At the top of Mr. Jackson’s concerns is leasing, which is a way of renting a new car for a specified period of time, like 24 or 36 months. Customers like leases because they typically make lower monthly payments than if they bought cars with loans. Automakers and dealers like leases because they get more flexibility to structure deals that enable customers to get pricier cars with affordable payments.  Consider the lease secured by Allen Lin, a teacher from Altadena, Calif.  A few weeks ago, he walked into a Lexus dealership and drove out about two hours later with a 2016 RX 350, leased for three years at $408 a month. The small sport utility vehicle — one of the most popular on the market — had recently been fully overhauled, and redesigned car models typically sell with little or no discounts. But Mr. Lin paid no money up front, did not trade in his old car and got $5,000 knocked off the car’s list price of $43,779.  “If you can get a deal like this, it’s pretty sweet,” said Mr. Lin, 35.  Brian Smith, vice president for marketing at Lexus, said that leasing helped keep customers from straying to other brands but that Lexus did not use it to drive sales volume.  Luxury makers tend to lean on leasing more heavily than more middle-of-the-market brands. For example, more than half of all Lexus, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Acura cars are leased. Still, all automakers use leasing to some extent, and all shapes and sizes can be leased.  The three most-leased vehicles are the Honda Civic, the Honda Accord and the Toyota Camry, according to Experian Automotive.  A Honda spokesman said the Japanese automaker took a measured approach to leasing to maintain used-car values. Toyota said it also managed leasing with a focus on residual value.  In the past few years, some brands have significantly increased leasing. Five years ago, leases made up less than 20 percent of sales for Chevrolet, Hyundai and Mazda. Now it accounts for more than 30 percent of their sales.  A spokesman for General Motors said leasing helped Chevrolet increase sales and retain customers. Hyundai’s leasing levels are in line with industry practices, a spokesman said. Mazda limits lease discounting to maximize the value of used cars for customers, a company spokesman said.  But while leases can lift sales, they also pose risks for car companies and their finance arms. They have to borrow billions of dollars to finance leases, and then, after leases expire, they take the cars back and sell them through dealerships or at used-car auctions. Selling gently used cars can be a good business for dealers and can help automakers attract new customers.  But if they lease too many vehicles, or economic conditions sour, the value of used cars can fall and leave car companies with big losses.  That’s exactly what happened in 2008, when the market suddenly crashed and automakers and dealers were left a glut of cars coming off lease.  Some analysts worry that the industry could be heading for that kind of situation.  Dealers now have 3.8 million new cars in inventory, the most in 10 years, according to WardsAuto. On top of that, Experian reports that 1.8 million cars, moderately used during leases, are expected to enter the used car market this year, providing lower-cost alternatives to new cars.  This is happening at a time when consumer purchases of new cars are slowing.  In the first quarter of the year, sales to individual consumers rose less than 1 percent, compared with the same period a year ago, according to data from J.D. Power and Associates. In March, consumer new-car purchases, known as retail sales, fell 1 percent. But total sales are higher because of a big jump in sales to fleets, such as rental companies.  Car companies are also offering auto loans over longer periods of time. Edmunds.com found that more than 27 percent of all new cars sold in the first quarter went to customers who took out loans lasting 73 to 84 months, up from 23.4 percent in the same period a year ago.  “It feels like a tougher market now,” said Mark Wakefield, a managing partner at AlixPartners, a consulting firm with a large automotive practice. “It’s difficult to see where the growth is going to come from.”  Alix is predicting leaner times ahead. It sees vehicle sales rising about 2 percent this year to 17.8 million cars and light trucks, and then declining, slipping steadily to 16.2 million vehicles in 2019.  That leaves many automakers pushing lease deals to drive sales. This month, for example, BMW is offering a deal on its i3 electric car. It is available in many parts of the country for just $163 a month for 24 months, with no down payment. The deal is based on a price of $31,999 — a 32 percent discount from the car’s list price.  BMW’s leasing business ensures dealers have a steady stream of well-maintained, used models to offer value-minded customers, a company spokesman said. Such “certified pre-owned” cars also keep used BMW prices firm, he said.  Derrick Oxender, a commercial property owner in Ann Arbor, Mich., still had a few months to go on the three-year lease for his 2013 Ford F-350 diesel truck. He was paying $825 a month based on its list price of about $58,000.  But a salesman from his Ford dealer called and said he could turn in his 2013 truck and lease a 2016 model, loaded with extras like heated rear seats. Although his new F-350 is priced at $71,000, he got a new lease with a monthly payment of just $695.  “You have to be stupid not to do it,” Mr. Oxender said.  A version of this article appears in print on April 15, 2016, on page B5 of the New York edition with the headline: Automakers Revisit Tactics That Hurt Them Before Recession. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Under pressure to maintain record sales, the industry is offering ever-increasing discounts, relying more on sales to rental fleets and bloating dealers’ inventories.