Penske Automotive Group (PAG) · Q3 2026

S1Our Overall Take

This is a read on Penske's U.S. vehicle-selling business only, not a rating on the company. Penske runs car dealerships in the United States and abroad, plus commercial truck dealerships and a stake in a truck-leasing business (management's own disclosure). Our data follows what happens on its U.S. car lots: how many cars sell, at what price, and how long they wait for a buyer. This report covers July through September 2026.

New-car sales now trail the market slightly. At the stores Penske owned through both years, identified store by store from the seller records now carried in Compass, new-vehicle sales fell 4.2% from a year ago, against a 3.0% fall for the whole new market. In the second quarter the same measure grew 0.4% while the market fell 1.1%, and Penske reported U.S. same-store new units up 2.8% (management's own disclosure). The lead over the market has closed.

The headline counts overstate growth. All-store new sales rose 7.0% and vehicle revenue in our data rose 9.5% to $3.8 billion. Most of that is the Longo Toyota and Lexus stores in El Monte, California: Penske has owned them throughout, but our data captured only 24 of their new-car sales a year ago against 5,948 this quarter. Without El Monte, new sales fell 5.5% and vehicle revenue rose 0.5%.

New pricing held up. New cars sold 0.3% below sticker, against 1.4% a year ago; franchise dealers overall moved from 3.4% to 3.2% below.

The used lot grew. Used stock rose 18.9% from a year ago to 12,992 cars, after setting aside 1,678 cars that had been listed more than 180 days at the same store, which we treat as service loaners (Section 12), and used Market Days Supply rose to 38 from 31, at the top of our typical range of 27 to 40 days. Used same-store sales fell 5.9%, but that same-store measure read 7.1 points below Penske's own figure in the second quarter. Management expected rising lease returns to add used supply (management's own disclosure).

Why neutral: new-car volume moved close to the market and pricing stayed firm, while the used lot grew faster than used sales. What keeps it from Cautiously Bearish is that new and used Market Days Supply both sit inside their typical ranges, new pricing held, and our used volume measure has read too low in each of the last three quarters. Gross profit per car, finance and insurance, service, trucks and the international business are outside our data; they can move the company's result a full tier in either direction.

S2The Quarter in Numbers

Every share move is below the 0.3-point level we treat as meaningful, and the new-share gain from a year ago comes from El Monte entering our data. Against the second quarter, shares slipped on both sides.

S3Inventory and Pricing Risk

New Market Days Supply sits inside the typical range for franchise dealers (46 to 80 days), and brand by brand Penske carries less new supply than franchise dealers in most of its large brands. Used Market Days Supply of 38 sits at the top of the typical range (27 to 40 days), up from 31 a year ago and 34 in June. Used inventory figures throughout this report exclude cars listed more than 180 days at the same store, an interim rule for service loaners (Section 12); on the unfiltered lot the used figure would be 43. The used lot is older as well as bigger: 9.6% of used cars had waited more than 90 days at the store selling them, against 6.9% a year ago. Management framed its used build as lease returns feeding its certified pre-owned business (management's own disclosure); younger cars did make up more of what Penske sold.

S4Electric Vehicles, Geography, and the Two Cases

Electric vehicles. New fully electric (battery-electric) sales fell 57.4% to 1,487 after the federal purchase credit ended on September 30, 2025, against a 52.6% fall for the market. Used fully electric sales rose 27.3% to 1,500, against 11.5% for the market. Hybrids are 49.1% of Penske's new sales. Penske has not discussed North American electric-vehicle sales on its recent calls, so we show this as context, not as a scored signal.

Geography. California new sales rose 52.8% because of El Monte, Florida new rose 20.2% on the Orlando-area stores Penske bought, and Texas new fell 14.3% after the sale of the Pharr stores (management's own disclosure for the transactions). Arizona and Georgia used sales fell 10.2% and 13.5% with no store sale on record that explains them.

The positive case. New cars sold closer to sticker than a year ago while the market barely moved, Toyota new stock turns faster than franchise dealers' Toyota stock, Lexus new stock turns quickly, and new Market Days Supply sits inside its typical range. Used cars sold were younger and dearer, which fits management's lease-return account.

The negative case. The new-car lead over the market seen in the second quarter is gone, used stock grew about 19% while used sales fell, and the used lot is older. Our data cannot say what that does to profit per car.

01Overall Verdict and Confidence

This is a read on Penske's U.S. vehicle-selling business only, not a rating on the company. Finance & Insurance income, aftersales, the international business, commercial trucks, Penske Transportation Solutions, overhead and the gross profit Penske earns on each car are outside our data.

