Vehicle sales in Canada fell 10 per cent last month, with declines at DaimlerChrysler Canada Inc., Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd. and General Motors of Canada Ltd. pushing those auto makers to their lowest combined market share yet.

Sales slumped to 121,094 cars, trucks, minivans and sport utility vehicles from 134,694 in October, 2002. The traditional Big Three's market share fell to 52 per cent of the market from 55 per cent a year earlier.

Sales for GM Canada tumbled 18 per cent to 30,806 vehicles from 37,531.

GM vice-president of sales Marc Comeau pointed to three new models arriving from South Korea this month as a reason for optimism that sales will jump in November and December.

DaimlerChrysler Canada sales slid 8 per cent to 16,684 from 18,204 in October, 2002. Bob Clark, vice-president of sales, said sales of Caravan minivans and Ram pickups jumped, while the Pacifica crossover utility vehicle posted its best numbers since arriving on dealers' lots in the spring.

Sales of the redesigned F-series pickup soared 16 per cent at Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd., but that wasn't enough to haul overall sales higher.

Ford's sales dropped 14 per cent to 15,801 vehicles from 18,458 a year earlier.

"All three of them have suffered from a lot of very competitive models from the Japanese and the Europeans," said Richard Cooper, executive director of Canadian operations for consulting firm J.D. Power and Associates.

It wasn't all rosy, however, for offshore-based auto makers. Honda's sales fell 13 per cent to 13,025 from 14,982 a year earlier. Hyundai Auto Canada also reported a 13-per-cent slide, while sales for Mazda Canada Inc. dipped 12 per cent.

Canadian consumers may not be feeling the urgency to buy new vehicles, Mr. Cooper said, although Power's forecast for sales in Canada this year still stands at 1.63 million. That's still a strong year, although it would be down from last year's record level of slightly more than 1.7 million.

He pointed to strong new products from Japan-based companies such as Mazda with its Mazda6 and Mazda3 cars, a host of new products from Nissan Canada Inc. and the Accord mid-sized, which was new last year from Honda, but is still a strong entry.

Several offshore-based companies reported record October sales, including Nissan's Infiniti division, BMW Canada Inc. and Toyota Canada Inc. Nissan's overall sales fell 2 per cent despite the record performance by Infiniti.

Toyota's sales rose 9 per cent, which was the best performance among the major companies.

Canadian vehicle sales over all have risen in just two months this year, July and February.

For the first 10 months, they fell 5 per cent to 1.37 million vehicles from 1.44 million in the first 10 months of 2002.