After a fifth straight record year, the certified pre-owned car market began 2016 with a modest dip, as January sales fell 2.1 percent on a year-over-year basis.

But keep this in mind: January 2015 was the best January ever for CPO sales. And this past month was the second-best, according to Autodata Corp. 

There were 190,951 CPO sales last month, which was down from 194,963 sales in the first month of 2015, according to Autodata.

And with just 24 selling days this past month, the daily selling rate was 7,956 units, which beat the 7,499 DSR last January (which had 26 selling days) by more than 6 percent, the firm said.

Asian brands increased CPO sales by 2.2 percent, moving 89,660 units. The Big 3 was down 4.8 percent with 69,304 certified sales in January, and European brands softened 7 percent with 31,987 CPO sales.