Used car sales continued to fall during the month of August.

If you find yourself faced with the decision of trading in your old vehicle for a new one, you may well be caught up in the ordeal of finding one. If none of the limited stock that the brands have suits you, you will have no choice but to order it from the factory, which nowadays works with excessively long lead times, which vary enormously depending on each customer’s needs.

This is why many people opt for used vehicles, but it is also increasingly difficult to find a second-hand car because this market is also directly affected by the shortage of young vehicles. Indeed, the figures show that sales of nearly-new vehicles plummeted by 26.6% during the month of August.

Looking at more specific data, sales of vehicles between one and three years old fell by 10.7%, and sales of vehicles between three and five years old fell by almost 3% at the close of August. These figures mean that for every new vehicle sold, 2.6 used units were sold in August, due to the low level of registrations recorded. It is particularly significant that vehicles over 15 years old accounted for 38.2% of sales in August, which means that these have increased their sales by 9.4% so far this year.

Regarding the engine types chosen, diesel remains the fuel with the most accumulated sales, with 57.3% of the transactions carried out in August, although its sales fell by 12.1% during that month. Petrol vehicles represent 36.9% of the total, and their sales also fall, though not as much, specifically by 5.4%. As for alternative energies, fully electric vehicles rose by 11.8% in August with 731 units, although they still represent only 0.6% of the market. Meanwhile, hybrids lost the positive trend they had been showing and fell by 9.1%.

We must also look at vehicles coming from fleet renewals, both from companies and rental firms, which, unable to acquire new vehicles, are keeping their current fleets for longer than usual, causing sales through this channel to have fallen by 23% and 27% respectively.

Given all this data, used car dealerships continue to look to the foreign market for vehicles to meet their customers’ needs, consequently causing the importer channel to increase its sales by a significant 29.5% during the month of August. Even more significant is that so far in 2022 this channel has seen a 46.5% increase in its sales.