A week after publishing disastrous results for used car sales from April to June, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has now published corrected numbers and decided that things aren’t so bad after all.
Having commissioned a hasty recount, the SMMT has now decided that used car sales did not fall by 13.5% during Q2, but only slipped by 0.7%. Instead of 1,832,400 cars changing hands over the three-month period, the SMMT has managed to find nearly 300,000 V5 registration papers down the back of the sofa, and now believes that 2,102,154 used cars found new homes.
The results certainly make more sense, as the Finance and Leasing Association (FLA) had posted finance results for the same period on the same day as the SMMT’s first attempt, and there was nothing unusual in the FLA’s finance numbers (more people are still taking out more finance on used cars).
As yet, there has been no statement from the SMMT as to where they found the extra numbers, but everyone in the automotive industry will be very pleased. We look forward to reading about how Brexit was the real cause of this whole saga and that the government must do something.
There is also apparently no truth to rumours that Theresa May has invited the SMMT to check the numbers on the recent General Election, as she’d quite like a disastrous June result improved as well.