October 16, 2009|By Jay Hancock | Jay Hancock,jay.hancock@baltsun.com
New cars sold to Marylanders hit their highest point in more than a year in September as the federal "cash for clunkers" program lured buyers into the showrooms.
The Motor Vehicle Administration registered 26,992 new cars and light trucks in September. That was the most in one month since July 2008, when 29,188 were recorded. Last fall's financial collapse caused a plunge in consumer spending that sent some car manufacturers hurtling toward insolvency and gave dealers their worst year in more than a decade.
The clunkers program, which credited qualified buyers with up to $4,500 per vehicle, "was more successful than I thought it would be," said Peter Kitzmiller, president of the Maryland Automobile Dealers Association. But now dealers are worried about the "hangover effect" of slow sales in the wake of the stimulus, he said.
The clunkers incentives officially expired Aug. 25, but paperwork delays pushed some of the registrations into the MVA's September report, Kitzmiller said. So the best picture of how the program worked in Maryland comes from looking at results for both months, he said.
In August Marylanders registered 25,251 new cars, up from 22,836 in July. Combined sales for August and September of 52,243 were still less than the 52,417 registered during the same period in 2008, when there was no stimulus.
"New-car sales have slowed dramatically since the clunker program has ended," Kitzmiller said. Not only is showroom traffic down. Dealers' inventories are depleted, meaning sometimes they don't have the car a buyer wants.
Even so, car sellers hope the clunkers incentives didn't steal too much business from the future.
"I don't think we pulled forward as much business as some people are saying," Kitzmiller said. "I think we brought some people into the market who weren't in the market if it wasn't for the program. I hope the hangover isn't going to be as long as some people think."
Stimulus or not, the car business has far to go before it returns to normal. In September 2003, Marylanders bought 40,464 new cars and trucks - 50 percent more than they did last month.