Why neutral: at the stores Penske owned through both years, new sales fell 4.2% in a new market down 3.0%, and used sales fell 5.9% in a used market down 3.5%. New cars sold 0.3% below sticker, against 1.4% a year ago, while franchise dealers overall moved only from 3.4% to 3.2% below. The used lot grew 18.9% from a year ago after the service-loaner exclusion, and used Market Days Supply rose to 38, at the top of the typical range.

How much weight the volume figures carry: on the store-level panel now used, our second-quarter same-store new figure was 2.4 points below Penske's reported U.S. same-store change and our used figure 7.1 points below it, both in the same direction. The new reading carries medium weight because the gap is small and one-directional; the used reading carries low weight, and both point, if anything, too low.

Confidence is Medium, capped by two things: our count of El Monte's sales a year ago is incomplete, so the all-store comparisons cannot be read at face value; and our captured revenue appears to run above the company's U.S. vehicle revenue. Management guided to rising lease returns and service growth, and the international and truck businesses carried much of the second quarter; those sit outside our data and can move the company's result a full tier in either direction.

02Signal Summary Table

03Detailed Sales Numbers

Why it matters: units sold times average price is a direct shadow of the vehicle revenue Penske will report for its U.S. stores. Penske bought and sold stores over the past year, and one large store group entered our data in full only this year, so same-store figures lead this section. This quarter they compare stores, identified from the seller records now carried in Compass, rather than zip codes.

New vehicles

El Monte. Penske acquired Penske Motor Group, which owns the Longo Toyota and Lexus stores in El Monte, California, from a commonly controlled affiliate in November 2025, and restated its earlier results as though it had always owned them (management's own disclosure). Our data captured only 24 new and 70 used sales at El Monte in the third quarter of 2025, against 5,948 and 1,037 this quarter, so the gain is our coverage switching on, not a purchase or a surge in demand. El Monte is 11.7% of Penske's new sales this quarter and adds 12.5 points to the all-store new change. Penske keeps these stores in its own same-store figures; we cannot, because our year-ago count is incomplete. In the seller records, the Longo Toyota and Longo Lexus websites first carry Penske sales on January 23, 2026, as do the other two Penske Motor Group stores, Lexus Stevens Creek in California and Longo Toyota of Prosper in Texas, so the store-level panel sets all four aside as stores first seen after July 2025. They are therefore left out of the year-over-year same-store panel and included in the comparison with the second quarter, when both periods are fully captured.

Against the second quarter. At stores open in both quarters, El Monte included, new sales fell 3.3% from the second quarter, against 2.3% for the market, and used sales fell 4.3%, against 1.8%.

Momentum. In the second quarter our same-store new figure grew 0.4% on the store-level panel, against the 2.8% U.S. same-store growth Penske reported, and 1.5 points ahead of a new market down 1.1%. This quarter the same measure is 1.2 points behind the market. Month by month, excluding El Monte, new sales were down 10.0% in July (market −7.0%), down 3.0% in August (market −2.4%) and down 3.2% in September (market +0.8%).

The average new price rose $1,202. Higher prices within the same brands added about $1,758, and a mix shift toward cheaper brands (more Toyota, fewer Audi and Mercedes-Benz) took away about $556.

Used vehicles

Used sales, excluding El Monte, fell 3.8% in July, 4.3% in August and 5.1% in September, against a market down 7.5%, down 2.8% and up 0.5%. In the second quarter our same-store used figure fell 4.1% on the store-level panel while Penske reported U.S. same-store used units up 3.0%, the third quarter running in which our used measure read too low (management's own disclosure).

What drove the used price rise. The used average transaction price rose $1,586, almost all of it within brands ($1,445) rather than from brand mix ($141). Penske sold younger cars: 43.6% were two model years old or newer, against 41.8% a year ago and 38.8% in the second quarter, and cars under $20,000 fell to 18.6% of used sales from 22.4%. The price gain is therefore partly a change in which cars sold, and we do not read it as pricing power.

The used-to-new check. Penske sold 0.626 used cars for every new car in our data, against 0.68 a year ago and 0.633 last quarter; El Monte's new-heavy mix lowers the all-store ratio.

