Looking for clouds behind the silver lining

There’s nothing scary on the horizon in the motor vehicle world right now, and that scares me.

On the automotive side of the business, dealerships shrugged off a sluggish first quarter to post the best sales numbers since the recession – results well ahead of expectations. The outlook for next year looks good as well. Growth is expected to slow a bit, but analysts still expect companies to sell more than 17 million vehicles in 2015, a total the industry hasn’t seen since 2001.

Commercial vehicles are also having a great year. Over-the-road, Class 8 truck sales started strong in January and haven’t let up. Medium-duty trucks sales overcame early year weakness and have been healthy since the summer. Increased manufacturing nationwide is driving up demand for freight movement, so truckers need new vehicles.

Yet I’m worried.

The good times can’t last forever. They never do.

The auto industry is cyclical, and the current upswing will inevitably turn downward. There are no signs of immediate problems, but then again, 2008 was looking like a pretty good year until summer and $4 per gallon gasoline came around.

There’s no clear sign of danger on the horizon. Fuel prices? Overproduction in Saudi Arabia has pushed crude oil prices down to their lowest levels in about six years. And that’s been a recent trend. Consumer confidence? Despite minimal wage growth, spending has been increasing, and indicators are pointing higher. Low-priced products undercutting the market? Economic growth has slowed in China while Russia and Brazil are suffering through economic crises. None of the countries to watch seem healthy enough to launch a product offensive.

Some analysts and journalists have pointed to consumer credit concerns. Many of the new cars and trucks sold this year have gone to people with sub-prime credit with General Motors getting much of the attention because the company’s GM Financial captive finance agency is a sub-prime lender, specializing in credit for those with poor financial histories. Delinquency rates (people more than 60 days late paying auto loans) have increased. Credit ratings agency TransUnion noted that in the second quarter of this year, the delinquency rate hit 0.95%, up from 0.87% a year earlier. In other words, fewer than one person in 100 is behind on his car loan. Even at the height of the recession (fourth quarter 2008), the delinquency rate hit only 1.59%. Also, sub-prime loans are still far below their 2007 and 2008 levels.

So no, the increase in car loans to riskier buyers doesn’t appear to be the harbinger of death that some make it out to be.

Maybe I’m being overly pessimistic, putting too much stock in my memories of 2008-2009 and the decades of job cuts and financial scrapes that preceded those years for Detroit’s automakers.

Maybe I shouldn’t write an editorial during Halloween season.

Let me know if you think I’m being too skittish. Maybe I need to relax and accept an industry really thriving for the first time in decades.