Cars.com dubbed this year's July as the month of the pickup trucks. This is because after months of outstanding sales, full-size pickup sales hopped to 12% in July. Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra both got 2-digit increases, and the 'Rado gained 33.9% even if it had a lower inventory and no big incentives push. The Ford F-Series also had its 5-month streak of year-over-year losses, but was able to end strong with 4.8% in July.
The housing market, one of the biggest buyers of full size pickup trucks, entered July on its 3rd straight month of strong construction starts, and F-150 buyers found that Ford fixed the 2015 model's initial supply constraints permanently. The remodeled truck accounts for 95.1% of all new F-150 inventories on Cars.com.
Midsize pickups and non-luxury subcompact SUV's remain climbing with the pickups gaining 52.2% and SUVs almost doubled their sales, and most of it comes from new players. Midsize pickups have 2 all-new GM models in the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon while subcompact SUVs have Mazda CX-3 and other four new players, going on sale this month.
Conventional compact SUVs had a modest month (up 5.2%) even if gas is $0.85 less per gallon today compared a year ago. That is about even with the industry's 5.4% gain on sales with the seven giant automakers reporting, and it depicts a leveling-off from the compact-SUV boom in the past months. It seems SUV shoppers are looking elsewhere. Subcompact models are booming, but midsize SUVs and large, 3-row crossovers (all, except luxury models) were all up by 2-digit percentages.
Buyers are not really rolling the dough in July, with quarterly wage increase slowing to its worst pace on record. Car prices have some delays as new-car average deal prices decreased in July for the first time in years.
Nissan Altima had a big year-over-year increase in July incentives, and consumers pushed sales up 27% versus a bad July last year. The Hyundai Elantra backed off after making the top 10 best-sellers in June (its first time in 3 months) after its sales fell 0.4%. Hyundai Elantra's strong incentives push in July did not help them to retain their place.
