July Sales: The Best of the Rest
Hyundai and Subaru are beginning to be familiar faces near the top of the monthly “who’s losing least” numbers. Sure, everyone expected Hyundai to cash in on the clunker sales boomlet, but who’d have thought Subaru would log its best sales month ever? Tribeca was down for Subie, but everything else was up by 33 (Outback) to 41 (Impreza) percent. Forester is still the top dog though, at 7,574 units. That’s almost as much volume as Hyundai‘s Accent (+13 percent), which was part of the expected Hyundai clunker boom along with Elantra (+30 percent) and Sonata (+17 percent). Santa Fe barely moved at 6,793 units, but the Genesis is anemic at 2,015. Volkswagen sales fell just over one percent, buffered by TDI sales that made up 30 percent of total deliveries. 80 percent of Jetta Sportwagons and 40 percent of Jetta sedans are being chosen with oil-burner engines. Otherwise, VW sales look dreary. Nissan‘s sales (-25 percent) are distinctly “meh,” with only the Rogue (+4 percent), Versa (-2 percent) and Cube (3,293) looking remotely assertive.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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The problem is... thanks to the homologation rules in force in the past few years (which are... basically... a joke...) manufacturers producing lightweight front-wheel-drive hatchbacks have had a better chance of winning than manufacturers who actually make all-wheel-drive compact cars... the chips have been woefully stacked against Mitsubishi and Subaru... and the STi hatch is a late attempt to make Subaru competitive again... Doesn't forgive the fact that it's soft, chubby, and not too exciting to drive.
Subie dealer I've been dealing with has been very, very busy lately, they are just about sold out of Foresters (only had a couple Basics and one Limited left, when normal is a dozen or more at any one time). The manager we are working with told us to take the one (a maroon red Premium, momma insisted on red or black!) home that he got in for us from another dealer so one of the guys wouldn't sell it to someone else. A white Premium I drove on Sunday afternoon was gone yesterday afternoon. We wanted a small SUV, 4 cyl for milage and 4WD (live in a rural area) and after comparing the specs, features and price between Forester, RAV4 and CRV the Subie was a clear winner to us. It surprised us too, we'd never even considered a Subaru, so making them more "mainstream" was a good plan, IMHO.
81% of Jetta wagon sales being TDI is amazing. (I refuse to call it a "sportwagen"). You can barely find a Jetta wagon on dealer lots, so VW definitely has a hit with the TDI wagon combination. Now if only VWoA would clue in and also offer that engine in the Passat wagon. I won't hold my breath for that though. VW of Canada had some impressive gains too, much better than VWoA. Once again due to TDI sales. At the moment in Southern Ontario diesel is selling for about 82 cents per litre while gas is close to $1.00/litre. http://www.pr-inside.com/volkswagen-canada-sales-are-up-again-achieves-r1419619.htm
The Forester also qualifies as a Category 1 "truck" in the CARS program, with lower mileage requirements, netting the buyer 4500 in a trade that for any other Subaru, as passenger cars, would only be 3500 due to the combined mpg of 22 for the 2.5 engine