LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga.—Used car values held fairly steady in February, thanks in large part to the approach of the spring buying season, according to a new report.
Black Book data shows the average price of a used vehicle for model years 2010-2014 declined 1.1% during February. Cars declined 1.1% and trucks declined 1.2% during the month.
“Clearly the car segments have begun to pick up momentum as we inch closer to spring, especially mid-size cars and full-size cars,” said Anil Goyal, senior vice president, automotive valuation and analytics for Black Book. “As we reach the pinnacle of spring it will be interesting to see if cars perform similarly to last year or if they experience less retention during the tax season.”
Uncharacteristically, full-size pickups led all vehicle segments with the highest depreciation on the month at 2.7%. Vehicles in this segment entered March with an average segment price of $22,502, a 6.3% drop from a year ago ($24,013).
Nineteen different car segments saw less than 2.0% depreciation in February. The top three segments with the lowest depreciation were full-size cars (0.3%), compact crossover/CUV (0.1%) and mid-size cars (0.0%). The full-size car segment finished the month with an average price of $12,674, a 16.3% decrease from a year ago. The compact crossover/CUV segment ended the month with an average segment price of $12,978, a 14.6% decrease from last year.
Mid-Size Cars led all segments with the lowest depreciation at 0.0%. Vehicles in this segment finished February with an average segment price of $9,595, an 18.8% change from a year ago ($11,813).