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New-vehicle sales rise in the Valley
By Grace Wyler
youngstown
The Valley’s auto dealers continued the road to recovery last month, with new-vehicle sales up 14 percent compared with last year.
Dealerships in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties sold 1,732 new vehicles in September, up from 1,514 sold in the same month in 2009.
“September was a good month for us,” said Nick Siciliano, general manager of The Honda Store in Boardman. “We’re doing about 30 percent better than we were last year, so we hope that just continues to move forward.”
For the year-to-date, new-vehicle sales are up across the Valley. Local dealerships sold 14,748 new vehicles in the first nine months of 2010, compared with 13,952 sold in the same period last year.
“We are having the best year we have ever had,” said Bob Davis, general manager of Fairway Ford Mercury in Canfield. “The economic climate definitely feels better — I think people feel like we have hit rock bottom and are on the way up.”
Davis attributed Fairway’s sales success to consumer confidence in Ford, the country’s No. 1 selling automaker last month. Fairway has seen a nearly 40 percent jump in sales this year, compared with 2009.
“Ford is doing a phenomenal job,” he said. “And we have real aggressive pricing.”
Despite the continued uptick in year-to-date sales, September sales in the Valley were the lowest since May.
Local General Motors’ dealers largely attributed the month-to-month drop to low inventories as the company ramps up production on 2011 models such as the Chevrolet Cruze, the Chevy Equinox and the GMC Terrain.
Production is accelerating slowly on the Lordstown-built Cruze, which began arriving in dealerships in the middle of September. GM sold 516 Cruze units nationwide last month, the company reported earlier this month. Local Cruze sales numbers are not yet available.
GM cut inventories of the Chevy Cobalt in anticipation of the arrival of the Cruze, but local Chevy dealers reported they have not yet had enough Cruzes to meet customer demand for compact cars.
“We are out of Cobalts and waiting for the Cruze,” said Greg Greenwood, owner of Greenwood Chevrolet in Austintown and Hubbard. “We are very optimistic — the only thing we have to do is allow Lordstown to get the Cruze up to full production.”
As dealers await more Cruze units, the Chevy Malibu continues to be the most-popular new car in the Valley. Local Chevy dealerships sold 128 new Malibus last month, compared with 59 sold in September 2009.
Other popular models in September were the Ford F-150, the Chevy Equinox, the Ford Focus and the Chevy Impala.