CNW Research is predicting the used-vehicle industry to produce its best March sales total since 2002.

The firm indicated the industry is likely to sell 2.95 million units this month, sparked by nearly a 15-percent gain year-over-year by franchised dealers. Independent dealers should fare nicely this month, too, according to CNW. Independents are projected to have a sales jump of 10.6 percent.

CNW president Art Spinella described the strength of the used-vehicle as “pretty good” in the firm's March Retail Automotive Summary.

“Of course this strength is simply because of the recession causing many potential used-car buyers to postpone a purchase until the economy improved causing a backlog of pent-up demand,” Spinella said.

Also fueling March’s predicted used-vehicle sales gain is a 1.1-percent uptick in private party sales, which Spinella explained could have some strong ramifications on dealer prospects down the road.

“Those selling their vehicles privately rather than trading them in at dealerships typically deal in older models, upgrading to less-old versions. A 10-year-old Ford Ranger for a five-year-old F-150, for example,” Spinella said.

“For both franchised and independent dealers, the oldest models are of little concern except on buy-here pay-here lots,” he continued. “But when casual buyers begin siphoning off the five- to seven-year pool of used cars and trucks, it deprives dealers of very saleable and profitable models.

“Add to this mix the growth in financial institutions willing (again) to finance private party sales and the inventory gets even more stretched for dealers,” Spinella went on to say.

Continue the conversation with Auto Remarketing on both LinkedIn and Twitter.