HERNDON, VA- Audi of America announced today auto sales for the month of August totaling 6,406, a decrease of 16% from last year’s figures. Despite strong economic headwinds, Audi new vehicle sales in the U.S. are down just 3.7% year-to-date. Audi Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) sales continued to grow with another record-setting month; compared with last year’s August figures, CPO sales rose to 2,841 units, up 20.8%.
One word: ouch. I'm assuming, without good data, that the precipitous decline in A4 sales is due to supply more than demand? At least, that's what the press release makes it out to sound like.
What's amazing is how the crunch is hitting the high end / specialized end of the market: Mercedes' sales of the S-Class have fallen off of a cliff, sales of the TT have really taken a beating along with the CL/CLS coupes, not to mention the Q7.
Travis L. Grundke tgrundke@gmail.com 2006 Audi A3 Sport, Cold Weather, Xenon, Open Sky, Nav+, Sound
Interesting if Audi can sell a proper amount of A4s in September. Audi has already advertised the A4 for quite some time already and has demos at the dealers, but no dealer stock. Time to start selling it. Unless they are waiting to sell all B7 A4s. I think they could have timed the launch somewhat better.
The good news is that Audi sold quite a bit more A5s than in previous months. Audi could be selling 1,000+ if they wanted.
Quote, originally posted by MEIN_VW »
This place is is insane - the biggest complaint I hear in the Car Lounge is that VW's are too expensive when loaded up with options and yet when they want to decontent and lower the price, the complaints get even louder. You can't have it both ways.
We're selling an incredible amount of CPO's at our store. New car sales are falling off everywhere. People are scaling down due to the economy. Instead of brand new, people want to save on depreciation.
Finacially, I'm having my best year ever @ Audi. You make a lot more money on used cars to begin with. The new car margins for Audi's are the lowest of any highline brand.
I'm happy as can be selling 75% used and CPO, and the rest new.
Bingo. This echos what I'm hearing from friends in the business here in Northeast Ohio: CPO sales are booming, new vehicle sales are in the crapper.
Of my friends who are looking at "new cars", three of them are looking at CPOs. For them it's not so much an economy issue, it is a matter of basic math: the price of new 'luxury' vehicles has grown so much and the savings on 1 - 2 year used models is so great that it hardly makes sense to jump in and buy new any longer.
I wonder if this will be be a long term, growing trend?
Quote, originally posted by jperryrocks »
We're selling an incredible amount of CPO's at our store. New car sales are falling off everywhere. People are scaling down due to the economy. Instead of brand new, people want to save on depreciation.
Finacially, I'm having my best year ever @ Audi. You make a lot more money on used cars to begin with. The new car margins for Audi's are the lowest of any highline brand.
I'm happy as can be selling 75% used and CPO, and the rest new.
Travis L. Grundke tgrundke@gmail.com 2006 Audi A3 Sport, Cold Weather, Xenon, Open Sky, Nav+, Sound
Didn't Audi, earlier this year, announce the new A4 would arrive in September? I'm assuming the increased B7 sales reduced supplies, causing a lack of B7's to cover them until September. This obviously resulted in Audi introducing the B8 A4 sooner. And perhaps this has something to do with Audi not having enough supplies of the B8 A4.
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