Same-store bridge. This quarter's same-store figures compare stores, not zip codes. Using the seller records carried in Compass, each sale is tied to the website of the store that sold it, and a store counts as comparable when Penske had been selling through it since before July 1, 2025 and it was still selling in the quarter just ended: 129 stores, carrying 81.8% of Penske's new sales and 90.4% of its used sales this quarter. Eleven stores whose first Penske sales in our data came after that date contributed 9,196 new and 3,012 used units this quarter with no year-ago equivalent. Most of that is the four Penske Motor Group stores, Longo Toyota and Longo Lexus in El Monte, Lexus Stevens Creek and Longo Toyota of Prosper, first seen in January 2026 as our coverage switched on, and the two Florida Lexus stores Penske bought, Lexus of Winter Park and Lexus of Orlando, first seen in March 2026 and 2,079 units between them; California (8,228 units), Florida (2,079) and Texas (1,456) lead. Nine stores that sold a year ago but not this quarter carried 3,895 new and 1,588 used units in the year-ago quarter: Toyota of Pharr and Hyundai of Pharr in Texas, Lexus of Warwick in Rhode Island, Hyundai and Genesis of Noblesville in Indiana, Mercedes-Benz of Bedford in Ohio and Kearny Mesa Acura in California among them, consistent with the franchise sales Penske reported. One store, BMW of Tenafly in New Jersey, whose volume swung more than fourfold, was left out of both quarters. Two Porsche stores, Stevens Creek and Beachwood, changed website identifiers over the winter with a gap longer than our matching window and are counted once as departed and once as acquired; nine other re-platformed websites, including seven Porsche stores, were matched by seller name and kept as one store each. Penske reported buying two Lexus dealerships in the first half and selling four U.S. franchises (management's own disclosure). Same-store differs from all-store excluding El Monte by 1.3 points on new and 1.5 points on used. Store-level same-store approximation built from Compass seller identifiers, not the company's certified same-store comparison; stores acquired part-way through the year-ago quarter can add partial-period noise.

By state

California reflects El Monte, Florida the Orlando-area purchases and Texas the Pharr sale. Arizona and Georgia used fell with no store sale on record that explains them; we read these as patterns to raise with the company, not as regional demand (our interpretation).

04Top Brands Sold

Why it matters: Toyota is more than two-fifths of Penske's new sales in our data, and the luxury brands carry the highest prices.

New

Toyota and Lexus growth comes mostly from El Monte and the purchased Florida and Texas stores. BMW and Honda held close to a year ago. Audi fell hardest and still sold 2.0% below sticker, though closer than the 4.8% below of a year ago. Most brands sold closer to sticker than a year ago; Ford, Hyundai and Chevrolet sold further below.

Used

The domestic brands fell most on used, and German luxury used cars took longest to sell on the days-on-site clock (BMW 49 days, Mercedes-Benz 52, Porsche 55).

05What's Sitting on the Lots (Inventory)

Why it matters: a car that sits costs the dealer interest every day, and its eventual selling price tends to drift down. A growing pile of older stock is tomorrow's clearance problem.

Used: bigger and older. Active used units rose 18.9% from a year ago (2,063 cars) and 0.5% from June. The share listed more than 90 days at its selling store rose to 9.6% from 7.3% in June and 6.9% a year ago, and the average car on the lot has been there 38 days against 32 a year ago. Luxury cars are 45.4% of used stock, and 12.2% of them had waited more than 90 days at the store, against 7.4% of mainstream used stock. The service-loaner exclusion takes most of its cars from the luxury brands: BMW, which held the largest aged used pool before it (2,585 cars), holds 1,893 cars after it, 14.4% of them over 90 days on site.

New: stable, aging at the luxury end. New active inventory rose 6.3% from a year ago and fell 0.9% from June. Toyota (7,189 cars, 4.1% over 90 days on site) and Lexus (2,700, 6.3%) turn quickly; Porsche (1,125, 55.5%), Audi (2,584, 32.6%) and BMW (5,210, 32.3%) carry most of the aged stock. The sport-utility share of stock is 60.0% on new, and 59.4% of new stock is priced above $50,000.

06Price Position: Sticker, Asking Premium and Discounts

Why it matters: these measures show where Penske prices its cars against the sticker, against what its cars sell for, and against its own first asking price. None of them is a profit measure: they say nothing about what Penske paid for a car or earned on it.

New, against sticker. New cars sold 0.3% below the manufacturer's suggested retail price, against 1.4% a year ago and 0.6% last quarter. Franchise dealers overall moved from 3.4% to 3.2% below, so Penske gained 1.2 points while the market gained 0.2. Toyota (+0.3% against −1.1%), Honda, Lexus, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi all sold closer to or above sticker than a year ago; Ford, Hyundai and Chevrolet sold further below. In our data 75.0% of Penske's new cars sold at or above sticker, against 68.9% a year ago; this is an advertised-price measure and not the same as the 24% of new units Penske reported selling at sticker.

Asking premium on unsold stock. This compares the average list price of cars still for sale at September 30 with the average price of cars sold during the quarter. The two groups are different cars, so the trend and the split by class matter more than the level.

The new premium sits above our 10% watch line, but within each class it is small: luxury new stock is listed at almost exactly what luxury new cars sold for. The gap is mix. Luxury cars are 50.2% of new stock but 34.6% of new sales. We do not read it as markdown risk. The used premium, measured on the lot after the service-loaner exclusion, is below the watch line and narrowed in both classes.

