October Pickup Sales

Best-Selling Pickup Trucks: October 2016

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The October sales chart is now in. A fire at Ford's Dearborn, Mich., world headquarters Monday delayed the automaker's release of its October sales numbers. Other automakers released their numbers Tuesday; we opted to wait until Ford released its numbers to run our chart.

As the entire automotive industry prepares for an expected decline in sales, certain segments and models of pickup trucks seem to be doing quite well. All of the mid-size players sold well in October, and Ram and Nissan had strong numbers too. GM full-size pickups seem to be taking the biggest hit this year when compared to 2015 numbers, and Ford sales were flat.

Our discussion of the October sales numbers are below.

PickupTrucks.com

October Pickup Sales Continue Decline

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At the same time many of the big truckmakers are showing off their creativity and firepower at the 2016 Specialty Equipment Market Association Show in Las Vegas (one of our favorite annual events), dealerships across the country are expected to see a continued decline in sales when compared to last year at this time. In September the two biggest full-size truckmakers, Ford and Chevrolet, took the biggest hits in monthly sales. October looks to be more of the same, with relatively few optimistic forecasts to be found.

Ford did not report its sales numbers today due to a fire on Monday that caused power outages at its world headquarters in Dearborn, Mich. Rather than provide an incomplete look at monthly and year-to-date sales data, we will publish our list of best-selling pickup trucks when Ford is able to provide its October sales numbers.

Truckmakers traditionally post pretty good sales numbers in the fourth quarter due in aggressive incentive spending and other deals in an effort to make room for new model year trucks on dealership lots; it's also usually a good time of year to get good value for trade-ins. This year is a little different. We've already seen Ford cut production of the F-150 by closing the Kansas City, Mo., plant for more than a week. Other truckmakers could follow suit to keep their days-on-sale numbers more in line with demand.

Even though we are delaying our monthly sales report, we can offer a few highlights. Ram had a good month, up 6.9 percent; Ram is likely to finish the year almost 10 percent ahead of 2015. Likewise, GM's mid-size pickups continue to sell well, with the Chevrolet Colorado up almost 50 percent and the GMC Canyon up 15 percent over October 2015. Unfortunately, GM's full-size pickups are continuing their incremental slide.

Some of the biggest callouts this month include the Toyota Tacoma outselling all the GMC Sierra for the month, and the popular mid-size Colorado selling more units than the full-size Toyota Tundra. Also, this is the first time ever that both the Nissan Titan (now with the half-ton model on sale) and the Honda Ridgeline have outsold the Canyon. Once things settle down in 2017, it will be interesting to see which pickup will be at the bottom of our list.

The final two months of the year will be interesting as automakers either prepare for a slowdown or look to gain an advantage by offering better deals or more standard equipment for the money.

PickupTrucks.com

We'll see if the bottom falls out on vehicles sales numbers. I keep asking myself how resilient can US auto consumers be with skyrocketing health care costs, shaky jobs, rising interest rates, and many already underwater with 6 or 7 year vehicle loans.

Odd Titan's sales didn't lift off with the half ton roll-out on top of the new XD gas. Nissan is spending plenty on tv advertisements for the Titan.