The CDK Global dealership software outage dramatically inflated days’ supply last month, along with affecting sales, new data show.
The disruption, which impacted thousands of dealerships across the country that conducted business without dealer-management system access and other tech tools, clearly put the brakes on sales, according to Cox Automotive figures.
New-vehicle days’ supply started July, just before CDK brought most of its dealer customers back online, to 116 days. Cox says that’s one of the highest days’ supply ever, lower only than that of April 2020, just after pandemic lockdowns began. June opened at 81 days’ supply.
That’s up 110% year-over-year and obviously abnormal for any time of year, Cox pointed out, but it said the metric should normalize as CDK fully restores its various software systems.
In addition to the shutdown, Cox said extreme summer weather events and power outages in some areas may also have dampened sales, including in Houston, which it said is one of the biggest U.S. automotive markets.
Total U.S. inventory ended June at 2.9 million, up 52% year-over-year, Cox said.
