On the heels of the December rush to buy trucks before the EPA 2010 mandate went into effect, January truck net orders slipped 18 percent from the year-ago month

, according to ACT Research.

ACT expected January orders to be weak with the new EPA 2010 emissions mandate, and orders did fall to 6,513 units, the researchers said in the latest release of State of the Industry: Classes 5-8 Vehicles.

However, North American Class 8 production came in ahead of projections, just 3 percent below January 2009. ACT attributes the production results to the stronger orders late last year that pushed into the production line in January. Medium-duty orders were down 6 percent from January of last year.

"Despite an economic recovery that has begun to take hold, the implementation of the EPA2010 emission mandate has made a difficult situation more challenging," said Kenny Vieth, partner and senior analyst with ACT. "While supply-demand imbalance in the U.S. freight market continues to improve, we are still a quarter or two away from material improvement in freight rates, which should boost used truck demand and valuations."