Discount from first listed price. This compares each sold car's final price with the first price MarketCheck saw on its listing.

The same share of Penske's used cars came off their first asking price as a year ago (60.8% against 61.0%), and the cuts were as deep (−7.2% against −7.2%). The narrower average discount comes from more cars ending above their first ask: 11.9% against 4.0%. Franchise dealers show the same pattern on a smaller scale (9.5% against 6.2%), which fits dealers adding fees to advertised prices after listing (our interpretation). The discount on total asking value, −4.2%, is wider than the per-car figure, so the cuts are concentrated in the more expensive cars. Month by month the average discount deepened: −1.5% in July, −1.9% in August and −3.1% in September. On new cars, the average discount from first ask was −0.4%, against −0.7% a year ago and −1.8% for franchise dealers.

6dListing Price Position (used)

Listing Price Position compares each used car's opening asking price with MarketCheck Price, MarketCheck's model estimate of the car's market value. A ratio of 1.00 means listed at our estimate of market value; 0.95 means 5% below.

Penske opens its used listings slightly above the franchise median, as it did a year ago. Its cars still sold within 30 days on site a little more often than franchise dealers' cars, and that rate fell by less than the franchise rate (5.7 points against 6.2). This section is descriptive and does not feed the signal.

6eSelling Margin Pressure (used)

Selling Margin Pressure measures markdowns beyond the usual on cars that took longer than usual to sell. For each price band and vehicle age, Penske's own previous 12 months set the usual time to sell and the usual markdown on cars that sold on time. A car counts when it took longer than usual and was marked down by more than usual; the excess, in dollars, is averaged over all used cars sold.

Penske's Selling Margin Pressure was $1,368 per used car sold, down $66 from a year ago, against a rise of $3 for franchise dealers. Against the second quarter it rose from $1,091, as the market's did ($805 to $1,050). This describes selling behavior only. What Penske paid for its cars and spent reconditioning them are not in our data, so the measure is not a gross profit figure and does not feed the signal.

07Days to Sell and Market Days Supply

7aDays on Site and Days on Market (how long each car takes)

Two clocks run on every car in our data. Days on site counts only the days at the current selling store or website and restarts whenever the car moves; it is the clock a store manages its own pricing and markdowns against, and it is the aging measure this report leads with in every section. Days on market counts from the first day the car was advertised anywhere and keeps counting if the car moves to another store or another website; it is the listing's full exposure to the market, and it is analyzed here and only here. Both are shown for cars sold during the quarter and for cars still unsold on September 30.

On the days-on-site clock, new cars that sold were seven days younger than a year ago (44 against 51), helped by the fast-turning Toyota and Lexus mix, and level with June. Used cars that sold were one day older on site than a year ago, and the typical used car three days older (23 against 20). The unsold new stock is two days older on site than a year ago and three days older than in June; the unsold used stock, after setting aside the cars listed more than 180 days at the same store (Section 12), is six days older than a year ago and four days older than in June, with the median up by the same six days, so the whole used lot aged rather than only its tail. The days-on-market rows tell the same story with larger numbers: new cars sold six days faster than a year ago, used cars three days slower, and the unsold used stock aged seven days over the year.

What the gap between the two clocks tells us. Days on site runs below days on market by about four days on new cars sold and five on used, and 13.7% of the new and 13.2% of the used cars Penske sold this quarter were younger on their selling site than on the market; the shares have barely moved from a year ago (13.0% and 13.8%). That is the narrow end of the range among the eight dealer groups we cover: Lithia, which advertises its cars on a national website as well as its store sites, shows the widest gap, and Carvana, which sells through one website, almost none. Penske has no central sales website in our data; a group-level site carried 1.3% of its units this quarter and is treated as a store. Movement between Penske's own stores explains little of the gap: only 0.1% of new and 0.5% of used sales were followed by the same car reappearing at another Penske store within 60 days, and only 0.0% of the new and 0.2% of the used cars on its lots at September 30 had changed selling store within their listing. Instead, 8.8% of the new and 12.9% of the used cars on the lots were younger on site than on the market from the first day we observed them, which is what a car that was advertised elsewhere before it reached the Penske store would look like, whether from another dealer's lot, a dealer trade or a wholesale purchase that had been listed at retail (our interpretation). The brand with the widest gap is Audi on new cars, 88 days on market against 55 on site; Compass cannot tell us where those cars were listed before, and we have not confirmed the reading. For every other brand the two clocks sit within a few days of each other, so for Penske the choice of clock changes the level of its aging figures by a few days and changes none of the year-over-year readings.

