The days of buying a vehicle for the next four to five years are behind us, according to Polk’s director of broadcasting, Anthony Pratt. He’s now predicting that the average American will only buy four cars or less, by the time they reach their 76th birthday.
Americans have been keeping hold of their new vehicles for longer, and this has been a trend for a while now. Basically, the American motorist is still buying new, but just not as often. As the cost of cars goes up, recession hit drivers are taking longer to pay back loans on their new vehicles. People are now looking to keep their new cars for seven to eight years.
This is a spanner in the works for the auto industry, and it has turned the ‘four year’ rule upside down. Auto makers once relied on American customers to buy a new vehicle every three to four years. Pratt thinks that this change in consumer habits is also partly to do with the fact that vehicles are of a much better quality nowadays. This is still bad news for automakers, as they have less chance to sell their vehicles or to poach customers. In the past, brands have gone for the ‘conquest buy’, where customers could be persuaded to switch brands. This is going to be much tougher when people are holding onto their vehicles for longer.
It’s going to take a while for auto manufacturers to get their heads around what this means for the new American auto market. Consumers are going to be behaving differently and Pratt has predicted that brands will find it more difficult to retain their existing customers when they finally decide to buy a new car.