DETROIT — Weakness in the housing market and flagging consumer confidence made September another tough month for the auto industry, although General Motors, Honda and Nissan bucked the trend with hot-selling new vehicles, according to U.S. sales figures released Tuesday.
Ford’s U.S. vehicle sales plummeted 21 percent for the month, largely because of a 62 percent reduction in sales to rental-car companies. Toyota posted a 4 percent drop but still outpaced Ford for the month and for the January-September period, continuing its drive to replace Ford as the nation’s No. 2 carmaker after GM.
Toyota had sold 28,654 more vehicles than Ford as of the end of September. Chrysler also was down 5 percent for the month.
Overall U.S. sales were down 3 percent from September 2006, according to Auto data Corp.
GM said sales were flat compared with September 2006, despite a month of difficult labor negotiations and a two-day strike by the United Auto Workers union.
Erich Merkle, vice president of auto-industry forecasting for consulting company IRN Inc. in Grand Rapids, Mich., said it will take months for the Fed’s rate cut to trickle down to average consumers.
“These are pretty weak numbers, and this is indicative of the overall weakness we’ve seen in the economy,” Merkle said.