7bMarket Days Supply (how long the whole lot would last)

Market Days Supply divides the cars on hand at September 30 by the average number sold per day in the 45 days ending that day (August 17 to September 30).

New Market Days Supply of 53 sits inside the typical range for franchise dealers (46 to 80 days) and is 2 days below a year ago. Used Market Days Supply of 38 sits at the top of its typical range (27 to 40 days), up from 31 a year ago and 34 in June. It rose because used stock grew 19% while used sales fell. Used stock here excludes cars listed more than 180 days at the same store (Section 12); on the unfiltered lot the figure would be 43, above the typical range and the highest of the 15 quarters in our data for Penske, which is how the earlier draft of this report read it.

Against management's figures. At June 30 Penske reported 51 days of new supply and 44 days of used (management's own disclosure). Our Market Days Supply figures at June 30 were 52 for new, 102% of the company's figure, and 34 for used after the service-loaner exclusion (38 before it), 78% of the company's figure (86% before the exclusion). Management's figures use a one-month selling rate and count stock on the lot, and we do not know whether its used count includes service loaners; Section 12 sets out the difference.

Coherence check. Sold days on site divided by Market Days Supply is 84% for new and 86% for used, against the ranges in which the two normally sit, 62% to 100% for new and 76% to 114% for used, derived on sold days on site over complete quarters since 2023; both sit inside their ranges. The used ratio is taken on the unfiltered lot (Market Days Supply 43 rather than 38), because the service-loaner exclusion does not enter benchmark comparisons. On the days-on-market clock the ratios are 91% for new and 97% for used against ranges of 69% to 108% and 82% to 124%, inside their ranges, so the inventory and sales figures agree with each other on both clocks.

Against franchise dealers, brand by brand. Each figure shows Penske's Market Days Supply for a brand as a percentage of the Market Days Supply of all franchise dealers for the same brand at the same date. 100% means Penske is in line with franchise dealers of the same makes; below 100% means it carries less supply than they do.

On new cars Penske carries less supply than franchise dealers in six of its eight largest brands, most clearly Mercedes-Benz and Toyota, and is in line in Land Rover. On used it carries less than franchise dealers in every one of its eight largest brands once service loaners are set aside; the used figures exclude the same long-listed cars as the rest of the used inventory, while the franchise benchmark does not, so the comparison flatters Penske by the size of its loaner fleet. Before the exclusion, Audi (116%) was the one brand above the benchmark and BMW (99%) was in line.

08Electric Vehicle Sales

Why it matters: the federal electric-vehicle purchase credit ended on September 30, 2025, so buyers pulled purchases into the year-ago quarter. Year-over-year comparisons are against an inflated base. Penske has not discussed North American electric-vehicle sales on its recent calls, so this section is context and does not feed the signal.

New fully electric sales fell a little faster than the market's 52.6%, and Penske's share of the market's new battery-electric sales slipped from 1.4% to 1.2%. BMW (453) and Toyota (342) led its new electric sales. Used fully electric sales rose 27.3% against 11.5% for the market, led by BMW (583) and Tesla (201).

Hybrids. Hybrids of all kinds were 49.1% of Penske's new sales in our data, and full hybrids alone 32.6%. Full hybrids sold in 30 days on average, against 51 days for gasoline cars.

09The Positive Case

New pricing is firm. Penske's new cars sold 0.3% below sticker, 1.2 points closer than a year ago, while franchise dealers moved 0.2 points. Within luxury, new stock is listed at what luxury new cars sell for, so there is no sign of a markdown overhang in the new lot.

New stock is well run. New Market Days Supply of 53 is inside the typical range and 2 days below a year ago, new cars sold seven days faster on site than a year ago, and Penske carries less supply than franchise dealers in Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, Honda, BMW, Audi and Porsche.

Our used count is more likely too low than too high. In the second quarter our same-store used figure read 7.1 points below the company's, and our new figure 2.4 points below (our interpretation).

The used build fits management's plan. Penske expected rising lease returns, and the used cars it sold were younger: 43.6% were two model years old or newer, against 38.8% in the second quarter. Once service loaners are set aside, used Market Days Supply sits inside the typical range, and Toyota, its largest used brand, carries far less used supply than franchise dealers (72% of the franchise benchmark).

10The Negative Case

The new-car lead is gone. Our same-store new figure went from 1.5 points ahead of the market in the second quarter to 1.2 points behind. Excluding El Monte, new sales fell in every month of the quarter.

The used lot grew much faster than used sales. Used stock rose 18.9% from a year ago while used sales fell, used Market Days Supply rose to 38, the top of the typical range, and the share of used stock over 90 days on site rose to 9.6% from 6.9%, with the average unsold used car six days older on site than a year ago.

