Caution: Lower Truck Sales Ahead

DETROIT, June 8 — For most of their history, pickups have been to auto companies what they were to their customers: reliable workhorses, with Detroit counting on them for big sales and profits even as flashier cars came and went.When paired with sport utility vehicles, pickups provided auto makers with a one-two punch of profits and a measure of insulation from foreign competitors, which have struggled to make headway in a market dominated by General Motors, the Ford Motor Company and the Chrysler Group.
By the late 1990s, pickups became more than just work trucks. Loaded with the same expensive features found on cars, like leather seats, booming stereos and big passenger compartments, pickups shared the same cachet as S.U.V.’s, bought by consumers who parked them in suburban driveways, not at construction sites.
But as with sport utilities, the popularity of pickups is in decline. Sales have dropped, rebates and other incentives are climbing, even for companies like G.M. and Toyota that have the newest models on the market.
In March, Bucky Hacker traded his 2002 Dodge Ram Quad Cab pickup for a subcompact car, the Mazda 3. Mr. Hacker, a student from Oak Ridge, Tenn., originally bought the Ram to tow a boat, and also thought its macho appearance would help him attract girls.
But there were drawbacks. “Gas was ridiculous,” Mr. Hacker, 24, said. “The thing got 13 miles per gallon.” His Mazda averages twice that, or 26 miles per gallon in city and highway driving, and it will be easier to fit into tight parking spaces at the University of Tennessee, where he plans to study political science this fall.
Mr. Hacker touches on a reason sales have dropped: a growing sense of environmental responsibility that has flared along with gas prices. That, and an uncertain housing market, which is prompting many contractors to delay buying new trucks, have combined to cut into pickup truck sales, which are down 5 percent so far this year from a weak market last year. That is more than double the overall decline in industry sales, which are down 2 percent this year.
Because of the decline, automakers expect pickups to post their lowest sales this year since the beginning of the decade, even with incentives.
The average discount on a Dodge Ram is $6,000, up $500 since January, according to the Power Information Network, which tracks industry trends. Chevrolet is paying an average of $2,343 in incentives on each Silverado pickup, double its discounts at the beginning of the year, when the truck was new.
Even Toyota is discounting the Tundra, which it introduced in February, by an average of $2,000, the Power data showed.
“We used to have a lot of people getting out of an S.U.V. and into a truck,” said Scott Satiritz, general sales manager at Massey-Yardley Chrysler Dodge in Hobe Sound, Fla. Now, he said, “the average customer is not buying a pickup.”
“They’re into economy cars because of the mileage. Gas prices have really hurt.”
In fact, Ford’s trade-in data shows a number of customers have exchanged F-series pickups for cars like the smaller Ford Focus or the Fusion sedan, said the company’s chief sales analyst, George Pipas. That suggests customers who do not need pickups are not returning for them.
“The people who are buying trucks are buying them because they have to, not because they want to,” said Steve Magers, general manager of Elmhurst Ford in Elmhurst, Ill., about 20 miles west of Chicago.
His F-series sales have dropped 10 to 12 percent since the beginning of the year, with commercial users, like owners of construction companies and landscaping firms, making up the bulk of his truck business.
Gone are the customers who purchased big trucks because they were “a status symbol thing,” Mr. Magers said.
Six years ago, 28 percent of consumers nationwide who bought pickups did so because they liked the way they looked, according to data from CNW Marketing Research, which follows industry trends. This year, only 16 percent of customers purchased big trucks primarily for their appearance.
As for the buyers who have defected, Art Spinella, the president of CNW, said: “They won’t come back. They’re finding other vehicles that make fashion statements.”
Mr. Spinella said contractors, farmers or ranchers who need pickups for their businesses will continue to buy them, but not so often as in the past.
That is a reason a Lehman Brothers analyst, Brian Johnson, predicts that the truck market may continue to decline. If so, it will mean more problems for Detroit auto companies, all trying to rebound from billion-dollar losses in 2006.