Sales of new vehicles were down 2.3 percent in August

Canadian auto dealers sold 137,937 new vehicles in August last, or 2.3 percent less than in July.

This is the third consecutive monthly decline, a precise Statistics Canada Tuesday in publishing these data.

The August decline is entirely due to lower sales of private cars. They continued their downward trend in recent months, having shown a decline of 4.2 percent in August to establish a 73,484 vehicles sold.

For their part, sales of new trucks (which include minivans, sport utility vehicles, light and heavy trucks, vans and buses) were virtually unchanged compared to July, is being totaled 64,453 vehicles sold.

Sales of new motor vehicles have declined in eight provinces in August. The largest decline, 4.8 percent, was observed in Nova Scotia. In Quebec, a decrease of 1.0 percent was registered. In Ontario, the decline was 2.2 per cent and New Brunswick, 3.2 per cent.

For the month of September, Statistics Canada said Tuesday that interim data from industry show that the number of new motor vehicles sold increased compared to August.