Civics and Accords are flying off Honda dealership lots but it looks like Civic is the small-car wonder upending estimates that no one is buying cars anymore.
All is not gloom and doom when it comes to cars versus compact crossovers. It looks like car buyers still value and sometimes prefer an affordable four-door sedan at reasonable prices over a roomier yet slightly more expensive crossover. According to Honda and their latest sales report for the month of March they dropped earlier this week (Apr 2, 2019) Honda Civics sales increased 3.3 percent last month compared to last year with dealerships enjoying a 7.1 percent daily sales rate increase over February. That daily sales rate percent change is huge when you’re dealing with thousands of cars, which, in total, car buyers drove 33,653 Honda Civics off dealership lots for the month.
According to Honda, that makes the Civic the new retail car sales leader through February. As per our good friends over at VTEC.net, here are the total sales for other compact car sales leaders.
Civic 33,653 +7.1%
Sentra 25,633 +2%
Corolla 24,479 -19.1%
Elantra 15,866
Forte 8,466
3 6,009 -22.6%
Impreza 5,305 -11.2%
Looking at the top three competitors, for Sentra, with an MSRP of just $17,790, it looks like compact car buyers in this hotly contested segment respond well to a price that’s $1,660 cheaper than Civic. In addition, Nissan’s current incentives for Sentra trump Civics and Corolla’s by a country mile. If your credit is excellent, 0 percent interest or close to it with cash on the hood is possible for Sentra.
I’m assuming Corolla sales are down as Toyota dealerships try their best to push out all the older 2019 models in light of 2020 Toyota Corollas arriving in dealerships as we speak. For April, I expect Corolla to sell thousands more with its updated platform. As an aside, it will be interesting to see how well Toyota’s new 2020 Corolla does against an already three-year-old Civic.
As most people know it’s noteworthy to point out that none of the Civics sold in March made their way to fleet or rental car outfits as Honda is notorious for not watering down sales numbers like that.
The Civic’s been on sale since 2016, for the better part of three years now, and word has finally gotten around. The Civic is a great value with good engines, transmissions with desirable features and is overall a desirable package. Sure, crossovers have twice the cargo area and a couple inches more legroom in the rear compared to their car counterparts but cars like Civic, Corolla, and Sentra have all grown in size over the years, blurring the lines of functionality between crossover and car.
What do you think about these sales numbers? Do you think Honda will continue its winning small car way through April? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Honda News
