On the whole, cars depreciated faster than trucks last week — a return to recent trends after the previous week’s reversal.

But subcompact car values got a reprieve last week, according to Black Book's weekly Market Insights report released Tuesday.

Volume weighted, overall car segment values decrease by 0.68 percent last week. This was similar to the 0.67 percent rate seen in the previous six weeks.

Meanwhile, overall truck segment valued decreased by 0.39 percent last week, similar to the depreciation rate of 0.44 percent seen in the previous sex weeks.

“Overall depreciation rates for both cars and trucks remained consistent with the trends seen in the previous six weeks. Depreciation on sub-compact cars slowed last week after steeper declines earlier,” said Anil Goyal, senior vice president of automotive valuation and analytics at Black Book.

Car segments that saw the highest depreciation last week were prestige luxury cars, near luxury cars and full-size cars at 1.26 percent, 1.07 percent and 1.00 percent, respectively.

Meanwhile, subcompact cars, premium sporty cars and midsize cars declined the least by 0.11 percent, 0.38 percent and 0.51 percent respectively.

As noted, subcompact depreciation was slower last week, down from 0.60 percent, 0.80 percent and 0.99 percent in the previous three weeks.

Among trucks, compact vans, minivans and full-size crossovers/SUVs declined the most last week by 1.20 percent, 1.08 percent and 0.80 percent, respectively, while subcompact luxury crossovers saw the lowest depreciation at 0.11 percent.

The report indicated that the retention rates of subcompact cars have steadily declined in the past four years. For the 2010 model year, subcompact car retention, two years later in September 2012, was 61 percent. For the 2013 model year, the retention, two years later was 52 percent. In comparison, for 2014 MY, the retention this September has dropped by 8 points to 44 percent.

View from the lanes

Black Book editors and personnel attend more than 60 auctions throughout the country each week to gauge activity and trends.

Representatives in Texas, Arizona and Tennessee said lanes were slow.

“Slow today with a lot of no-sales on multiple lanes,” said the latter. “Dealers say they have plenty of inventory, and cars at auction are just too high.”

A lane watcher in Florida reported that dealers from Louisiana were in town trying to replace flood-damaged cars.

And in Washington: “Steady market in this location, was actually a little stronger than last week.”