Chevrolet Silverado pickup trucks are seen Dec. 17 on a dealer's lot in Troy, Mich.(Photo: Carlos Osorio, AP)
LOS ANGELES -- Auto dealers are hoping to cap what is expected to be
their best sales year since 2007 with a slew of last-minute, year-end
deals, led by bargains on pickups.
Dealers "are swimming in cars,"
says Jack Nerad, analyst for Kelley Blue Book. "They are still
fighting tooth and nail" for every sale.
The discounts are taking
many forms, such as cash-back offers and/or 0% financing. And when the
savings are tallied up, buyers can end up shaving as much as $9,000 off
the price of certain models. General Motors is especially aggressive in
moving pickups off the lots in the waning days of this year because it
recently revealed an all-new 2014 line of trucks that will go on sale
next year.
The discounts become most apparent when comparing list
prices to what customers actually paid. GM has been selling a 2013
Chevrolet Silverado pickup that lists for $28,610 for an average
transaction price of $24,683, a 13.7% discount, according to
auto-pricing site TrueCar.com.
There are cash incentives of up to
$6,500 in addition to 0% financing on other pickup models, including the
2012 Ford F-150 and the Nissan Titan, according to KBB. Dealers say
buyers are taking advantage of the deals. "We definitely want to move
vehicles," says Peter Greiner, a salesman at family-owned Greiner Ford
Lincoln in Casper, Wyo.
And the hot discounts aren't limited to
pickups. Those buying a 2013 Chrysler 200 sedan were paying an average
$22,010, a 14.3% discount off the sticker price, according TrueCar.com.
Good deals were also available on the Ford Focus and luxury cars such as
the BMW 5 Series and Infiniti G37.
A $399-a-month lease on a sexy
BMW 3 Series convertible caught the eye of Jessica Caldwell, analyst
for Edmunds.com, another car-buying research website. "There is a deal
on everything," she says. "The offers are out there."
Auto dealers
are on track to sell 14.5 million vehicles this year, reports Barclays
analyst Brian Johnson in a note, which would be a 13.5% increase over
last year. Yet strong sales aren't necessarily translating into higher
prices.
"There is a still a lot of production," Nerad says. There are "not as many buyers as there are cars."
USA Today