Auto sales decline 3 percent last month

DETROIT – September brought a new combination of challenges for the U.S. auto industry, from a housing market slump to a strike against General Motors Corp., but in the end it came down to the same old story: The company with the freshest products wins.

General Motors, Honda and Nissan bucked general weakness in the market with new vehicles that hit the showrooms running. By contrast, Ford Motor Co.’s sales plunged 21 percent, while Toyota Motor Corp. and Chrysler LLC also reported losses Tuesday.

Overall sales were down 3 percent for the month, according to Autodata Corp.

Jesse Toprak, chief economist for the auto research site Edmunds.com, said companies that did well in September either had well-designed, attractively priced products or didn’t spend enough on incentives to move their older products.

Toprak said that was part of the problem for Ford. GM and Toyota have new pickups, and Chrysler spent an estimated $6,386 per vehicle on the Dodge Ram pickup. Ford failed to match that incentive level for its aging F-150, so sales fell 21 percent.

Ford also was hurt by a 62 percent reduction in sales to rental car companies.

Ford’s retail sales were down 15 percent. That was bad news for the automaker, which hasn’t seen a monthly sales increase since October 2006, according to Ward’s AutoInfoBank.

Toyota posted a rare 4 percent decline but still outpaced Ford for the month and for the January-September period.