Toyota’s pain is its rivals’ gain. All major automakers but Toyota reported higher U.S. sales in February, and most took customers from their powerful Japanese competitor, which has been struggling with a series of giant safety recalls. Toyota Motor Corp. said its U.S. sales fell 9 percent last month, while Ford, GM, Nissan, Honda and Hyundai all reported double-digit growth compared with February 2009, at the depth of the recession.

The U.S. auto industry rebounded from January 2009’s sales collapse. Sales of cars and light trucks to consumers rose 6 percent,  thanks to increases in fleet sales and demand for redesigned vehicles.

The most common deals under the government’s $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program, aimed at putting more fuel-efficient cars on the road, replaced old Ford or Chevrolet pickups with new ones that got only marginally better gas mileage, according to an analysis of new federal data by The Associated Press. The single most common swap—which occurred more than 8,200 times—involved Ford 150 pickup owners who took advantage of a government rebate to trade their old trucks for new Ford 150s.

After months of fluctuating sales, the auto industry offered signs of recovery from its yearlong slump, as most automakers reported yesterday higher levels of U.S. sales in October. GM, the largest U.S. automaker, reported its first monthly sales gain in almost two years, while Hyundai and Subaru were huge winners thanks for their popular models and fuel-efficient sedans. Other top automakers—Toyota, Ford, Nissan—also posted higher sales.

GM reported its first monthly gain in U.S. sales in almost two years while Toyota and Ford also improved, a sign the auto industry it starting to crawl back from a yearlong slump.

After a yearlong free fall in the American car market, the decline of sales slowed in June, offering hope to automakers that the bottom has been reached and that shoppers may slowly start returning to showrooms soon. Still, sales were down 7.1 percent from May, which generally is a stronger sales month. Overall, automakers sold 859,847 vehicles in June, a 28 percent drop from the same month last year, according to Autodata Corp.

Whitlow Chevrolet on Midlothian Turnpike in Chesterfield County is among the nearly 2,000 dealerships that General Motors is closing as part of its restructuring. In an advertisement in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, the dealer thanked customers for their patronage and that it had been told that the bankrupt manufacturer had “to go forward with a marketing plan that does not include Whitlow Chevrolet.“