February auto sales expected to drop slightly

February 28, 2017 at 12:05a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

One fewer sales day in February will lead to a slight decrease in year-over-year sales, analysts say.

February is expected to have a total of 1.3 million new-vehicle sales, down as much as 3 percent over last year’s 1.34 million.

But analysts are most concerned about rising incentives, which isn’t a healthy long-term strategy for selling vehicles.

“Incentives have been up and rising for a couple of years now,” said Tim Fleming, analyst for Kelley Blue Book.

Automakers will release their February sales figures Wednesday.

KBB expects all automakers to post a decline in February sales except for Subaru of America and Volkswagen Group. General Motors is expected to post a 2.1 percent decline in sales to 223,000, according to Kelley Blue Book analysts. Analysts project Ford Motor Co. will post a 5.6 percent decline in sales to 204,000, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is expected to post the largest decline of all automakers with an estimated 7.6 percent drop in sales to 173,000.

Compact cars and mid-size cars will once again take a hit in sales while crossover sales will see an increase. Kelley Blue Book analysts project the compact-car segment will see a 10.9 percent decrease in sales and the midsize car segment is expected to post a 20.9 percent decrease.

“I think the industry is supported by the boom in SUVs,” Fleming said. “If that starts to weaken, the whole industry goes along with that.”

Fleming and other analysts don’t expect the sport utility vehicle trend will weaken anytime soon, but they do believe 2017 auto sales will be below last year’s record of 17.5 million.

Kelley Blue Book’s forecasts the industry will have 16.8 million to 17.3 million sales, which represents a 1 percent to 4 percent decrease from last year.

Greenwood Chevrolet in Austintown has had a good start to the year.

“We had our biggest January new car-wise that we have had in 17 years,” said Mark Fabian, general sales manager for the dealership.

Fabian said incentives on the Lordstown-built Chevrolet Cruze and the Equinox helped to make it a record month of 252 sales. February has also been busy with close to 200 new sales as of Monday.

“February is traditionally really busy because of the auto-show incentives,” Fabian said. “Our first quarter has always been good for the last eight-to 10 years.”