CARY, N.C. -

In a bit of irony, strong demand may indirectly be keeping the certified pre-owned sales from achieving “massive growth.”

Still, year-to-date CPO sales through the third quarter are beating year-ago figures by 11% and outpace 2019 numbers by 3%, according to a Data Point report from Cox Automotive that analyzed data from Motor Intelligence.

The latter ended up being the ninth straight record year for certified sales, a tally that Cox Automotive said could potentially be matched in 2021.

The company’s revised forecast is for 2.70 million CPO sales this year, which would beat last year’s 2.60 million but fall short of the record tally from 2019, when CPO sales were at 2.80 million units.

However, matching that record high “remains within reach,” Cox Automotive said in the report.

As for the most recently completed month, there were 228,118 CPO sales in September, to 224,536 in September 2020 and 204,946 in September 2019.

In August of this year, there were 222,942 certified sales. 

“In today’s market, everything is selling so quickly and at such high prices, that I think that in many cases the dealers are selling cars before they get a chance to pull them into their shops to spend the time to recondition them up to full CPO standards,” Manheim Consulting vice president Kevin Chartier said during the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index call last week.

“So, this is why we haven’t seen massive growth in CPO. But with that said, CPO has been pretty good and continues to be right up there with the historic highs that we have seen over the past few years,” he said. “And as we see new-vehicle inventories drop, CPO presents a great opportunity for the dealers to have something to sell to people coming in looking for a new car.”

And 2022 may be a year of great opportunity CPO, as Cox Automotive is projecting 2.90 sales, according to the quarterly report. 

Looking at the total used-car market, The company’s revised forecast projects 39.2 million overall used-car sales this year, with 21.4 million of those being retail used sales (or sales coming from a dealership).

That’s up from an estimated 36.7 million total used-car sales in 2020 and 19.5 million retail sales, according to Cox estimates from earlier this year.

In 2022, Cox is forecasting total used-car sales of 39.3 million and used retail sales of 22.1 million.

Brand-by-brand CPO results

Among individual automakers reporting recent CPO results, Mazda North American Operations said it moved 5,603 certified units last month, a 7.0% decrease. 

Mercedes-Benz reported that is third-quarter CPO sales were up 4.1% year-over-year with 36,446 units moved. Through nine months, its year-to-date certified sales are up 15.2% at 110,325 units.

Volvo moved 2,944 certified vehicles in September and has sold 29,949 so far this year. It moved 9,105 CPO units in Q3.

At BMW of North America, there were 26,048 CPO sales for the quarter, which was off 8.7% year-over-year. 

Through nine months, BMW has sold 86,563 CPO units, which is up 4.6%.