No Relief in the Forecast for September U.S. Auto Sales

(MoneyWatch)  September auto sales look even worse than the preceding months this year, well into what's usually the fall selling season.

The sales downturn this year is so deep and so persistent, it has some analysts, including Robert Schnorbus, chief economist for J.D. Power and Associates, predicting it will be 2010 before auto sales improve significantly, with sales this year and next in the range of just over 14 million, down from 16.1 million in 2007.

Even that bleak forecast depends on several negative factors not getting much worse, especially the credit crisis and gasoline prices.

This time of year, automakers usually generate traffic by introducing new models and putting discounts on models from the expiring model year.

But edmunds.com last week predicted U.S. auto sales will fall 19.7 percent in September from the year-ago month, to just over 1 million, the lowest monthly sales since February 1993.

October is likely to be even worse, said Jesse Toprak, executive director of industry analysis for edmunds.com. "Traditionally, October sales are even worse than they are in September, so we don't likely have much to look forward to next month," he said in a written statement.

Automakers will report September sales on Wednesday, Oct. 1.

The forecast from edmunds.com deserves some attention, since edmunds.com correctly predicted the falloff in August sales within 1 percent. According to AutoData, U.S. auto sales fell 15.5 percent in August from the year-ago month, to about 1.2 million.