The "deal of the century" - as some call the no-interest loans that automakers are offering - may be churning a second wave of bargains for
consumers in used cars, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Thousands of consumers are trading in late-model cars that they might otherwise have kept, just to take advantage of interest-free financing offered by General Motors, Ford,
and DaimlerChrysler, according to dealers. But the resulting increase in trades is flooding some dealers' used-car lots at a time when the used-car market is already soft and average prices are fairly low.
This is definitely a good thing for consumers, according to Jerry Reynolds, national chairman
of the Ford Dealer Council. At Reynolds' dealership, the typical inventory of 300 used vehicles has ballooned to 500 from trade-ins on new cars and trucks, forcing him to park some of the vehicles in a field near the dealership.
The influx of used cars locally probably will push retail prices down further, according to Reynolds and other dealers. Ford dealers, both in the Dallas area and nationally, have asked Reynolds to approach Ford Credit about offering some sort of incentive or special financing on
used cars, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Reynolds told the Morning News he expects an answer in the next few days. "I'm getting e-mails from Ford dealers everywhere," he said. "The biggest juggling act for us is how do we keep trading when we don't really have any room for any more used cars?"
Paul Taylor, chief economist of the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), said he
recently met with a group of Chevrolet dealers, and some of them were also worried about the increasing volume of trade-ins. One dealer is
subsidizing the interest rates on bank loans to make used cars more attractive to buyers, according to Taylor.
"You are seeing people bring in 1- or 2-year-old cars because they have probably never seen a deal this good," Taylor said.
0 Comments
See all comments