Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Buyers who have been waiting for better deals on new cars may be disappointed.

General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co., bucking decades of tradition, are weaning themselves from dependence on profit- sapping discounts after factory shutdowns curbed dealers’ supply of cars and trucks.

Incentives on GM, Ford and Chrysler Group LLC autos plunged 26 percent to $3,278 in August from a March peak, while discounts industrywide fell 22 percent to $2,474, according to researcher Edmunds.com. The U.S. automakers’ vehicles sold for an average of $2,000 more in the second quarter than a year earlier, said researcher J.D. Power and Associates.

“As we suffered through the worst automotive recession in our lifetimes, the lesson automakers learned was to stay under control and not bloat inventory, which you have to follow with huge incentives to move the metal,” said Jeff Schuster, an analyst at J.D. Power. “From now on, we’re going to see a more cautious approach to incentives.”

The paucity of bargains for consumers is a healthy sign for Detroit automakers once willing to pile on money-losing rebates to win more market share, said Schuster, who is based in Detroit. Now, the companies are finally matching output to demand, he said.

Boosting the price paid by buyers, not just the number on the window sticker, is pivotal. Ford, alone among the domestic trio in avoiding bankruptcy, lost $30 billion in the past three years, while GM and Chrysler relied on $65 billion in U.S. loans to reorganize in court.

‘Pull the Trigger’

Ford buyers paid an average of $2,000 more for each vehicle in the second quarter, according to the automaker. That translated into a $900 million increase in net pricing in North America during the period, Ford Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth said July 23. Researcher Autodata Corp. estimated that Ford pared spending on discounts 27 percent this year.

The average price per vehicle commanded by GM, Ford and Chrysler in the U.S. rose 7.8 percent to $27,571 in the second quarter, from $25,567 a year earlier, according to J.D. Power. Industrywide, average vehicle prices rose to $26,921 in the second quarter from $25,954 a year earlier, Westlake Village, California-based J.D. Power said.

“If your inventories are aligned with demand, there’s not as much temptation to pull the trigger and match the competition with incentives,” George Pipas, Ford’s sales analyst said in an interview.

‘No Deals’

Detroit teacher Doris McDaniel, who was shopping on Sept. 25 at Avis Ford in Southfield, Michigan, said she was frustrated at finding few bargains in searching for a fuel-efficient new car to replace her Nissan Motor Co. truck.

“With the way the economy is, I was thinking cars should be much cheaper,” McDaniel, who wouldn’t give her age, said in an interview. “After the clunkers thing, I thought the incentives would still be out there. But there’s no incentives. No deals. No anything.”

When a salesman showed her a $41,000 Flex wagon in the showroom, she peered at the price and said, “Too much.”

Extended summer plant closings at GM and Chrysler halted the flow of new autos amid sales at the worst levels in almost 30 years, while Ford cut inventory in half since the start of the year. The U.S. cash for clunkers program shrank supplies to the lowest since at least 1985, according to researcher Ward’s AutoInfoBank of Southfield, Michigan.

Toyota’s Way

A lack of cash also crimped U.S. automakers’ discounting, J.D. Power’s Schuster said. Japan’s two biggest automakers, Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., have long championed limiting inventory to curb incentives, he said.

Toyota offered discounts averaging $1,584 on each vehicle this year and Honda’s figure was $1,567, according to Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey-based Autodata. GM’s spending averaged $3,418 through August, while Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford’s was $2,811 and Chrysler’s was $4,407, Autodata estimated.

Rebate fatigue also may be shaping Detroit’s retreat from incentives, said Jessica Caldwell, an auto analyst with Santa Monica, California-based Edmunds.com. Even record discounts earlier this year couldn’t shield the U.S. auto market from a 28 percent sales decline through August under the pressure of job losses and plunging home values.

Detroit automakers began turning to rebates more than 30 years ago, when Chrysler used former baseball player-turned- announcer Joe Garagiola in a 1975 Super Bowl commercial with the catchphrase, “Buy a car, get a check.”

GM unveiled no-interest loans on most models after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and in 2005, the year after its last profit, offered employee discounts to all buyers.

‘All Been Done’

This month, the biggest U.S. automaker offered a 60-day money-back guarantee to help regain credibility with car buyers.

“The big blockbuster, peanut-butter-approach programs like zero-percent financing and employee discounts for everyone have all been done before,” John McDonald, a spokesman for Detroit- based GM, said in an interview.

With assembly lines cranking up again now that inventory is depleted, the incentives restraint at GM, Ford and Auburn Hills, Michigan-based Chrysler may be tested, Caldwell said.

“Automakers have to pull the lever and increase production in an unknown market,” she said. “They could find there are no buyers out there and have to raise incentives again. It’s a vicious circle.”

September U.S. sales probably will run at an annual rate of 9.34 million vehicles, 34 percent lower than in August when the clunkers program was in place, Edmunds said Sept 24. That’s better than Edmunds’ Sept. 17 forecast for an 8.8 million pace.

Not Chasing ‘Blindly’

Ford, which posted its first sales gains since 2007 in July and August, said Sept. 16 it expects to boost 2009 market share while keeping inventory and spending in check. “We’re not just chasing market share blindly,” Ford’s Booth told investors at the Frankfurt Motor Show Sept. 16.

Ford fell 4 cents to $7.45 at 4:02 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The company’s shares have more than tripled this year.

Toyota’s plan to spend $1 billion on fourth-quarter advertising, incentives and other marketing support is “larger than average,” Irv Miller, group vice president for Toyota’s U.S. sales unit, said in a Sept. 16 interview.

Gordon Stewart, a Toyota and Chevrolet dealer, said he hopes the ad blitzes from the two automakers will stimulate sales that have fallen to “the slowest ever” since the end of the clunkers discounts. He isn’t counting on big incentives.

“We’re in a transition period where people are waiting for the next deal and it’s just not coming,” said Stewart, who owns a Toyota store in Alabama and four Chevrolet outlets in Georgia, Florida and Michigan. “We’re just not going to buy business anymore.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Keith Naughton in Southfield, Michigan, at Knaughton3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 29, 2009 16:10 EDT