Long Island car sales and leases rise, bucking national trend
Atlantic Jeep salesman Vincent Smythe speaking with Michelle and Andrew Bauer about the Jeep Grand Cherokee at the Atlantic Jeep dealership in West Islip on March 9. Credit: Newsday / J. Conrad Williams Jr.
Bucking a national slide, new-car sales and leases on Long Island have been rising this year as the area’s dealerships rebound from slower sales in 2017.
“The Long Island market is its own thing,” said Jeffrey Hindla, marketing director for Huntington Honda.
Registrations of new cars on Long Island and in New York State rose in January compared with the same month last year: an 18 percent increase to 9,702 vehicles in Suffolk County, a 13.5 percent rise to 9,596 in Nassau County, and up 4.7 percent to 75,319 vehicles in New York State, according to new data from the Experian consumer credit reporting agency, whose North American headquarters is in Costa Mesa, California.
Meanwhile, registrations of new cars fell nationwide — 7.5 percent to 1.4 million vehicles — during the same period, according to Experian.
Local vehicle registration data from February are not available yet, but several dealers said sales remained strong.
January and February car sales were up a few percentage points at Atlantic Automotive Group, a 23-dealership chain headquartered in West Islip, because of strong SUV and Toyota sales, owner Michael Brown said. His chain, the largest on Long Island, sells most of the major auto brands.
By contrast, Atlantic’s Honda sales were off, because the automaker didn’t put much support behind its financing programs for leases, he said.
Long Island’s retail auto industry had a sales slowdown last year. Registrations of new cars in Nassau County fell 2.27 percent in 2017 from a year earlier, to 123,921 vehicles, according to Experian. Suffolk County slipped 0.32 percent to 115,889 units.
This year, the local market is benefiting from the area’s high income, healthy job market and strong property values, said Mark Schienberg, president of the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association.
“We are seeing that there is pent-up demand on vehicles,” he said. The high volume of leased vehicles on Long Island also boosts demand as leases run out and cars need to be replaced, he said.
The most popular car sold on Long Island last year was the Nissan Rogue crossover, followed by the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Honda Accord, according to the dealers association’s Auto Outlook.
Nationally, the top-selling vehicles last year were once again pickup trucks: the Ford F-Series, followed by the Chevrolet Silverado and Dodge Ram, according to IHS Markit, a consulting and market information firm based in London.
The suburban lifestyle fuels Long Island’s strong SUV and crossover sales, said Steven Fulco, general manager for sales operations at Donaldsons Volkswagen Subaru in Sayville.
“Families with two adults and 2.5 kids, they go to soccer, they go to dance, they go to lacrosse,” so consumers want vehicles with more passenger and cargo space to shuffle kids and pick up bulk items from Costco, he said.
In February, the dealership sold seven more vehicles than in the same month last year, he said.
Huntington Honda said its sales are up, too.
“From a new car perspective, we finished 8 percent up year over year and sixth in the nation for volume of units moved in the month of February,” Hindla said.
Honda’s redesigned Accord is selling well, and sales of its small crossover, the CR-V, remained relatively stable, he said.
On Friday afternoon, Richard and Sheilah Schumann of Commack were at Huntington Honda to replace their 2015 Honda Accord, whose three-year lease is expiring soon, with a leased 2018 Accord. This is the couple’s seventh lease with the dealership, they said.
“Honda has such a good name. It’s dependable,” Richard Schumann said.
Nationwide, car sales hit a record 17.6 million in 2016 but fell about 2 percent to 17.2 million vehicles last year, said Jessica Caldwell, executive director for industry analysis at Edmunds.
Last month, sales of new cars nationwide fell 2.5 percent to 1.3 million units compared with February 2017, according to Edmunds.
While sedans are falling in popularity, sales of sport utility and crossover vehicles continue to rise, in part because of improved fuel efficiency, Caldwell said.
Brentwood resident Mariam Waters, 60, was buying a 2017 Nissan Rogue at Atlantic Nissan in Bay Shore on Thursday. “The price is exactly what I wanted to pay,” said Waters, who said her new vehicle cost $26,200.
She said her 2003 Nissan Frontier pickup still runs fine. But she wanted a new car to commute farther between her job as a nursing assistant in Bay Shore and a new condo that she plans to buy.
Also, the Rogue has four-wheel drive, which she wanted: “Working in a hospital, you can’t make an excuse that you can’t go to work” in snowy weather, she said.
Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.
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