Typhoons disrupting shipping schedules and need to rectify the latest edition of the country’s favourite ute factored in registrations’ tally.

SHIPMENTS out of Asia being weather-disrupted and a stop-sale order on the nationally-favoured Ranger influenced last month’s new vehicle registrations action, but the performance was strong nonetheless.

However, factors that came into play are being considered in the Motor Industry Association’s evaluation of the August registrations count, one of its strongest year-to-date.

All up 12,216 new vehicles were registered, a 4.2 percent lift on the tally for August 2025 and further bolstering the trend of more action relative to the first eight months of 2025, when the market was 9.7 percent lower.

Passenger product drove August’s figures, these accounting for 9136 registrations. That’s a 13.1 percent year-on-year rise for those. Light commercials - utes and vans - clocked 2579 registrations in August, a 14.7 percent drop year-on-year.

The Ford that commonly performs strongly in the latter achieved only 571 registrations, the lowest accrual in years.

But Ranger effectively ceased availability on August 13; being the subject of an order to remedy a assembly fault specific to the Model Year 26.5 units that have been rolling in since July and deliver a new 2.0-litre diesel as an alternate to the ongoing V6.

In all 2602 Ranger Double Cabs are being recalled, over an airbag trim issue, of which 900 had actually reached customers.

There’s potential the side curtain airbags may interact with the B-pillar trim during inflation in a crash and not deploy as intended. The fix is a replacement of parts of the B-pillar trim, which Ford NZ said it would not begin attending to until this month. In the meantime, all deliveries have been stopped.

Although Toyota Hilux (above) secured the top spot for utes, with 890 registrations, and Japan’s No.1 also secured a top three for overall new vehicle registrations with its RAV4 on 886 and the Corolla Cross on 597, Ranger is still the dominant ute on year-to-date, siting around 1000 units above Hilux.

MIA chief executive Aimee Wiley did not mention Ford’s issue when commenting on the August return.

She did not that delays in shipments of stock caused by weather events overseas were also an influence.

“Typhoon-related shipping disruption also affected vehicle arrivals, so individual brand and model results for August should be interpreted with appropriate caution.”

She noted that NZ uptake of battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles did affect the passenger count; as of yesterday, those technologies were account for 25 percent of preference..

Regardless, August was not a stellar period for full electrics.

The BYD Atto3 topped the EV sector on strength of just 107 registrations, with Tesla Model Y second on just 89. The top PHEV was RAV4, with 485 heading into the market. But next was the Haval H6, on 69. Corolla Cross was the top hybrid, with 597 plated, then RAV4, on 401.

Toyota as always dominates the overall scene, with 3502 registrations accounting for 29 percent of the month’s plated count. Mitsubishi was second on 1254 registrations then Ford, on 889.