GAINESVILLE, Ga. -

Though tax season will most likely ramp prices up in the near future, for the time being, winter weather is contributing to a “softer” auction market.

Black Book’s Ricky Beggs reported both the car and truck segments saw larger price declines last week than experienced during the last few weeks of 2013.

The car segments saw an average decline of $72, which was larger than the $58 decline seen two weeks ago.

Beggs, editorial director and senior vice president of Black Book, said in his latest “Beggs on the Used Car Market” video report that last week’s price movement marked the second largest weekly decline over the past 10 weeks for the car segments.

Interestingly, the two segments that saw the strongest retention levels when compared to the prior week were the entry level cars and the compact cars.

Beggs explained this is due in part to rising gas prices.

Last week, gas prices increased by seven cents, which brought prices eight cents higher than seen during the year-ago period.

Further illustrating this trend was the large decline seen among the truck segments.

Overall, truck prices fell by $64, the greatest decline for seen over the past four weeks.

Compact crossovers with a decline of $90 experienced one of the biggest dollar drops among the truck segments last week.

Compact SUVs followed with a decline of $84. Full-size pickups also experienced a larger-than-average drop, falling by $76.

Overall, the market is seeing softer-than-normal levels, and Beggs said winter weather could be a factor.

During the same period of 2013, the car segments saw a $49 decline, while trucks only saw a $22 decline.