Used Trucks and SUVs Continue Rebound

Almost every one of the most popular used trucks and SUVs on AutoTrader.com saw double-digit percentage price increases in October.  The most improved vehicle was the Chevrolet Tahoe, which was up 27 percent from last year.  The Dodge Ram 1500 and Ford F-150 also had price increases of over 20 percent since October 2008.

Similar trends emerged in the new vehicle market, with most truck and SUV models showing single digit increases.  However, the F-150 and Chevrolet Silverado had 20 and 14 percent increases respectively.

“There continues to be renewed interest in these larger vehicles from consumers who need these vehicles for their work, because they have large families or some other true utility reason,” said Chip Perry, president of AutoTrader.com.

“In the past two years, record gas prices and a challenged economy caused many of these people to put off purchase of a new or used truck or SUV,” he explained.

“But for car buyers who really need large vehicles, they can only put off the purchase for so long,” Perry continued. “This rising demand coupled with low inventories could lead to continued price increases on these vehicles over the coming months.”

In a month where AutoTrader.com continued to witness an increase in views on the site over last year, the company had 13.6 million unique monthly visitors, up 6 percent from 12.9 million in October 2008.

“Consumers tell us over and over that the Internet is the number one medium from which they get information about vehicles and find dealers they want to do business with.” Perry remarked.

Photo courtesy of fdtate under the Creative Commons License.

Tags: AutoTrader.com, Chevrolet, Chevrolet Tahoe, Dodge, Dodge Ram, F-150, Ford, Silverado

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.