In the firm's latest Pulse report, it shows that fleet values fell by under 1% (£64) to £7,349 in May, while CAP performance improved by a point to 94.27%. Sold volumes actually improved by a significant 21% compared to April, broadly returning to where they were in March. Year-on-year values are behind by £79 – just over 1%.

BCA said that May's decline is largely a reflection of the market peaking early in January and slowly declining from that high point ever since. 

Communications director Tony Gannon said: 'The fleet sector has a particular issue as there are still volumes of older, higher mileage and often poorly presented vehicles clogging the arteries.  Many of these have been entered for sale a number of times – usually with over optimistic expectations – and are continuing to depreciate the longer they remain unsold.  We echo the warning issued by NAMA last month that cars that are re-offered for sale a number of times rarely attract higher bids in subsequent sales.'

Average used car sold values climbed in May as the market recovered from the disrupted trading patterns experienced in April.

Values across the board improved to £5,790 in May from the £5,626 recorded in April, – a £164 increase that was equivalent to 2.9% gain.  It is the highest monthly average value recorded since February of this year.  Year-on-year, May 2011 is £134 (2.3%) ahead of the same month in 2010.  Sold volumes improved by a significant 9.2% compared to April.

Performance against CAP Clean improved by around one and a half points to 94.5% – almost exactly the same as the figure recorded in May 2010.