The aged stock sits in the expensive brands. 12.2% of luxury used stock and 55.5% of new Porsche stock had waited more than 90 days at the store selling them, against 7.4% of mainstream used stock. The used discount from first ask deepened each month of the quarter. Our data cannot say what this does to used profit per car.

11ADid Management Get It Right Last Quarter?

Sources: Penske Automotive Group Q2 2026 earnings call transcript (July 29, 2026) and Q2 2026 Form 10-Q (quarterly report). "Fact" claims describe the prior quarter; "Guidance" claims describe this one.

Our new-car measure ran 2.4 points below the company in the second quarter on the store-level panel and the used measure 7.1 points below, both in the same direction, which is why the new slowdown this quarter carries medium weight and the used volume reading little.

11BWhat to Watch on the Earnings Call

1. Same-store new units. Our same-store new sales went from 0.4% growth in the second quarter to a 4.2% decline, in a market down 3.0%. What was Penske's U.S. same-store new change, and how did volume foreign and premium brands compare?
2. The used build. Used stock rose 18.9% from a year ago and used Market Days Supply rose to 38, with 9.6% of used stock over 90 days on site, after setting aside 1,678 cars listed more than 180 days at the same store as service loaners. How much of the build is lease returns, does the company's 44-day used supply figure count its loaner fleet, and what happened to used gross profit per car, which our data cannot measure?
3. Luxury aging. 55.5% of new Porsche stock and 32.6% of new Audi stock had waited more than 90 days at the store selling them. Is manufacturer support keeping pace with the aged luxury stock?
4. Portfolio. Which stores were bought and sold in the third quarter, and is Tenafly, New Jersey, among them? Its sales fell from 413 in the second quarter to 9 in our data.
5. New pricing. Our data shows new cars selling closer to sticker than a year ago. Did the share of new units sold at sticker hold near the 24% reported for the second quarter?

11CPost-Print Accuracy Summary (Penske Q3 2026 Results, October 28, 2026)

What this section is: This section was added after Penske Automotive Group reported Q3 2026 results on October 28, 2026. Penske held no earnings call for the quarter, citing its pending take-private by Motown Acquisition Corp., an entity owned by Penske Corporation and Mitsui & Co., announced on October 15, 2026; the earnings release is the only company source. Everything above this section is the report as written, unchanged.

Scorecard: Of 31 vehicle-transaction calls that could be tested against what Penske reported, 20 were confirmed, 10 were partly right and 1 was missed. Another 10 could not be tested: with no call there was no management commentary to answer our watch items, and the release gives no figures for electric vehicles, lease returns, the share of new cars sold at sticker, discounts or individual states. Penske’s release also gives unit figures worldwide only, with no U.S. split, so every unit comparison below is against a worldwide figure. The Neutral verdict was right: worldwide new retail units fell 1.1%, used retail units rose 2.1% and new and used vehicle revenue rose 1.8% to $5.6 billion. Profit per car softened on both sides, with new gross profit per unit (GPU) down 2.5% to $4,524 and used GPU down 6.6% to $1,946. Total revenue rose 4.5% to $8.4 billion and earnings per share (EPS) were $3.36 against $3.41 a year earlier, including $0.07 a share of take-private costs; commercial trucks, service, finance and insurance and the international business, which sit outside vehicle transactions in the United States, drove much of that result.

What we got right: The quarter was flat and the composite said so. The call that carried the most weight held: Penske’s new-car lead over the market faded, with same-store new units going from up 3.7% in the second quarter to down 1.2%, a swing of 4.9 points against 4.6 in our data. New supply was disciplined, as called: Penske’s own new days’ supply eased to 49 from 51 in June. The report did not read the headline growth in our data as demand, because the Longo Toyota and Lexus stores in El Monte, California entered our data in full only in early 2026; Penske counts those stores in both years too. The report also warned that our used volume reads low, and it did again. Finally, the negative case raised used profit per car as a question rather than a call, and used GPU fell 6.6%.

What we missed and why: One call was wrong: the negative case said the used lot had grown much faster than used sales. Penske’s used retail units rose 2.1% and its own used days’ supply held at 44, level with June. Our used Market Days Supply rose because it divides used stock by our used sales count, the very figure the report had said reads low; it should have been read against Penske’s own days’ supply history. The used inventory lens leaned bearish for the same reason, though used profit did come under pressure. On new pricing, a narrower gap to sticker was read as pricing strength; prices did hold, with revenue per new car up 1.7%, but new GPU and new gross margin fell. Our price is the advertised price, which from spring 2026 began to include dealer fees after Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforcement, a step of about 1.1 points on the new price-to-sticker ratio; that note should have sat beside the summary price figures, not only in Section 6. Separately, our data overstated Toyota’s weight in Penske’s new sales: the Neutral brand reading held, but its premise did not.

