#January2010AutoIndustrySales

As expected, sales of Toyota models dropped significantly in the first month of 2010, as last year’s largest automaker slipped to just third at the start of a new year. Toyota sales dropped 19 percent in January, while the industry overall posted a 6 percent improvement.

While all the bad press certainly didn’t help Toyota, one of the biggest factors was the automaker’s decision to halt sales of vehicles affected in a recall of 2.3 million cars and trucks due to potentially sticky accelerator pedals that could cause unintended acceleration. The models, which include: the 2009-2010 RAV4, 2009-2010 Corolla, 2009-2010 Matrix, 2005-2010 Avalon, 2007-2010 Camry, 2010 Highlander, 2007-2010 Tundra and 2008-2010 Sequoia. Those models, which were not on sale of the last six days of the month, make up 60 percent of Toyota’s dealer inventory.

Toyota Division General Manager Bob Carter admitted that the company had initially forecasted a sales increase of 4 percent.

Meanwhile, General Motors and Ford surged ahead on fleet sales, with GM posting a 14 percent gain while Ford surged ahead with a 25 percent increase, overtaking Toyota as the second largest automaker in the U.S. Ford did so by quite a margin too, moving 17,481 more vehicles than Toyota.

As for the rest of the auto industry, Chrysler continues to suffer with an 8 percent sales drop at 57,143 units. As a result Chrysler dropped from fourth to fifth, being surpassed by Nissan, while Hyundai managed a 13 percent gain to put it just 5,000 units behind Chrysler.

See after the jump for a full breakdown of U.S. Auto Industry sales in January: