Topsy-turvy market affecting car sales

Leasing may be a thing of the past for Chrysler, but it's NOT a thing of the past for all manufacturers. Brands that hold their residual value are still able to be leased, still often at good rates. Honda for example still offers leases.

Adding to the car sales drop off are the prices of the vehicles themselves. Without the huge discounts, rebates, employee pricing, interest free financing, etc that's been offered extensively this past year sales would be even worse than they are. Once all these incentives stop you'll see sales really fall apart. With everyone pushing for the smaller, fuel efficient cars you'll only see the prices on thoses go up without any incentives. It'll be the same situation as the trucks and SUV's have been in previous years, they were the hot and in demand thing so the price on those was high and they typically didn't offer much incentives on them. Add into the mix of electric and hybrid cars coming down the road that will sell for at least $40,000 and you won't see anyone buying anything. They're going to price people right out of the market. The only hot commodity will be slightly older economical used cars and those will become harder to find. For those that will buy and can actually get a loan you'll start to see banks requireing much more money down to get a loan.

My wife just leased a Saturn in January. We got a great deal.