Bottom line: Read this report for the flat quarter, the fading new-car lead and new supply, which held up. Treat its used inventory read and its new-pricing read with caution, read our Penske used unit counts and Toyota weighting only beside the company’s own figures, and keep in mind that Penske reports units worldwide only.

12Methodology and Glossary

Where the data comes from

Primary data source: MarketCheck Compass parquet files were the primary data source: North American new and used retail sales and the daily inventory panel, filtered to Penske Automotive Group's dealer-group ticker. Sales cover July–September 2026 (current quarter), April–June 2026 (prior quarter) and July–September 2025 (year-ago quarter). The inventory snapshot is September 30, 2026, the true quarter-end; the data run through at least October 9, 2026. Every Penske sales record in our data is in the United States or Puerto Rico.

Compass totals, Q3 2026: new 50,741 units and $2.8B; used 31,769 units and $1.1B; combined $3.8B.

Revenue basis. Revenue is the sum of captured selling prices and is not units times average price. The share of used sales without a captured price was 12.4% in Q3 2025, 10.5% in Q2 2026 and 8.2% in Q3 2026 (new: about 1.4% or less in each).

Basis line. Inventory basis: Compass panel for unit counts, list prices and Market Days Supply. Aging basis: days on site leads every aging figure in this report (Sections 3, 4, 5, 6d, 9, 10 and 11); days on market is shown and analyzed in Section 7a only. Days on site: the Compass site counter, re-anchored at each observed reset. Sold and active days on market: measured from the opportunity start date. The over-90-day shares count cars with more than 90 days on site at the snapshot; on the days-on-market clock the same shares are 23.6% new and 12.3% used at September 30 (21.9% and 9.8% a year ago). Market Days Supply: cars on hand on the last day of the quarter divided by the average number sold per day in the 45 calendar days to quarter-end (ds_denominator = t45); benchmarks and baselines installed October 19, 2026. Management's days-of-supply figures use a one-month selling rate and count stock on the lot; ours uses the 45 calendar days to quarter-end and every advertised unit. The two are compared directly, with that difference in mind. New-vehicle Market Days Supply counts every advertised unit, including units advertised before they reach the dealership; company-reported figures count stock on the lot and are not directly comparable.

Market share denominator. Market share is computed against MarketCheck Compass-captured North American retail transactions for the same period, not against total US registrations or company-reported deliveries. Coverage of new-vehicle retail runs approximately 80–95% of the actual market and varies by brand, so these figures are a consistent relative measure across periods, not an absolute share of the true market.

What this signal is built on, and what it does not adjust for

Volume, revenue and share in this report are what MarketCheck captured, not the company's results. The direction stated is our reading of the transaction evidence, not a forecast of Penske's reported numbers.

Coverage record. Penske reports retail units only for the whole company, including the United Kingdom and its other international stores, so no U.S. unit count exists to divide ours by, and a coverage rate is not computable. As a bound, our captured U.S. vehicle revenue for the second quarter ($3.9 billion) equals 90.2% of all of Penske's U.S. retail automotive revenue ($4.4 billion), which also includes service and parts, finance and insurance, and fleet and wholesale sales. Those lines are 19.9% of revenue company-wide; if the U.S. mix were the same, our captured revenue would be about 1.1 times the company's U.S. vehicle revenue. That figure rests on an allocation assumption and is not a measured rate.

Waiver disclosure 1: coverage likely above 1.00. Our rules treat a coverage rate above 1.00 as a stop condition. Here the rate cannot be computed, and the bound above suggests our captured figures run above the company's U.S. vehicle sales. The analyst directed on October 12, 2026 that coverage be recorded as not computable and likely above 1.00, with this disclosure. Our unit and revenue levels should therefore be read as likely above Penske's reported U.S. figures; growth rates are less affected. The measured gap between our change and the company's in the second quarter is the better guide:

On the zip-code panel used in the earlier draft of this report, our second-quarter same-store change was +3.7% for new and −2.8% for used, 0.9 points above and 5.8 points below the company. The store-level panel reads lower on both, so it is not yet shown to be the more accurate of the two; it is adopted because it compares what the company compares, stores, and because the gap it leaves runs in one direction.

