For dealers and finance companies that specialize in working with consumers with credit scores below 550, May turned out to be a pretty good month for used-vehicle sales. CNW Research found that turns to buyers in this credit segment increased by more than 9 percent year-over-year as the industry posted 734,165 retail used sales to […] [Read More]

Driven in part by the increasing retail price for vehicles, the latest Equifax National Consumer Credit Trends Report showed the total outstanding balance of current auto loans reached a new record high in April. Equifax determined outstanding balances closed April by rising 10.8 percent from the same time a year earlier to come in at […] [Read More]

More — and more relevant — used-car information to simplify the buying process: That’s the aim of new technology from PureCars. On Wednesday, the company announced the launch of its all-new Value Intelligence Platform, or VIP. Using PureCars' proprietary algorithm, which pulls from more than 1 billion data points of reference, the platform organizes and […] [Read More]

Internet Brands, an online media and software services organization that includes such automotive players as CarsDirect, Chrome Data and Autodata Solutions, announced earlier this week that it will be purchased by global investment firm KKR. The two companies signed a definitive agreement in which KKR will purchase Internet Brands from Hellman & Friedman and JMI […] [Read More]

Without giving specific figures, Copart chief executive officer Jay Adair described salvage vehicle prices as “what we would expect,” when the company discussed the financial performance of the third quarter of its fiscal year. Reflecting on the span that wrapped up on April 30, Adair indicated that pricing for salvage units “tends to peak in […] [Read More]

The percent of people coming in with trade-ins is down from its peak level, says Edmunds.com senior analyst Jessica Caldwell, but this might actually be a good sign. In a conference call to discuss May auto sales, Caldwell said this trend likely points to “people adding to their fleets rather than just replacing.” The average […] [Read More]

In a used-vehicle market that was static overall, franchised dealers increased their used sales more than 4 percent from a year ago, moving 1.42 million pre-owned units off their lots in May. That’s according to the latest sales recap released today by CNW Research, which pegged May’s overall used sales total at 4.39 million units. […] [Read More]

These days, certified pre-owned vehicles can command a wide spectrum of premiums, depending on the specific model-year, brand and other factors. That’s according to NADA CPO value data included in the latest NADA Perspective report, which highlighted the mainstream and luxury brands generating the strongest values on their CPO models. NADA gathered data from automakers […] [Read More]

Incentives were on the way up last month, as average transaction prices were reported to have fallen slightly from April. According to TrueCar.com data, the average incentive spending for light vehicles in May was $2,677, up $17 (0.7 percent) from May 2013 and up $91 (3.5 percent) from April. TrueCar estimated the ratio of incentive […] [Read More]

For the second quarter in a row, quarterly repossession for finance companies — lenders that often cater to subprime buyers — jumped by around 70 percent year-over-year. The latest State of the Automotive Finance Market report from Experian Automotive indicated that first-quarter repossessions for finance companies climbed 69.1 percent year-over-year to 3.01 percent of their […] [Read More]