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Hey everyone,
A brand new episode of the CDG Podcast, featuring Corina Straub Diehl, CEO and President at Diehl Automotive Group, just went live today.
— CDG
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Welcome to the Market Pulse—your cheatsheet to auto retail, built to help dealers price right, stock smart, and stay ahead.
Used vehicle prices are swinging month-to-month: How much values shift up or down between one month and the next is running at roughly double the pre-pandemic rate.
That makes inventory harder to value: A $30,000 vehicle can realistically gain or lose $400–$600 in a single month.
And dealers still pricing off acquisition cost are taking on risk they may not see coming: Holding periods and appraisal workflows that worked in the past are not built for what prices are doing right now.
(Source: Black Book Used Vehicle Retention Index / CDG Analysis)
Used vehicle prices are still swinging twice as hard as pre-COVID.
The Black Book Used Vehicle Retention Index tracks how much used vehicle prices move month to month. Not the direction, just the size of the swings.
Before COVID, those monthly swings were small and predictable, at around 2% annualized.
During COVID, they exploded to 18% as supply collapsed and prices swung wildly.
Since then, that month-to-month price movement has come back down steadily.
But it’s stopped at 4%, not 2%.
Custom analysis via CDG’s Joe Cecala
Worth noting: The pre-COVID period was itself unusually calm, which means the 2% baseline wasn't necessarily "normal" in any long-run sense. It also means it was the product of conditions that no longer exist.
Even so, prices are moving roughly twice as much month to month as they were in 2016–2019, and after three years of watching that gap, there's really no sign it's closing fast.
NOTE TO DEALERS:
In the past, you could hold a car for 45 days and largely know where the market would be when they were ready to sell.
But that's less reliable now, and values are moving more, faster, and in both directions.
What this means: Gut-based decision making won’t cut it right now. And any kind of data-based analysis, VIN-level pricing, or data-backed system for acquisitions is better than nothing.
Dealers holding inventory too long are eroding margin they could be protecting.
On a $30,000 vehicle, the normal range of monthly price movement right now is roughly $400–$600 in either direction.
By comparison…
Before COVID, that same car might have moved $50–$100 in a typical month.
Across a 50-unit used lot, the difference between those two numbers adds up fast.
Plus, the problem only gets worse at trade-in, because if appraisal comps are 30 days old, the gap between what a dealer paid and what the car is actually worth at wholesale is likely wider than the expected gross.
WHY IT MATTERS:
Every extra week a unit sits between purchase and lot-ready is a week the market is moving underneath you.
And unlike years before, it's moving in both directions, which means dealers without a tight days-to-lot process are absorbing margin they could have otherwise protected.
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The state of used-car operations is a hot topic right now, and recent conversations with guests on Daily Dealer Live and CDG’s Industry Spotlight podcast reflect just that.
Knowing that, I’ve pulled in some of our recent guests’ dos and don'ts:
Do: Treat buying cars with the same daily urgency as selling them.
Jonathan Gray, COO of Cavender Auto Group, says the problem is that most stores treat used car procurement like a weekly meeting agenda item.
His fix is simple: Every Monday, the key players sit down to determine how many used units the lot needs, which sales managers or buyers are responsible for sourcing them, and from which channel (auction, service drive, private party, trade).
"You can't solve varsity problems like used cars being incremental. It has to matter every day."
Jonathan Gray
On Friday, the group confirms if the units were actually acquired so there’s a log of what worked, what didn’t, and why.
Do: Price to the VIN, not the segment.
Dennis Gingrich, Sales and Finance Director at the Niello Company, said the move away from gut and book pricing came after watching used car profitability deteriorate across their 10-rooftop group.
"Pre our move to ACV MAX, it was a little bit more art. Last year in terms of our used car profitability, it was not a pretty picture."
Dennis Gingrich
For context: George Chamoun, CEO of ACV Auctions, explained that segment pricing breaks down in a volatile market because two cars with the same year, make, and model can have meaningfully different wholesale and retail values based on condition, mileage, and known repair history.
At Niello, tightening the pricing process drove trade-in leads from 1,299 over 12 months across 10 rooftops to 600 in the first two months after the switch in strategy.
Don’t: Let the floor plan clock catch you off guard.
"As soon as you buy that unit, you're starting — that unit's already depreciating, you're already paying interest, and then storage fees go on top of that,” Frank Zombo, VP of Sales at Auto Hauler Exchange, said.
His advice: “Maybe a $50 to $100 more a vehicle just to get it moved quickly is in your best interest to get it on your lot, get it through recon, get it through photos, and get it presented to the customer as quickly as possible."
Frank Zombo
Don’t: Give your customers four different prices and expect them to trust you.
Most dealer groups, Chamoun says, are unknowingly running multiple pricing systems simultaneously.
“At any one dealership, we can get four numbers, maybe more. And then if I go to brand X versus brand Y, I might within my dealership group get yet another number. And I'm supposed to trust that franchise dealer, that owner, that principal. And meanwhile, I can go work with the big box guys, put in my name, put in my VIN, get a number, and I can trust that."
George Chamoun
His argument: That kind of inconsistency is exactly what the big-box competitors have built their trust on, which makes it worth fixing asap if it’s an issue across your stores.
There are a million ways to improve your used-ops right now. That’s a great thing. But it can be overwhelming when you’re looking at all the tactics other shops are using.
So here’s an age-old analogy:
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Pick a tactic. Try it. Refine it. Do it well. Then pick another. And repeat…
The latest updates to the CDG Buy/Sell Tracker.