Same-store panel. Stores are identified by the Compass seller website; the dealer identifier was not usable across years because its numbering changed in January 2026. A store is comparable when its first Penske sale in our data is on or before July 1, 2025 and it sold in the quarter just ended; stores first seen after that date are treated as acquired, stores with no sales this quarter as departed, and both are left out. Stores whose volume moved more than fourfold between the two quarters, with at least 150 units in one of them, are left out of both. Websites that changed identifier over the year were matched by seller name where the old and new records are within 45 days of each other, which kept seven re-platformed Porsche stores and two Mercedes-Benz stores as one store each; Porsche Stevens Creek and Porsche Beachwood changed identifier with a longer gap and are counted as one departed and one acquired store each, which does not move the comparable panel. El Monte (Longo Toyota and Lexus, Penske Motor Group) is in Penske's own same-store figures because the company restated its prior periods after a common-control acquisition; its websites first carry Penske sales in our data on January 23, 2026, so the panel sets them aside as acquired, and they are included in the quarter-over-quarter comparison, at the analyst's direction. The company's own same-store comparison is built store by store on its own ledger; our quarter-level rule approximates it.

What our quality checks found

Inventory snapshot date. September 30, 2026, the true quarter-end; Compass inventory quarter-end: 30,306 new and 14,735 used, of which 12,992 used after the service-loaner exclusion.

Days-on-site basis for sold within 30 days. The Section 6d speed figure counts used listings started at their selling store between the first day of the quarter and September 3, so that every listing could be followed for 30 days before the data edge. A listing is sold within 30 days when its sale record carries 30 or fewer days on site, and not sold when the car reached a 31st day on site in the inventory panel; listings that disappeared unsold before day 31 are in neither count. The franchise comparator is built the same way over all franchise dealers. This cohort is not the listing-day cohort used for the price-position figures above it.

Service-loaner exclusion (interim rule). Dealers keep some cars for service customers to drive and advertise them while they do, and those cars should not count as stock for sale. Pending a company-wide definition of a service loaner, every used inventory figure in this report (units, list prices, aging, asking premium, Market Days Supply and the brand-level supply comparison) excludes cars that had been listed more than 180 days at the same store on the snapshot date, read from the days-on-site counter. At Penske the rule removes a large block: 1,678 used cars at September 30, 11.4% of the used lot, against 1,481 at June 30 and 1,324 a year ago, the largest share among the franchise dealer groups we cover. The cars set aside look more like a loaner fleet than aged stock: at September 30 they averaged 311 days on market and a $55,598 list price, 72.2% had under 10,000 miles, and the group as a whole averaged 21,666 miles; the largest block is at BMW, whose used stock falls from 2,585 cars to 1,893 after the exclusion. Readers who prefer the unfiltered lot should know that it is older and larger: active used units 14,735 against 12,992, Active DOM 75 days against 45, over-90-day share on site 19.9% against 9.6%, used Market Days Supply 43 against 38, and used asking premium 14.1% against 8.9%; the year-over-year direction of every used inventory reading is the same on both bases. New inventory is not filtered: the 2,010 new units over 180 days on site average 62 miles and 271 days on market and are aged stock, not loaners. Sold figures are unchanged.

State notes. Arizona and Georgia used sales fell more than 10% with no matching store sale on record. Same-rooftop continuity and MarketCheck coverage stability at those stores have not been independently checked.

Listing Price Position. Listing Price Position compares each used car's opening asking price with MarketCheck Price, MarketCheck's model estimate of the car's market value, at the listing's first recorded status change. It describes where the dealer set the price, not what the car sold for. This quarter's position (+0.006) sits inside Penske's observed range (−0.001 to +0.011).

Directional read for grading. Penske's used listing position against franchise dealers moved by −0.002, from +0.008 to +0.006. Under the grading rule, that is logged as no directional read for used gross profit per car. It is recorded for the post-earnings accuracy review only and does not feed the signal.

Lenses. Selling Margin Pressure (Section 6e) is descriptive and does not feed the signal. Electric-vehicle tracking is shown as context only because Penske gives no North American electric-vehicle disclosure to grade it against. Brand equity is applied to Toyota, which is more than two-fifths of new sales. Overhead is outside our data; management guided to overhead in the low 70s as a share of gross profit, so we take no view.

What we cannot see

Outside MarketCheck's scope for Penske: Finance & Insurance income; parts, service and collision work; Penske International (the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Japan and Australia, including agency sales); Premier Truck Group commercial trucks; Penske Transportation Solutions; wholesale and auction sales; gross profit per vehicle; floor-plan interest and overhead; and fleet sales not advertised at retail.

Sources of figures. Every figure in this report comes from MarketCheck data unless the text names another source, such as a company filing or management's comments on its earnings call. Only figures from those other sources carry a source label.

Plain-English Glossary

Prepared by MarketCheck Research using the Anthropic Claude LLM. This report describes North American retail vehicle transaction activity only and is not investment advice.

We welcome your feedback. To offer comments, suggestions for future coverage, or to inquire about licensing this report or the MarketCheck data behind it, including vehicle-level sales, inventory and pricing data, contact Bryant Sheehy at bryant.sheehy@marketcheck.com.