In May, new car sales fell 8% in Western Europe, driven by weakness in Spain and Italy.
The most profound fall was in Spain, but weakness was also evident in Italy (-18%), Germany (-6%) and Ireland.
There remain some bright spots such as markets in France (+8%), Belgium and the Netherlands.
“It is probably too early to conclude that we are about to see a pronounced downturn emerge, but the outlook has worsened slightly for 2008,” said JD Power which sees 2008 car sales in the 17 West European nations down 2% at 14.5 million cars.