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Whether summer is a good time to buy a car depends on the vehicle, with clearance deals and holiday sales offsetting higher demand for road-trip favorites
Car shopping calendars follow predictable patterns, and summer sits in the middle of several of them. New model year vehicles typically start reaching U.S. dealerships in late summer and early fall. That means models already on the lot start getting marked down before autumn arrives.
Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day weekends line up with some of the industry's most consistent sales events. Manufacturers also lean on dealers to hit second and third quarter sales targets during these same months.
None of that makes summer uniformly cheap. The same warm weather that draws buyers out to test-drive a convertible also draws families out shopping for a three-row SUV before a road trip. Both trends can push prices upward rather than down.
