Car Loan Leads Blog

The good times keep on rolling as new-vehicle sales in Canada set new records again in March and for the first quarter as a whole, with both up fully 9.3 per cent from the same periods a year ago. March sales of 175,142 units were the best ever for the month by a significant margin.

While boomers are generally satisfied with their car buying experience, that's not the case for younger buyers, found CarGurus.

A must read from "Think with Google".

It's no surprise that consumers turn to digital especially mobile as they shop for a car. But thanks to new data from Luth Research, we can see exactly how (and how much) digital shapes the auto customer journey. Check out the 900-plus digital interactions one consumer had leading up to her lease.

Auto sales in Canada maintained a hot pace in February. Sales were up 9.1 per cent from year-ago levels, almost matching January's 9.6 per cent improvement.

Canadian auto loan delinquency rates were at their highest level in four years, driven by a year-over-year 35 per cent spike in Alberta and 19 per cent in Saskatchewan.

Nationally, the auto loan delinquency rate rose nearly 10 per cent in the last year to 1.32 per cent in Q4 2015, reported TransUnion in its latest MarketTrends report.

Quebec law firm Lex Group Inc. announced Monday it has gained authorization to move forward with a data breach class action dealing with the loss of personal information of customers who in March 2008 leased a Chrysler, Dodge or Jeep vehicle from DaimlerChrysler Financial Services Canada Inc., now known as TD Auto Finance Services Inc.

Very informative report from the White Clark Group titled Auto Finance Digitally Remastered.

White Clarke Group cautioned auto finance companies that they will face "enormous" changes in the way they operate in 2016.

We came across this article today from George Peterson a contributor at Forbes. Its US focused but does it forshadow things to come in Canada?

AutoPacific forecasts that light trucks will represent at least 60 per cent of the U.S. auto market over the next five years. Crossover SUVs will remain hot, as manufacturers are heading towards this popular segment.

Scotiabank released its Global Auto Report predicting that new-vehicle sales will end up roughly the same as 2015's totals.

Senior economist Carlos Gomes said "Car and light truck sales will continue to be supported by low interest rates and stimulative financial conditions around the world." "Economic activity and demand for new vehicles will continue to be buoyed by the strongest advance in Canadian non-resource exports since the new millennium, as well as by strengthening U.S. demand and a currency which recently fell below 70 cents (U.S.) for the first time since early 2003".

We came across a very interesting article on Bloomberg recently about potential risks to the auto loan industry in the US.

To paraphrase from the article; "Deutsche Bank AG officials are reviewing whether some employees exaggerated demand as they marketed new securities backed by risky auto loans, potentially suppressing yields for investors, according to a person with knowledge of the matter"

Though many are holding on to the hope that wholesale prices might be on the way down this year as used supply is expected to expand, a growing number of exports into the U.S. may put a damper on that prediction for 2016. And prices in the lanes were still on the way up as 2015 came to a close.

According to the ADESA Canada Used Vehicle Price Index, powered by ALG, after being adjusted for seasonality wholesale prices increased, on average, by 0.2 percent last month from November.

Looking at the most recent data available, 2015 was a strong year for residuals in Canada.

According to the RVI Group's RVI Risk Outlook for December, the strong U.S. dollar helped maintain those high residual values in Canada through the end of November, with real used-car prices, after adjusting for MSRP, up 4.9 percent over the previous month and up 8 percent year-over-year by the end of November.

Another year is in the books, and 2015 brought with it continued certified pre-owned sales growth for Canadian automakers.

As full-year CPO results started rolling in, many automakers were reporting double-digit year-over-year increases, not to mention record years.

For example, Audi Canada experienced a 17-percent year-over-year CPO sales spike in 2015. The automaker sold 6,625 CPO vehicles in 2015, which was up from 2014's sales of 5,678.