September Medium-Duty Sales Continue Trending Below 2024
ACT’s Tam Cites Trade Uncertainty and Inventory Glut for Continued Slump
Key Takeaways:
- U.S. medium-duty truck sales fell 7.6% in September to 16,916 units, marking the eighth straight month of year-over-year declines, Wards Intelligence reported.
- ACT Research's Steve Tam said tariffs and market uncertainty continue to weigh on equipment demand, though Class 5 sales rose 4.8%, likely due to inventory clearances in Mexico.
- Weak demand is expected to persist as buyers delay fleet upgrades, with many lease rental firms reducing inventory instead of replacing older trucks.
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U.S. medium-duty truck sales fell below prior-year results again in September while also managing to improve from the prior month, according to data from Wards Intelligence.
Classes 4-7 retail truck sales for the month decreased 7.6% to 16,916 units from 18,316 a year earlier. This marks the eighth consecutive month medium-duty sales have been down year over year. But they increased 3.4% sequentially from the 16,359 units reported in August.
“The medium-duty story, I don’t think has changed,” ACT Research Vice President Steve Tam said. “The one exception there is, again, on the tariff front.”
President Donald Trump has made tariffs a cornerstone of his trade agenda with the aim of correcting imbalances. But this has added to existing market uncertainties that have made investing in equipment more difficult. The Wards data showed an increase in Class 5 sales, but Tam suspects that was more due to manufacturers trying to clear out inventories in Mexico.
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“This is calendar year ’25, we’re building model year ’26 trucks,” Tam said. “I’ve heard that we still have model year ’24 trucks on dealer lots. So new trucks that are essentially 2 years old, almost about to be 3 years old. So maybe they’re fire [selling]. I don’t know. But yeah, the underlying fundamentals from a demand perspective have not changed.”
Wards data showed a year-over-year decrease for all but one medium-duty class: Class 5, for which sales increased 4.8% to 6,083 units from 5,806.
Meanwhile, Class 7 truck sales decreased 16.3% to 4,688 units from 5,602; Class 6 declined 4% to 5,164 from 5,381; and Class 4 decreased 35.8% to 981 units from 1,527.
Freightliner reported the most Class 7 sales at 2,158 units. Ford sold the most Class 6 trucks with 1,929 and Class 5 at 3,403. Isuzu sold the most Class 4 units at 615.
“The consumers, they’re more concerned about their core business, and they’re not thinking about trucks right now, unless they’re a lease rental firm,” Tam said. “I think, probably, all the lease rental firms right now are chopping off the old tail of their fleet, getting rid of trucks and not replacing them at this point.”
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