Auto registrations up 86% over ’13 in state

Auto registrations in Arkansas jumped 86 percent in February compared with the same month last year, Cross-Sell of Lexington, Ky., said Wednesday.

The February total of 12,308 new-vehicle registrations was the second-highest number since Cross-Sell started providing statistics in 2008. The highest number of registrations was 12,703 in January.

The 86 percent improvement in registrations is the most in six years. There were 6,614 new-vehicle registrations in February 2013.

Auto registrations often increase this time of the year because many Arkansans have received their tax refunds, said Christy Earnhart, assistant administrator of the Office of Motor Vehicle. She was uncertain, however, why registrations would have increased so much compared with February last year.

Michael Pakko, chief economist at the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, anticipated that registrations in February would have been less, looking at the trend over the past six years, and because of winter weather.

“It was somewhat surprising in view of the bad weather we had,” Pakko said.

In Little Rock, there were five days in January with wintry precipitation and nine in February, according to the National Weather Service.

The bad weather doesn’t prevent auto sales, said Dennis Jungmeyer, president of the Arkansas Automobile Dealers Association.

“It just puts them off,” Jungmeyer said. “But I’m still surprised that [registrations] caught up that quickly. It looks like if not for the bad weather, [registrations] could have been higher.”

February titles more closely correspond with January sales,because Arkansas law allows auto buyers up to 30 days to register vehicles after making a purchase.

“From all the reports I’ve seen on nationwide trends, the weather has been blamed for slow auto sales for the first two months of the year,” Pakko said.

Nationally in February, there were almost 1.3 million vehicles sold, an annual pace of 15.3 million, Autodata Corp. said. That was the same annual pace of sales in February last year.

Inventories at dealerships across the country are at their highest levels in five years, particularly for Detroit automakers, which is a motivation for dealerships to reduce their stock. Dealers had an 89-day supply of cars and trucks at the end of January, according to Ward’s AutoInfoBank. General Motors had the most at 114 days, followed by Ford at 107 and Chrysler at 105. A 60-dayinventory is considered ideal.

In many instances, buying a new car can be less expensive on a monthly basis than buying a late-model used car, Jungmeyer said.

Some high-demand sport utility vehicles and pickups with low mileage will bring a premium price, Jungmeyer said. And with incentives and low interest rates, as well as extending the financing over five or six years, the monthly payments can be lower for new vehicles, which could be an incentive to buy a new vehicle, Jungmeyer said.

In addition to new-vehicle registrations, there were 16,080 used vehicles titled by Arkansas dealerships in February, up 30 percent compared with February last year. Another 33,263 used vehicles were registered after private-party transactions, up almost 87 percent compared with February 2013.

The state Office of Motor Vehicle does not provide the number of autos sold in Arkansas each month unless a substantial fee is paid to cover its expenses, the agency says.

Business, Pages 23 on 04/03/2014

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