Auto Sales Mixed For February

 J.D. Power & Associates predicts overall February sales will be stronger than last year, coming in at around 931,100 vehicles.

"All signs of the industry's health are positive right now," said John Humphrey, senior vice president of the global automotive practice at J.D. Power and Associates. "Average transaction prices are up, incentives are stable, leasing is at a healthy level and newly redesigned models continue to make an impact on the marketplace."
"Demand is increasing, but the automakers deserve credit for doing a much better job of keeping alignment of production and demand." said Humphrey. "This has led to new-vehicle transaction prices that are averaging nearly $1,000 more in February than the same period in 2012 while incentives have remained relatively flat year over year."

TrueCar.com sees sales increasing 5.7% from the month last year and up 16.5% from last month. The firm says incentive spend will go down 3.9% to $2,392 or 3.9%from last year but a 1.8% increase versus last motnh. Also up will be used car sales, with the ration between new and used at 1:3.

Jesse Toprak, senior analyst for TrueCar said volume was driven by the full-size truck market. “Pent up demand for pick up trucks by small businesses will be a critical factor in this year's continued sales recovery.”
The firm predicts the big gainers versus the month last year will be Ford, getting an almost 12% increase,  Volkswagen just over 14% versus last year and GM up 5.6%.

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