ADESA Canada Price Index

The ADESA Canada Used Vehicle Price Index

ADESA Canada is the largest provider of wholesale used vehicle auctions in Canada. The Index is calculated from millions of pieces of sales data from ADESA Canada's live open bidding auctions with the addition of used vehicle auction sales data purchased through the National Auto Auction Association [NAAA].

January 2010

The ADESA Canada Used Vehicle Price Index has been updated through January. The index has weakened by approximately 1ppts over December, seasonally adjusted. Overall auction values were flat between December and January; and the expected seasonal improvement did not materialize. Another consecutive monthly decline in resale prices can be attributed to high new and used vehicle inventory on dealer lots, which they are finding difficult to offload due to both the strengthening of the Canadian dollar (driving consumers to the US) and the diminishing purchasing power of the Canadian consumer (driven by increases in the average debt load of the Canadian consumer). The average burden on the Canadian consumer is not helped by the high Canadian unemployment rate in January, which declined to 8.3%, but still remains high. CY2010, holds for many OEM’s, a year of heightened levels of off-lease vehicles which will continue to drive home the necessity and value for out-of-the-box thinking when remarketing off lease vehicles. The increase in gas price from 96.5 c/litre in December to 101.3 c/litre in January has driven a segment disparity. The less economical Midsize SUV and Full-size Pickup segments experienced some of the largest movements this month, experiencing declines of 3.1% and 1.5% respectively. The largest improvement was seen in the Mid Compact segment, which experienced a 2.7% improvement. Compact SUV, Minivan and Midsize Car saw middling improvements of 1.6%, 1.2% and 0.2% respectively.