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Enter your details below to receive our quarterly Retail & Wholesale Used Vehicle Insights Report and monthly Insights Update straight to your inbox.

Enter your details below to receive our quarterly Retail & Wholesale Used Vehicle Insights Report and monthly Insights Update straight to your inbox.

Enter your details below to receive our quarterly Retail & Wholesale Used Vehicle Insights Report and monthly Insights Update straight to your inbox.

The Index ended November at 127.4, down 6.3% over the past 12 months and 14% since the market peaked in mid-2022. An Index of 127.4 denotes an average 27.4% selling price increase since the 100-point base period of December 2019.

Average selling prices for younger used vehicles across all segments remain significantly less inflated relative to pre-2020 levels than those of older vehicles. Likewise, hatchbacks and sedans are more inflated than SUVs or light commercials.

The average dealer discount on sold vehicles fell slightly in November, from 7.0% per vehicle to 6.9%, with 40.5% of all sold vehicles discounted at least once prior to sale. This was up over the full-year discount rate of 39.7% of all sold cars.

In terms of dealer-used vehicle sales, November volume increased 1.1% over the previous month and 11.4% over November 2023. The top-selling models were Ford Ranger (2072 sales), Toyota HiLux (1670), Toyota Corolla (1508), Toyota RAV4 (1494), and Hyundai i30 (1041).

The strong month of sales – the second-highest volume month in four years after August 2024 – saw inventories reduced by 3.1% over the preceding month, and market days’ supply dip from 63 days to 62 days – the second-lowest all year and well below the 70-day benchmark.

Moving away from dealer used retail data and over to the wholesale market, Manheim Australia sales volume grew 22.6% year-on-year, but declined 7.2% over the October tally.

In good news for vendors, the Manheim Price Index ticked upwards by 4.4% month-on-month to 135.2, although this Index is still 3.8% lower than at this time in 2023 and 19.3% down on the wholesale market’s peak of 167.6 in May 2022.

With one month to go in the calendar year, Manheim is tracking for volume growth in Australia of around 35% YoY, driven by significant upticks in Fleet Lease vehicles (up 39%), OEM compay vehicles (60%), Dealer wholesale vehicles (43%), and Government fleet vehicles (37%).

Manheim has also rexcorded double-digit percentage growth in volumes at all of its national auction sites – in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin, Newcastle and Townsville.

About Cox Automotive Australia

Cox Automotive Australia is a subsidiary of Cox Automotive US, the world’s largest automotive services and technology provider.

Our local team of almost 600 people works with 26 automotive OEMs, as well as an array of automotive dealers and with the private and public fleet sector. Our parent company has 29,000 employees on five continents and a family of trusted brands that operate across the globe.

Cox Automotive is a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises Inc., a privately-owned, Atlanta-based company with $22 billion in annual revenue working in multiple industry sectors.

Our brands in Australia include Manheim Auctions (passenger, industrial and salvage), Kelley Blue Book, Sell My Car, and digital retailing solutions including LeadDriver and Xtime – an aftersales customer management platform used by several of Australia’s top OEMs in their dealer networks.

Manheim holds in-person and online wholesale vehicle auctions across Australia and New Zealand, with unique auction driving lanes in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney. Moreover, Manheim is a major salvage company for the insurance sector, and a major heavy industrial auctioneer.

Read the latest full Market Insights Report Jul- Sep 2024 here

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October used vehicle sales in the CAA database were up 11.8 % year-on-year (YoY), with total sales the second highest for a calendar month in four years – trailing only August 2024. Year-to-date used car sales are up 9.6 %, while year-to-date inventory has increased by about 5.0 % as cars enter the market.

Average selling times across all vehicle types are between 40 and 41 days per vehicle, while average Market Days’ Supply is 63 days, down 3.7 % YoY – suggesting demand has outpaced supply to a small degree.

The biggest-selling used cars for October were the Ford Ranger (up 2.4 % MoM), Toyota HiLux (down 2.5 %), Toyota RAV4 (up 9.1 % as supply replenishes after years of shortages), Toyota Corolla (up 0.5 %), and Hyundai i30 (down 6.4 %, as expected given declining sales in the new market).

The CAA Price Index ended October at 128.2, down 7.0 % over the last 12 months and down 1.0 % over September. This number means an average market wide price increase on used cars of 28.2 % over December 2019, the Index’s baseline, a period nearing five years.

