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Labor Day typically is a time for picnics, parades and rebate-sweetened sales at auto dealerships.
But forget about the latter, at least this year, Alec Gutierrez, manager-vehicle valuation for Kelley Blue Book, tells Ward’s.
The holiday’s sale-a-thons won’t feature generous manufacturer incentives to lure customers, he says. “The deals won’t come until later in the year.”
That’s because 2011 vehicle inventories remain low, mainly because auto production in Japan has yet to fully recover from the devastating effects of the earthquake and tsunami that hit the nation in March.
Consumer demand for vehicles is increasing, a sign of the auto industry getting back on its feet. Now, ironically, the supply side is down.
“Japanese auto makers expect to be at full production in September,” Gutierrez says. “That means more products in the pipeline in the fourth quarter. The deals will be at year-end sales.”
But some dealers will offer their own Labor Day deals, says Harry Douglas, a former dealer and now host of Car Concerns, a syndicated radio show. “There might not be incentives from auto makers, but there will be deals.”
Ward’s data records days’ supply in July at 51 for domestic auto makers, 45 for the European brands, 42 for the Japanese and 23 for the Koreans.
