In July, import brands grabbed a majority share of the U.S. market for the first time as sales by the Big Three nosedived.

Sales of new North American-made cars fell 6.1% in mid-November from the same period last year, auto makers reported Monday in the latest indication of their industry's weakness. The industry's lengthening sales slump--which has been paced by the Big Three of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp.--could mean that auto makers will lengthen their year-end factory shutdowns in an attempt to trim production and deflate an inventory backlog, analysts said.

Auto sales slowed in January from the breakneck pace set a month earlier, but some automakers used aggressive consumer incentives and hot products to eke out impressive gains. January's seasonally adjusted annual sales rate was about 16.2 million units, well off December's 18.3-million rate but higher than the 15.8-million rate set in January 2002.

New car and truck sales surged in April to their best levels in 2 1/2 years as consumers went on an early spring buying spree, figures released by the auto makers showed Tuesday. Sales exceeded estimates of many industry analysts. "We seem to have gotten a one-month jump on the spring selling season compared with falloffs in April the last two years," McDonald & Co. analyst David Garrity said.

Car dealers are seeing buyers come back to their showrooms -- giving the beaten-down auto industry a glimmer of hope that a long-awaited turnaround has begun. Most automakers Tuesday reported big U.S. sales gains in December, with Ford and Toyota notching gains of more than 30%. Hyundai and Kia beat their year-earlier numbers by more than 40%. Big discounts, heavy advertising and low finance rates helped jump-start the sales. Automakers were also helped by the fact that December 2008 was one of the worst auto sales months on record and thus was an easy target to beat.

Even as Detroit automakers move their focus away from pickups to small, fuel-efficient cars, full-size trucks still make up more than 20% of sales by Detroit automakers and could play a key role in helping the companies recover in 2010. Foreign automakers, despite efforts with models such as the Toyota Tundra and the Nissan Titan, have not been successful in stealing profitable pickup market share from the Detroit Three. Through November, Detroit automakers sold 91% of all full-size pickups.

It's the most wonderful time of the year -- for buying a new car. Savvy shoppers, desperate dealers and automotive analysts alike are singing that tune, thanks to fat rebates, cheap financing and an enticing federal tax break for buyers set to expire Friday. "I know we dealers always seem to say it, but with the tax benefits you'll get and the strong used-car values for trade-ins, this really is a great time to buy," said Mark Normandin, owner and president of Normandin Chrysler Jeep on Capitol Expressway Auto Mall in San Jose.

General Motors Co. is offering a $7,000 sales inducement to its dealers for every Saturn and Pontiac vehicle left in inventory as the automaker phases out the two brands. Assuming the cash is passed on to consumers, the move could result in savings for buyers looking to snap up one of the few remaining unsold Pontiacs and Saturns. But the savings might not be as much as one would think. To qualify for the incentive, dealers have to put the vehicles in their rental or service fleet before selling them to consumers.

Auto sales showed signs of stability in November, but the sluggish U.S. economy continued to weigh on car shoppers. Overall vehicle sales were flat last month compared with November 2008. The 746,928 cars and light trucks sold in the United States amounted to just 139 more than the number sold in the same month last year, according to figures compiled by research firm Autodata Corp. "It appears that the economy and auto sales have stabilized and the worst is behind us," said Ken Czubay, the U.S. sales chief for Ford Motor Co. Among the major U.S. automakers, Ford saw sales slip fractionally last month from November 2008, and General Motors Co. saw year-over-year sales fall 1.5%, according to Autodata.

Gary Grossinger was showing a visiting Toyota executive around his cavernous new $37-million "autoplex" this year when, somewhere between the first-floor manicurist and the 100,000-square-foot rooftop parking lot, the slack-jawed executive shot off a question. "You know the economy just blew up, don't you?" the executive asked. Grossinger laughed. "Aren't you supposed to be encouraging me?" he replied. These days, Grossinger needs all the encouragement he can get. On Aug. 31, amid a crippling auto industry crisis, the 43-year-old, third-generation auto salesman opened the doors on one of the biggest dealerships in the Midwest.

Sales of domestically built cars and trucks rose 12% in late March, with passenger cars making their first solid contribution in two months, according to auto makers' figures released Monday. Car sales, which have lagged behind light trucks for much of the last year, were up 8% over the same period a year ago. Sales of minivans, sport utility trucks and pickups continued their momentum, rising 18.1% in the March 21-31 period.

In the auto business, there are few challenges tougher than marketing a brand that has few new cars to promote. No matter how good the current product, consumers like to see the latest stuff. That's the conundrum at Ford Motor Co., which after a solid run of product launches now faces a roughly six-month gap without a significant new rollout. The last 12 months at the Blue Oval have been a salesman's dream, with introductions of the Taurus full-size sedan, the Transit Connect van, the Fusion and Mercury Milan mid-size sedans, the 2010 Mustang and the redesigned F-150 pickup.

Hailed as a jump-start for the U.S. economy, the federal government's "cash for clunkers" gave the biggest boost to foreign automakers. Overall, auto sales in August were the highest in more than a year, according to industry figures released Tuesday. Carmakers sold more than 1.2 million cars and trucks, up 1% from the same month last year and the first year-over-year sales gain since August 2007. Much of that was a result of the clunkers program, which ran July 24 to Aug. 24 and provided hefty government rebates to consumers who traded in gas guzzlers for more fuel-efficient new vehicles.