New commercial vehicle registrations for Class 3-8 vehicles for the first nine months of 2008 were down 25.2 percent from the same period in 2007, reports Polk Commercial Vehicle Solutions in its September Commercial Vehicle Intelligence Report, published Monday.


For the month of September, Class 3-8 registrations were down 20.4, reports Polk, and for the July-September quarter they were down 26.3 percent. New commercial vehicle registrations for Class 3-8 vehicles in September were the lowest this year and the lowest monthly total since February 2003.

Class 8 vehicles, however, bucked the trend, Polk reports. New registrations of 10,668 Class 8 vehicles represented the first month this year and the first time since December 2006 when new registrations in the current month were equal to or greater than the comparable month the
previous year. While Class 8 numbers were equal to the level of activity in September 2007, each of the other GVW totals were significantly lower.

Used truck numbers are also down. For the quarter (July-September) there were 113,722 used commercial vehicle transactions, Polk reported, the lowest number since the last quarter of 2006.

New commercial trailer registrations (24 feet and longer) for the first nine months were down 30.4 percent from the comparable period in 2007. The decline in new trailer registrations is higher than the 27.2 percent decline for Class 8 vehicles.