Cautious consumers, lenders blamed for pushing down auto sales

Posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 2:47 PM EDT.

Despite hopes that auto sales have bottomed, cautious consumers and more careful lenders contributed to a weaker-than-expected annual selling rate of 9.7 million vehicles in June, the Detroit Free Press reported.

That was down 28 percent from June 2008 and 7 percent lower than May’s annual pace of 9.9 million, the paper reported. In fact, June was the sixth-consecutive month the annual selling rate has been below 10 million—a trend that is worse than the depths of the 1979-81 recession, the Free Press said.

In all, U.S. consumers bought slightly less than 860,000 new cars and trucks in June, down 27.7 percent from the same month a year ago, the paper said. Sales declined 31.9% for Toyota, 29.5 percent for Honda and 23.1 percent for Nissan, while Detroit’s automakers delivered both the best and the worst performances among major automakers during the month, the story said. (Detroit Free Press)

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