The number of new Buick vehicles in dealership inventories increased sharply in October 2023, once again standing out as the GM brand with the highest levels of unsold vehicles on lots per Cox Automotive data.
The Tri-Shield had 107 days supply of vehicles in inventory at the end of October, a 30.5 percent surge compared to the 82 days supply it had on hand at the end of September. It was also significantly above the 94 days supply the brand registered during August.
Buick dealers will have no problems filling customer orders in the immediate future, with 60 days supply considered an optimum level by many in the automotive industry. The recent Stand Up Strike by the UAW appears to have had little impact on the Tri-Shield brand’s inventory levels.
In fact, the UAW strike did not prevent two more GM brands from keeping more than the ideal 60 days supply on dealership lots. Days supply for Chevy and GMC stood at 66 and 71 respectively. Only Cadillac, with 48 days supply, was below the threshold, but even its inventory grew somewhat compared to August and September.
Buick’s inventory growth tracks the auto market as a whole, though at a faster pace. Charlie Chesbrough, a senior economist at Cox, remarked on how “days of supply is creeping higher as the sales pace is slowing at the start of this year’s final quarter.” Supply was at 67 days at October’s end, up from 60 days in September and 41 percent higher year-over-year compared to October 2022.
Chesbrough went on to explore the reasons for weakening sales and rising inventories, observing “market headwinds from high interest rates and high prices are muting sales.” He predicted “greater discounting from the automakers seems likely,” but that if these stronger incentives fail to materialize then “the days of supply will rise even further.”
Overall vehicle supply has skyrocketed year-over-year as supply chain constraints end. Dealers had 2.4 million new vehicles in stock as of October 2023, a 62-percent surge above the roughly 1.48 million in inventories in October 2022.
Subscribe to GM Authority for more Buick news, GM business news, GM-related UAW news, GM-related production news, and around-the-clock GM news coverage.
Comments
No sedan, only one American model , what the hell do you expect
Buick has had over a decade with New GM to build an identity, market niche, and good will. I feel like Barra only keeps Buick US for benefit of China because no effort except dumb “is that a Buick” effort has been made.
New Envusta makes me think “is that a Kia” and doesn’t even compete with Acura. Encore GX is a junky offering leaving only Envision (China) and Encore as upscale looking offerings.
Buick was an easy save sharing space with GMC but it seems too late
General Motors and Bara have cranial-rectal inversion. They have taken the company that is the foundation of General Motors and turned it into an “also ran”. What ever happened to “When Better Cars are Built, Buick will Build Them”? What cars does GM have that are “Substantial, distinctive, powerful and mature”? NONE!!
Time to get off your fat bonusses and do something for a living like get this division back to where it belongs. Remember the “Doctor’s Car”? Because of you, the Doctors are driving imports. Don’t blame the buying public for that. The blame falls on your shoulders alone, Mary.
The key to success is product, product, product!!!
Hopefully the consumers can get a good deal out of this after a very long four years of bad news in the industry.
Now is the time to import the Buick Lacosse from China, Buick has no full size vehicles to sell .,
also they should consider a Buick Lacrosse with a hybrid to compete with the imports, The EV are not selling ,
GM is letter the other manufacturers take over the market. Plus what about the GMC and Buick dealers ,