NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — US auto sales this month may fall to their lowest rate in at least 25 years as showroom traffic slows, particularly for General Motors Corp. after its employee pricing deal ended, a Deutsche Bank AG analyst said.

October's seasonally adjusted annual rate, or SAAR, will probably decline to 11 million vehicles, Rod Lache wrote in a note to clients yesterday. That would be the first time the rate has gone below 12 million since April 1983, he said. The average SAAR in the first nine months of 2008 was 14.1 million, according to Bloomberg data.

"Several automakers have commented on a dramatic fall-off in customer traffic during the final week of September, and we believe that has continued," Lache said.

Purchases of GM vehicles may drop 50 percent, and Honda Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. sales probably also will decline, the New York-based analyst said.

Ford Motor Co. North American chief Mark Fields said yesterday that October sales showed no signs of improvement compared with recent months. Ford's total fell 35 percent in September amid a 27 percent industry-wide drop.

For the year, US industry sales are off 13 percent and may fall to 13.6 million from 16.1 million last year, according to researcher J.D. Power & Associates. That compares with an average 16.8 million annual sales this decade through 2007.

Citigroup Inc. analyst Itay Michaeli said yesterday in a note that October SAAR may drop to 12 million, which would be the lowest since March 1993, according to Bloomberg data. "On a volume basis, we expect the industry to decline approximately 25-30 percent," said Michaeli, who's based in New York.

GMAC LLC, the financing arm part-owned by GM, yesterday tightened its standards for auto loans, possibly adding to the carmaker's sales woes this year. Only buyers with credit scores of 700 or above will be financed, eliminating about 42 percent of US consumers.

"We still believe that developments in the credit markets will have broad negative implications for auto sales in the months ahead," Lache said in the note. GMAC's move "underscores capital constraints at the domestic captive finance companies".

GM's 18-percent sales decline this year is the second biggest, after Chrysler LLC's 25 percent drop, among the top 10 automakers by volume.

Only Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd.'s Subaru and Fiat SpA's Maserati have posted gains in the first nine months of 2008, according to Autodata Corp., a researcher based in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey.