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Used Truck Sales Beat Seasonal Expectations in February
ACT Research Reports Used Sales Increased 5.6% to 22,700 Units From 21,500 Trucks in February 2025
Key Takeaways:
- Used Class 8 truck sales rose 5.6% year over year to 22,700 units in February but fell 8.8% from January, exceeding typical seasonal expectations, ACT Research reported.
- Prices and mileage showed mixed signals, with average retail prices up 2.6% year over year to $55,215 while auction-driven volumes pressured pricing, according to ACT and J.D. Power.
- Analysts and dealers say the market could improve later this year, but elevated diesel prices, geopolitical uncertainty and regulatory changes remain near-term risks.
Used Class 8 truck sales for February exceeded seasonal expectations amid strong gains for auction, wholesale and same-dealer sales.
ACT Research reported that sales increased 5.6% to 22,700 units from 21,500 the prior year but fell 8.8% sequentially from 24,900 units sold in January.
The average retail sales price for a used Class 8 truck increased 2.6% to $55,215 from $53,795 the prior year but was virtually unchanged from the previous month.
Average mileage declined 4.7% to 409,000 from 429,000 a year ago and 0.5% from the 411,000 miles reported the prior month.
“February is usually the sixth-weakest sales month of the year,” said Steve Tam, vice president at ACT Research. “The auction and wholesale markets both improved in February. Auction volumes ballooned 127% month over month as they recovered from their typical first-month-of-the-quarter blues. Wholesale dealer activity increased 22% month over month.”
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J.D. Power that selling prices softened across all channels during the month following an encouraging start to the year.
“It is not unusual for February pricing to come in lower than January, as the first major auction month of the year typically includes a large volume of trucks sold,” Chris Visser, director of specialty vehicles at J.D. Power, said in a report. “That pattern held again this year, with elevated auction volumes contributing to softer pricing. Fleets continue to offload excess capacity, and repossessions processed late last year cycled into the secondary market.”
Visser noted selling-price variation between specific makes and engine specifications within the same model year remains extremely wide, which has continued to skew overall averages.
Looking ahead, J.D. Power found model year 2027 orders to date are the strongest since model year 2022 as trucking capacity and freight rates trend positively. But the report noted that the conflict with Iran is a new wild card.
Visser said the trucking industry is waiting to see whether the Iran conflict and the resulting increase in oil prices will be resolved quickly. He warned that the longer the situation continues, the greater the risk of broader economic contraction.
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“The No. 1 indicator of repossessions is fuel prices, so that is really hard on smaller carriers," said Rush Enterprises' Trey Golden. "Profitability-wise, especially the big guys, it really doesn’t hurt them too bad.” (Rush Enterprises)
“It really felt like we were poised in February to really start taking off, and then we get hit with the diesel price catastrophe, so it’s like we’re moving from one crisis to another,” said Trey Golden, vice president of used truck sales at Rush Enterprises. “The No. 1 indicator of repossessions is fuel prices, so that is really hard on smaller carriers. Profitability-wise, especially the big guys, it really doesn’t hurt them too bad.”
Golden noted that the bigger players tend to have well-defined fuel surcharges when it comes to contract rates. He cautioned, however, that relying too heavily on surcharges can cause cash flow problems since fuel is an immediate cost, while invoices for surcharges can take months to collect.
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“Pricing is really low, probably bottoming. But we’ve said that before,” he said of the market conditions. “We thought we had bottomed in about September, and then that’s when all that CDL capacity crunch stuff started coming out.”
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration started increasing enforcement of English-language proficiency for truck drivers last year and also put tighter restrictions on non-domiciled commercial driver licenses.
Golden feels the used truck market is primed to improve as the year progresses if it can emerge from the many hurdles that have blocked its path to recovery.
Fresh from TMC, ATA President Chris Spear takes a candid look at what today’s fleet maintenance trends reveal about the broader state of trucking.Tune in above or by going to .
“We are poised for a really good year if we get some of these pop-up disruptions behind us and can get a few, a little bit, of normal months,” Golden said. “The spot rate was actually doing really well even before the diesel price increase. Now, nominally, it continues to go up, but not enough to cover diesel. You really need to be pretty fuel efficient.”
Coming off a February that was bereft of the bad weather that sometimes snares freight movements, Golden says he exited the month on a hopeful note.
“The weather was not awful in most of the country, which February can be really rough in terms of closing interstates and grounding trucks and things like that,” Golden said. “We were feeling pretty good about things. That’s the general consensus — this used truck market wants to get better.”
