GAINESVILLE, Ga. -

Perhaps spring isn’t ready to bloom just yet in the auction lanes.

In this week’s Black Book Market Insights report, analysts acknowledged “no spring market lift so far,” as data from the month of February showed most car segment retention has generally continued to perform weaker than that of trucks.

Interestingly enough, Anil Goyal pointed out this pattern has not been entirely consistent across the board with a few truck segments showing great weakness and some cars showing strength.

“With high supply and low demand of small cars, we are not seeing the typical seasonality lift in values. On the other hand, crossover/SUV segments continue to get more interest from the buyers,” said Goyal, who is vice president of automotive valuation and analytics.

Looking at volume-weighted prices, Black Book reported overall car values decreased by 0.31 percent last week. The report indicated this figure is close to the average depreciation rate of 0.36 percent seen in the previous eight weeks.

Analysts mentioned prices in the full-size car, midsize car and near-luxury car segments performed the best among cars segments, changing in value by 0 percent, -0.2 percent and -0.2 percent, respectively.

Again based on volume-weighted prices, Black Book noticed overall truck values decreased by 0.26 percent last week. This reading is better than the average depreciation rate of 0.36 percent seen in the previous eight weeks.

Black Book went on to highlight all non-luxury crossover/SUV segments performed well, declining less than 0.22 percent last week. Full-size vans values rose a little, ticking up by 0.12 percent.

Black Book representatives in the lanes last week gathered comments from dealers that reflected the sentiment that perhaps the spring market is yet to bloom.

In Florida, the chatter was “Buyers said they paid up for good cars today but only a little more than they expected.” Meanwhile in Michigan, the summation was “Tough sale today with 12 inches of fresh snow but the market trend in this area is up from last week.”

Over in California, “Utilities, 4x4s and high-end vehicles are in most demand at this location, while in Texas, “No bargains today. It seemed that most all segments were in demand.”

A Tennessee observer described the scene as “A good sale all around today with trucks and SUV’s continuing to lead the way.”

Finally, what happened in Arizona might summarize last week’s activity as the lane talk was, “The market trend in this area is still a bit slow but is showing signs of a possible uptick.”