The Canadian Black Book Used Vehicle Retention Index for February has revealed a decline — the first since June 2018. The index dipped 0.5 points from January’s record high and is now resting at 104.7.
“Someone once said, ‘One month does not a trend make,’ which is a shameless derivative of a famous quote from Aristotle, ‘One swallow does not a summer make,’” said Brian Murphy, VP of Research & Editorial at Canadian Black Book. “This month’s results have very little to do with birds and everything to do with price trends for two to six year-old used cars, SUVs and trucks.”
The Compact and Subcompact segments have shown the largest year-over-year gains with 4.9 points and 6.8 points, respectively.
Luxury cars declined 7.8 points since February 2018, and the premium sports segment experienced a decrease of 4.2 points. The Prestige Luxury category took a deeper dive, falling 7.2 points in value.
The consumer shift towards SUVs may be enabling the decline of higher-end car prices, according to CBB. The impact of this shift may result in better deals at auctions in these segments.
When compared to the previous month most vehicles are down. The Full-size Car segment is off by 1.7 points and Mid-size Crossovers dropped 1.1 points. The biggest decline month-over-month was the Small Pickup (truck) segment, which fell 2.2 points. The Full-size Van segment managed to skirt these declines and instead experienced a 1.2 point increase.
CBB said the bigger picture reveals that we are still at near-record levels of retained values, regardless of February’s decline. “The index is at 2.1 points ahead of where it was twelve months ago.”
It is still unclear if the decline represents a temporary “blip” or the beginning of a larger downward trend. “Spring is coming, so there are bound to be a few robins on the horizon and some swallows too,” said Murphy.
