Used Class 8 Truck Sales Rise 11% in December
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Used Class 8 truck sales in December increased 11.3% year over year to 21,700 units from 19,500, ACT Research reported.
Sales also increased 4.8% sequentially from 20,700 in November. The average retail sale price declined 2% year over year to $56,865 from $58,033 while inching up 0.5% sequentially from $56,574. Average mileage increased 3.7% to 423,000 from 408,000 a year ago but fell 1.7% from the 416,000 reported for November.
“Prices are expected to remain stable at or around the current level before transitioning to [year-over-year] growth in early 2025,” ACT Research Vice President Steve Tam said. “Same-dealer used Class 8 retail truck sales rose to their highest monthly tally for 2024 in December. The 16% [month-to-month] increase was stronger than the expected 8% seasonal contraction indicated by history.”
Tam pointed out that December historically has been the fifth-best sales month for used trucks. This year, the market ran just 1% below average for the month.
Tam
“Used truck sales, from our standpoint, is seeing tremendous growth right now,” said Charles Smith, regional business development and marketing manager at Mission Financial Services. “An influx of applications, an influx of approvals, an influx of interest in customers actually looking to finance used trucks. Prices are great, the inventory is looking pretty good for the most part. So with that being said, we have no quarrels with the industry right now.”
Smith added that there are too many potential factors behind this growth to list, though he points to the election as being a key one. Smith is optimistic the trend will continue with the business being well-positioned for growth from a finance standpoint and sees indications customers are doing more to prepare for the up cycle.
Smith
“Once the elections were over and done with, we started to see that push,” Smith said. “More people started to spend money. I don’t know if they were actually waiting to see who was going to be in power, what the economy was going to look like, what the industry was going to look like, prior to them making purchases. But after that, we started to see a huge pickup.”
J.D. Power found in its monthly market report that December auction volumes were uncharacteristically weak but pricing ticked up. The report also noted that sleeper tractor auction pricing is currently 2.4% lower than the strong pre-pandemic period of 2018 in nominal figures, but that is 53% higher than late 2019. Day cab sales moved slightly upward.
“In December, selling prices for 4- to 6-year-old sleepers were 3.1% higher than November,” the J.D. Power report noted. “Stable pricing since the second quarter combined with December’s uptick sent our monthly depreciation average for calendar-year 2024 down to an almost nonexistent 0.8%.”
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J.D. Power also noted that retail sleeper pricing showed historically typical depreciation in December. Day cab pricing strengthened again as well. The report noted that overall, the average sleeper tractor retailed was 61 months old, had 395,691 miles and brought $57,010.
“Three- to 5-year-old sleeper tractors brought 2.2% less money in December than November, and 4.1% less than December 2023,” the report noted. “Compared with the last weak pre-pandemic period, late-model sleeper values are running 10% higher in nominal dollars or 15% lower in real dollars. Depreciation in 2024 averaged 2.2% per month, which is historically typical.”
Brady
Commercial Motor Vehicle Consulting reported that its aftermarket sales indicator increased 0.3% in December and 0.1% in November after a downward trend since October 2023. This means that the indicator is signaling higher commercial vehicle parts aftermarket sales in the coming months.
“Linehaul fleets have brought capacity in equilibrium with the freight environment, which has reduced the number of trucks in operation from the same period a year earlier, but increases in truck utilization indicate that trucks are depreciating at accelerating rates supporting a recovery in commercial vehicle parts aftermarket sales,” CMVC President Chris Brady said. “This is the first phase of a recovery in parts aftermarket sales, which will be followed by an expansion in the number of trucks in operations as expanding freight volumes decrease spare capacity requiring linehaul fleets to expand capacity to meet higher freight volumes.”
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