Japan Big Three Fall in August

Toyota, Honda and Nissan all saw sales declines in the month of August, WardsAuto data shows, as car deliveries dropped at all three automakers.

Toyota lost 5.0% of its year-ago volume in a month where selling days were equal to August 2015’s 26.

The Toyota brand declined 5.6%, with cars down 12.5% and light trucks rising 2.7%.

Illustrating the growing American preference for light trucks, for the first time in decades the top-selling Toyota in a month wasn’t the Camry. The Camry fell 12.6%, outsold by the RAV4 33,171 to 32,864, making the CUV Toyota’s No.1-selling model in August.

Toyota’s other high-volume cars the Corolla and Prius posted declines of 3.1% and 17.2%.

The Highlander CUV and Land Cruiser and 4Runner SUVs were the only other Toyota light trucks in the black last month.

At Lexus, sales fell 7.6% with all cars down and all CUVs and SUVs up. However, the brand’s best-selling model, the RX midsize CUV, was flat, up 0.8%.

The departing Scion brand registered a 44.5% increase over August 2015, thanks again to the newer iA and iM small cars.

With another down month of sales, Toyota’s year-to-date volume now is 2.9% behind January-August 2015 to 1.625 million units.

Honda Accord Drops

American Honda sales fell 3.8% from August 2015 to 149,571. Honda blames one fewer weekend this August for the decline, which it says also impacted Acura sales negatively. The Honda near-luxury brand lost 7% of year-ago volume.

Honda’s key models of Accord, Civic and CR-V still each sold more than 30,000 units, however the Accord recorded a 26.4% decline.

The new Civic continues to be popular,  up 2.4% from year-ago.

The CR-V, which had some months of declines this year, had its second-best month ever in its history thanks to 36,517 deliveries.

Honda’s Fit and HR-V posted hefty increases of 85.1% and 66.0%, respectively, while the Odyssey and Pilot both suffered drops.

The new Ridgeline pickup added 3,437 units to Honda’s August tally.

Acura’s 7% drop was the result of all nameplates falling, save for the just-refreshed MDX, which enjoyed an 8.1% rise.

Honda U.S. sales total 1.095 million through August, a 3.8% increase from year-ago.

Nissan Altima Topped by Rogue

Nissan U.S. sales fell 6.5% in August to 124,638.

Despite a record-setting August performance by Nissan’s light trucks, which rose 19% from August 2015, Nissan-brand sales were down 6.9% due to a 25.4% falloff in cars.

The Altima midsize sedan was overtaken as Nissan’s top-selling model by the Rogue CUV. Rogue’s 32,979 sales were an August record, giving it a 19.2% increase over year-ago.

Altima deliveries dropped 39.2%. It was just the fifth time Rogue has outsold Altima, WardsAuto data shows.

A bright spot in Nissan’s car lineup was the year-old Maxima, which continued its string of gains this summer, up 42.7% last month vs. year-ago.

The launch of the new Titan half-ton large pickup in late August wasn’t enough to put that model in the black. Titan sales slipped 1.6% from August 2015, tallying 1,248 units.

It was a much better month for Nissan’s Frontier midsize pickup, which more than tripled year-ago sales at nearly 10,000 units.

Deliveries eased 1.8% at Nissan’s luxury Infiniti marque. Three of the brand’s nine nameplates, all light trucks, posted increases in August.

The QX50 midsize CUV, refreshed a year ago with a bigger backseat, had a whopping 397.9% gain to 1,200 units.

The QX70 and QX80 rose 3.7% and 16.1%, respectively.

Infiniti’s car lineup slumped, although the Q50 slid just 2.4% to 3,745, keeping it Infiniti’s No.1-selling U.S. model.

Through August, Nissan sales rose 5.4% to 1.055 million from the same period year-ago.

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