GM Leads Industry Retreat in Car Sales

A plunge in General Motors Corp.’s car sales led a 12.6% decline in early October auto sales by domestic makers over the same period in 1988, the companies said Friday.

It was the first sales period of the 1990 model year and the first in what analysts have said will be a soft three-month period.

GM’s light truck sales also were off, pushing total vehicle sales for the domestic industry down 11.9%.

The eight major companies making vehicles in North America said their cars and light trucks sold at an average daily rate of 30,734 during the Oct. 1 to 10 period this year, compared to 34,867 during the same period last year.

The decline was led by a 24.3% fall in GM’s car sales and a 28.7% decline in the company’s truck sales. Overall, the industry leader’s car and truck sales were off 25.7% for the period.

Ford Motor Co.’s total vehicle sales were down 0.3% in early October, and Chrysler Corp.’s were off 2.3%.

GM’s sales dive may have been spurred by its program of rewarding dealers who cleared out stocks of 1989 vehicles before Sept. 30, the end of the 1989 model year.

“We had a strong, strong, strong month of September, and also I think there is a lull here in some of the buying,” GM spokesman Terry Sullivan said. “One cannot judge a year on 10 days.”

For the year to date, GM’s car sales were down 6.2%, while truck sales were up 2.4%. At Ford, year-to-date car sales were up 0.1%, but truck sales were down 2%. At Chrysler, car sales were off 11.1%, and truck sales were up 0.2%.

For months, as word of 1990 model price increases spread, analysts and others have been saying sales in this year’s fourth quarter would be considerably softer than during the third quarter, when incentives helped.

That “pay back” may now be happening, analyst Tom Webb of the National Automobile Dealers Assn. said.

“Sixty to 75% (of the early October sales) should have been ‘90s,” he said.

Webb said he wants to see how sales go later in the month before saying whether the pay back is under way.

GM said its cars sold at an average daily rate of 8,538 during the early October period this year, compared to a rate of 11,273 during the period last year. It reported early October truck sales at an average daily rate of 3,654, compared to 5,126 last year.

Ford said it sold an average of 7,169 cars a day during this year’s period, compared to 7,301 during the 1988 period, for a 1.8% decline. But truck sales rose to an average daily rate of 4,299, up 2.4% from the 4,197 rate in early October last year.

Chrysler’s car sales were off 7.5% in early October, falling to a daily average of 2,840, compared to a rate of 3,071 last year.

AUTO SALES

Oct. 1-10 % 1989 change GM 68,301 -24.3 Ford 57,355 - 1.8 Chrysler 22,721 - 7.5 Honda U.S. 6,757 -21.7 Mitsubishi U.S. 909 * Nissan U.S. 1,434 +42.7 Toyota U.S. 2,591 +445.5 Mazda U.S. 442 +14.5 TOTAL 160,510 -12.6

There were 8 selling days in the selling period this year and last year. *No comparison possible.