FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla – AutoUSA, a provider of Internet-generated consumer leads to auto dealers nationwide, said there was a 17.6 percent increase in truck leads and 11.9 percent drop in car leads for the third quarter 2008.

"Truck leads decreased when gas prices shot up during the first and second quarter of 2008. Now that fuel costs are have declined, we're seeing more truck inquiries," said Phil DuPree, president of AutoUSA.

Despite the increase, truck lead volume, which includes large pickup, large SUV, small pickup and small SUV leads, is still down 26 percent year-to-date, driven by a fall-off in lead volume from small SUVs (-33.6 percent) and large SUVs (-27.9 percent).

The lead decrease in the car category of CUV, large car, luxury car and middle car brought total volume back to beginning of the year figures. The stop-loss was small car leads, up 20.6 percent since January. All other car leads were down year-to-date, including a large drop in CUVs at –14.6 percent.

Car lead market share, which was 82.9 percent in January, and grew to 89.1 percent in June, dropped back to 85.5 percent in September.

Conversely, trucks market share shrank in June (from 12.4 percent to 7.0 percent), and rebounded in September (10.0 percent), reflecting the stabilization of gas prices, which drew some consumers back into the trucks market.

AutoUSA provides leads to more than 4,000 dealers nationwide from a partnership network that includes leading automotive web sites including Edmunds.com, Kelley Blue Book, MSN Auto, Yahoo! Autos, AOL and AutoVantage.