Last month’s auction sales volume accelerated from December, but still was softer than the year-ago period.

That’s according to the February Guidelines report from NADA Used Car Guide, which said there were 322,200 vehicles 8 years old or newer sold at auction during the four weeks ending Jan. 25.

That beat the prior month by 38 percent, but was down 4 percent year-over-year.

It should also be noted, however, that 2015 represented a five-year high for auction sales of cars 8 years old or newer, according to January’s edition of Guidelines. Specifically, 2015 auction volume for this group was at 4.17 million, up 5 percent. Three million of those were late-model units.

As for January’s dip, declining late-model volume (5 years old or newer) certainly had something to do with that, the report said.

For instance, this January had 20 percent fewer sales of prior-year models than last January. For vehicles from two model years prior, the volume decline from last January was 8 percent.

“Thus far, the total number of 2015 model-year sales collected over the past 13 months is running about 8 percent below the number of 2014 sales collected over a similar period. This runs counter to the 4-percent increase in 2015 model-year rental registrations,” NADA Used Car Guide’s Jonathan Banks said in the report.

That said, volume for vehicles from the 2010 through 2013 model years was up an average of 15 percent. These cars represented more than half (52 percent) of sales for the month, the report said.