Medium Duty Market Goes Haywire for Late-Model Trucks

The medium duty conventional market went a bit haywire in April, with an unusually large volume of newer trucks selling in the two segments we track for this report. We do adjust for age and mileage, but unusually lopsided data is beyond the scope of our adjustments. As such, our average selling price for both cohorts was boosted to extremely high levels – the highest, in fact, in the 15 years we’ve been tracking those segments. Our assumption is this first substantial batch of newer off-trade units in 18 months had buyers climbing over each other. The cabover market behaved more normally.

Starting with Class 3-4 cabovers, our benchmark group averaged $29,138 in April. This figure is $2,731 (8.6%) lower than March, and $8,118 (38.6%) higher than March 2021. The first four months of 2022 are running 57.8% ahead of the same period of 2021. In 2022, trucks in this group have depreciated 1.5% per month on average, but this trend could level out or reverse given fluctuating availability.

Looking at Class 4 conventionals, average pricing for our benchmark group was $48,337 in April, $11,556 (31.4%) higher than March and $21,614 (80.9%) higher than April 2021. The first four months of 2022 are running 66.9% ahead of the same period of 2021. As mentioned above, we are putting a big asterisk next to this month’s results, since the sales data was weighted so heavily to newer trucks. Looking at pricing to date in 2022, our Class 4 cohort showed 2.5% depreciation on average if we exclude April’s lopsided result. If April is included, that average flips to 4.4% appreciation. The only conclusion to be drawn here is the market is still behaving unpredictably based on incoming supply of available units.

Class 6 conventionals were even more out of whack, returning average pricing of $65,328 in April, $15,795 (31.9%) higher than March and $37,536 (135.5%) higher than April 2021. The first four months of 2022 are running 105.9% ahead of the same period of 2021. As with the Class 4 segment, consider this month’s result an anomaly. Looking at average monthly appreciation/depreciation to date in 2022, Class 6’s showed no change from January to March, but if we include April’s result, that figure increases to 2.3% appreciation. Class 6 buyers were salivating over this first batch of available newer units. We’ll see how pricing holds up going forward as additional newer units hit the market.