New-vehicle sales have soared back from the troughs of a few years ago, and leasing penetration levels have steadily remained in the 20-percent ballpark.

But is this surge on the new-car side helping the supply constraint that has arguably been the biggest challenge on the used-car side in recent years?
Are dealers getting any alleviation in their used inventories? Is supply flowing back into the auction?

Auto Remarketing set out to answer these questions in our “Turning Up the Volume” feature in the June 1 print publication, which examines the used-vehicle supply dynamic in both the retail and wholesale markets.

As part of the feature, Black Book’s Ricky Beggs — who regularly examines activity in the auction lanes — offered his take on what he’s seeing in the marketplace.

With this year hovering around the 14.2 million projected SAAR, Beggs contends this climb in new-car sales should bring in an extra million used cars this year, as compared to 2011, or 8.5 million potential trades verses 7.5 million.

“It is exciting to finally see the availability of used vehicles starting to increase in the wholesale arenas … Realistically, it is just a different level of supply we have had to adjust to over the past three to four years. We have been dealing with a very tight supply in a market that has been focused more on good quality used cars and trucks and utilities, in contrast to a lesser demand for new models,” Beggs shared.

“With 6.5 million fewer new cars sold in 2010 as compared to 2007, that alone meant close to 3.8 million fewer trade-ins coming into the wholesale market in calendar year 2010,” he added, stressing that dealers have endured very tight volume in the lanes when searching for quality used units.

To see what other top industry experts — including ADESA’s Tom Kontos, Manheim’s Tom Webb, Kelley Blue Book’s Alec Gutierrez and Thomas King of J.D. Power and Associates , plus those representing dealers/automakers — had to say about the retail and wholesale used-vehicle supply dynamics, turn to the June 1 print issue of Auto Remarketing.