According to the Motor Vehicle Registration service of Louisiana, 2008 vs. 2007 figures reflect a near 19 percent drop in vehicles sold in the Lake Area. While that’s not good, it’s a whole lot better than the national average of 30 percent.
The MVR is the source quoted with the fine print at the bottom of an advertisement when a dealer claims to be number one in sales for a particular period of time. Like the national dealers, Southwest Louisiana dealers were hit by the rise in gasoline prices during the summer months, as well at the downturn in the economy in the 4th quarter.
Folks weren’t too anxious to buy a car or truck when the Big Three were on the news every night hollering bankruptcy if they didn’t get their loans from Congress. Add two guys named Gustav and Ike to the aforementioned problems, and it’s a miracle any vehicles were sold in our market at all.
Car sales dropped by about 600. Truck sales--the bread and butter of most dealers in our area—crashed, with 2,200 less sold than last year.
The one bright spot in our area is imports.
A strong Lake Charles Toyota, and good Lake Charles Nissan numbers coupled with Navarre Honda moving 600+ Hondas made for a good year. Nissan of Lake Charles sold 1,159 units and Lake Charles Toyota signed 880 deals with their truck sales accounting for 500 of those.
Southwest Louisiana has always been truck country, and that helped soften the blow for dealers, since there usually is a higher margin in pickup trucks and SUVS. Still, with all the negatives in 2008 (which may go down as the worse economic year in our history), our area registered 1,945 cars, 643 imports and 7,616 trucks.
Navarre continues to lead
Navarre Chevrolet continues to lead in sales in our area, maintaining a 25+ percent share of the market for more than 10 years. The Silverado is a great truck, and the Honda car is about as good as an import gets. Nissan of Lake Charles has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years. John Stelly’s team sold 1,159 Nissan cars and trucks for 2008. Right behind in third place is Mark Dodge with 1,077. We understand Mark is looking to add an import line, which could put him in second place for 2009.
Since Radford sold its Buick franchise to Jack Hebert at All Star Pontiac in Sulphur, one would think that the Mazda franchise would be up for sale as well, leaving the dealership space wide open for a really nice used car lot if Radford does in fact sell Mazda to Mark or someone else.
Time to buy?
So, is this the ideal time to buy? According to the experts, it is. Edmunds.com, a valuable tool for car buyers, NADA (National Auto Dealers Association) and LADA (Louisiana Auto Dealers Association) are all telling car buyers that there are plenty of good deals and lots of money to be had.
Dealers have plenty of inventory, and very little time to move the merchandise under the factories’ new floor plan programs. But remember, just as in the real estate market, lenders have grown gun-shy of “No Money Down.” So make sure you have good credit and are able to put something down on top of your trade, and do your car-buying homework before leaving the house by surfing Web sites such as Edmunds.com.
As for the dealers, they will continue to fight for a bigger share of the market as they try to survive during these tough times. Automakers will throw designs in the air to see if something will fly as they listen to the angry taxpayers who say Congress should have let the Big Three take bankruptcy and operate under reorganization. One thing is certain: There’s plenty of guilt to go around regarding the automaker’s decisions in prior years.
And so it goes in the auto business.
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