DETROIT — Car shoppers took a wait-and-see approach in April, easing up on purchases as the lure of big incentives faded and hoping summer brings a new flurry of deals.
Automakers will have to match incentives from Toyota at least through Memorial Day. Toyota said Monday it will continue to offer zero-percent financing and two years of free maintenance on certain vehicles through June 1. It is also offering unprecedented deals on its Lexus luxury brand.
The industry stayed on the road to recovery in April after last year’s dismal numbers, with most major automakers seeing double-digit sales gains. But sales were down from March, when Toyota launched record-high incentives to lure buyers after a series of safety recalls.
Incentives continued in April but were 5 percent lower as automakers tried to brake spending. Jessica Caldwell, an industry analyst with auto-information website , said incentives generally lose their luster after a few weeks.
“April gave us a sense of what true demand is out there,” she said. “There was no holiday weekend, and it was tax time. The sales we got in March were not really sustainable.”
James Bell, an analyst with auto-pricing company Kelley Blue Book, said the March incentives conditioned buyers to look for bargains. As a result, he thinks automakers will have to offer deals well into the summer.
“I think everyone’s in check right now. There’s an uneasiness that they’ll launch something in the summer,” he said.
Ford saw last month’s sales rise 25 percent from a year earlier, while General Motors’ climbed 6.4 percent. Sales for Toyota rose 24 percent, but that was far slower than the year-over- year jump of 41 percent in March.
Even Chrysler, which has struggled much of the year, reported a 25 percent sales increase, while Honda, Hyundai, Subaru and others also continued to see gains.
April was the fifth month in a row that Ford posted an increase of 20 percent or more compared with the same month in the prior year. The Dearborn, Mich.-based automaker’s pickup and sport-utility sales were particularly strong, with the F-Series pickup climbing 42 percent.
