MADISON, Wis. — Car dealerships are starting to see their inventory bounce back after manufacturing slowed during the pandemic.
“For December, we have one of the best outlooks we’ve had,” said Nate Riesen, the general manager of Lexus of Madison, who’s seeing his sales lot filling up again.
“We can finally start to offer our customers a car instead of folks waiting 6-8 months,” Riesen said. “In the last couple months, our availability has been 2, 3 cars that, either 2, 3 cars in the entire month to sell to customers walking off the street.”
Now Riesen said primarily his new car inventory is starting to move into the fast lane.
“We got about 22 cars that were available to sell in addition to the cars that are coming in that are already sold,” he said.
Riesen said Toyota production — including Lexus — is up 15% in the last 60 days.
Across the market, he said more manufacturers are shifting gears to work through parts shortages — “microprocessor shortages for different systems on cars, to missing 20-inch wheels, to all-wheel drive components that were missing,” — to start boosting the vehicle output hurt by supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic.
“Most manufacturers have been finding ways to plug those holes and build more cars,” Riesen said.
And when it comes to buying a car, Riesen said used car value has been softening in the last 3-4 months.
“A price that was 40% higher than it was pre-pandemic, for the most part, a lot of the hot air has come out of those used car prices so they’re back to, almost to pre-pandemic numbers,” he said.
But, he said it’s still not a bad time to sell.
“If you look around at the dealerships in your neighborhood, you’ll find that there’s few cars for sale in the car lot so dealers are still looking to buy.”
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