Trade body red-faced over wrong used car figure

A MOTOR industry trade body has been left embarrassed after revealing a dire set of closely watched numbers on sales of used cars were wildly wrong.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) last week said sales of used cars in the second quarter of the year plunged 13.5pc to 1.82m, fuelling fears that consumers were reining in spending. Such downbeat figures came with concerns building about the health of the car market, with fears in some quarters that lending to consumers for cars could spark a financial crisis. The Bank of England is known to watch the figures to help gauge the economy’s performance.

However, the SMMT quietly issued an update on the figures yesterday, revealing that they were hugely inaccurate, with the decline compared with the same period a year ago actually just 0.7pc.

A spokesman for the SMMT said the mistake was down to “an issue with the way the data from the DVLA was processed by an algorithm” used by the trade body’s statistics team.

However, others fear the damage has already been done. Andy Bruce, chief executive of car dealer group Lookers, which reported interim results on the same day that the figures were released, said: “I’ve been in the industry long enough for my instinct to feel those numbers were not quite right – our business was certainly up.”

Prof David Bailey, a car industry expert at Aston University, echoed the concerns. “The SMMT seriously screwed up on a key indicator,” he said.