Manheim Australia car auction volumes hit three-year high

November 17, 2023

Manheim Australia’s passenger and commercial vehicle (PCV) auction sales volume hit a three-year high in October 2023.

Auction volume for Australia’s premier wholesale auction channel was up 108.5% over October last year, and 20% greater than the preceding month of September 2023.

Since re-commencing in-person, drive-through auctions across the eastern seaboard in June this year after a period of online-only bidding during COVID, Manheim has also seen steady growth in foot traffic.

On a year-to-date basis, Manheim wholesale auction volumes are up 24.1%, with the top-five auctioned nameplates being the Ford Ranger, Holden Colorado, Toyota Camry, Toyota HiLux, and Mitsubishi Triton.

As auction volumes are getting closer to pre-COVID levels, so too are average prices falling from record levels across 2022.

The Manheim PCV volume-weighted price index, which tracks the average price of specific auctioned models across different time periods, ended October 2023 some 13.5% lower than it was in the same month of 2022.

While the current price index of 139.2 means average wholesale prices are 39.2% greater than the December 2019 baseline, this is well down on the record high index of 167.4 in May 2022.

This means vendors should recognise that the market is unlikely to support the sort of disposal prices seen last year, while potential business and private buyers should recognise now is a good time to buy used vehicles.

Interestingly, traditional lower-riding passenger vehicles look to be holding higher relative prices and are proving easier to sell, compared to SUVs and light commercial pickups and vans.

Passenger cars such as sedans, hatchbacks and wagons ended October with a price index of 156 and an average selling time from arrival of 19 days. By contrast these figures for SUVs were 130.4 and 23 days respectively, and for pickups they were 132.3 and 22 days respectively.

As we have been observing for some time now, the average prices of older used wholesale vehicles at Manheim in-person and online auctions are higher on the weighted index than newer vehicles.

For example, the price indexes for passenger vehicles, SUVs and pickups aged 2-4 years are respectively 119.8, 119.1 and 116.4; whereas the price indexes for passenger vehicles, SUVs and pickups aged 8-10 years are 178, 138.8 and 135.1.

Economic headwinds such as interest rate increases and inflation are likely increasing demand at the lower end of the market, driving up competition for vehicles and thereby auction prices.

While the number of wholesale-ready used electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) remains low, given the new market really only started to spike in the past two years, Manheim is readying its operations for the wave of fleet EVs up for remarketing in the near future.

As a sign of things to come, Manheim’s Moorebank site in Sydney recently held an ex-government Tesla auction, with plenty in this space to come.

About us

Manheim’s weekly national PCV auctions – including drive-through auction lanes in Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sydney – help vendors remarket vehicles on a wholesale basis to both dealers and the general public.

Second-hand vehicles available for auction come from a variety of sources including OEMs, corporate and government fleets, dealer trade-ins, and the private market.

As well as auctioning second-hand passenger and commercial vehicles, Manheim is also a major Australia auctioneer of trucks, heavy equipment such as civil and agricultural, and damaged vehicles for salvage.

Manheim is a brand of Cox Automotive Australia, part of the world’s leading automotive retail data, remarketing, and services business Cox Automotive inc, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.