Average used car selling prices in dealers are now 13.2 % lower than they were at the market’s peak in August 2022, when the Price Index hit 148.1.

There are discrepancies when it comes to vehicle types here, as there have been for a few years. Passenger vehicle supply is not as robust as SUV and ute supply due to what’s been happening in the new market over the past decade, therefore average prices here remain more elevated.

Over the past 12 months dealer inventory of used hatches, sedans and wagons is up only 0.3 %. Over the same time, the inventory of SUVs is up 7.7 % and Utes are up 11.7 %. It’s clear where the growth is coming from.

To that end, the respective Price Indexes for vehicle types are not the same. Passenger Cars have an Index 140.5, so 40.,5% more elevated than their December 2019 levels. Meanwhile SUVs are 121.3, Utes are 128.1, and EVs & PHEVs are 107.9 – the latter with a lot of volatility due to smaller sample size.

To give this added context, the average selling price of a 2–4-year-old Passenger Car has declined from $37,232 to $36,902 over the past 12 months, a drop of 0.9%. Over the same period the average selling price of a 2–4-year-old SUV has declined from $46,571 to $41,033, which is a much starker 11.9%.

Meanwhile, supply of second-hand EVs and PHEVs is up 43.6 % YoY, and sales of second-hand EVs and PHEVs are up a robust 51.9 % – though these electric vehicles still only account for 0.4 % of the overall used market. We expect this to change quickly from 2025.

In terms of vehicle ages, we see more elevated Price Indexes on older brackets compared to younger ones, likely due to the two-fold impact of demand for older cars amidst household economic challenges, and plentiful new car supply driving discounts, which knock onto late-model used vehicles in predictable fashion.

Average prices of all used vehicles aged under 2 years are up only 6.7 % over December 2019 (106.7 on the Price Index), whereas prices for 2–4-year-old vehicles are up 17% over this period, 5–7-year-old cars are up 23.7 %, and 8–10-year-old cars are up 39.6 %. The older the car, the stickier the pricing.

Another way to look at changes in used prices is to track average residual value (RV) returns, expressed as the percentage of the original RRP before on-road costs that a used car sold for. There has been a significant decline in this metric across all vehicles since the mid-2022 market highs.

For instance, the average RV of a 2–4-year-old Passenger Car has fallen from 90.7 % of RRP in October 2022, to 78.4 % in October 2024. For SUVs these respective figures are 91.2 % RV (October 2022) to 77.4 % RV (October 2024).

“The dealer used car market right now has seen monthly Price Index declines for 20 of the past 21 months, with average selling prices down to early 2021 levels,” said Cox Automotive Australia corporate affairs manager Mike Costello.

“Both used car sales and dealer inventories have spent the past few months at their highest levels since the beginning of the COVID period, with prices coming back to the highest degrees on younger vehicles, and SUVs which are in better supply, due to their huge popularity in the new market.”

“It’s pleasing to see significant uptick in supply of, and demand for, used EVs and PHEVs as well, with the figures up 43.6 % and 51.9 % respectively over the past 12 months. With the first large wave of new EVs hitting the market in 2022, we expect to see a lot of growth in this sector from 2025.”

The expected residual value on 2–4-year-old used EVs sold in the past six months is around 62 %, compared to almost 80 % for ICE passenger cars and SUVs, Costello noted. This is an issue that won’t go away any time soon, and one of key interest to the fleet market in particular.

About Cox Automotive Australia

Cox Automotive Australia is a subsidiary of Cox Automotive US, the world’s largest automotive services and technology provider.

Our local team of almost 600 people works with 26 automotive OEMs, as well as an array of automotive dealers and with the private and public fleet sector. Our parent company has 29,000 employees on five continents and a family of trusted brands that operate across the globe.

Cox Automotive is a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises Inc., a privately-owned, Atlanta-based company with $22 billion in annual revenue working in multiple industry sectors.

Our brands in Australia include Manheim Auctions (passenger, industrial and salvage), Kelley Blue Book, Sell My Car, and digital retailing solutions including LeadDriver and Xtime – an aftersales customer management platform used by several of Australia’s top OEMs in their dealer networks.

Manheim holds in-person and online wholesale vehicle auctions across Australia and New Zealand, with unique auction driving lanes in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney. Moreover, Manheim is a major salvage company for the insurance sector, and a major heavy industrial auctioneer.

Read the latest full Market Insights Report Jul- Sep 2024 here

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