July-August 2008 owner loyalty stayed relatively flat

July-August 2009 owner loyalty declined 6% during Cash for Clunkers

Cash for Clunkers drove sales up

Also resulted in much cross-manufacturer buying

Dramatic declines in repeat retail vehicle purchases

Domestic automakers hit harder than Asian

Chrysler -13%, GM -7%, Ford -6%, Toyota -5%, Honda -2%

Low/depleted inventory levels of qualifying vehicles contributed

Saturn demise announcement expected to keep less than 50% for GM

"While the Cash for Clunkers program drove sales, it also caused a lot of competitive cross-buying that hurt repeat sales to the same automaker. Our analysis supports that OEMs and dealers may not have realized the potential defections the C4C program might bring. Whether this matters in the short-term, we think long-term loyalty needs to be a constant focus." -- Lonnie Miller, director of industry analysis, Polk

"The playing field was virtually leveled when all OEMs had the same incentives, and loyalty rates were adversely affected." -- Miller

"With the loyalty rate drops we've seen based on Cash for Clunkers, we might expect some surprises in overall loyalty rates once results for the entire model year are analyzed." -- Miller