All three of the major U.S. automakers sell more pickup trucks than any other vehicle in their showrooms. Pickup sales account for anywhere between 20% and 40% of a carmaker’s monthly sales and very likely even more of an automaker’s profit.

In the month of March, Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) maintained its sales lead over competitors Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (NYSE: FCAU) and General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM), but monthly sales were anything but pretty for two of the three companies.

Ford introduced its all-new aluminum bodied F-Series late in 2014 but sales have not really taken off yet. Year-to-date sales are up 2.3% at the end of March, and total sales of 177,312 is higher than either Ram or the GM pair of Silverado and Sierra combined. A Ford executive told the Detroit Free Press that March sales of nearly 68,000 units “is a huge month when we are at 56 day[s of] supply, which by historic standards … is very tight supply.”

Chrysler’s Ram pickup sales were down 2% year-over-year in March, and up 5% for the year-to-date. Chevy Silverado pickup sales rose 7% in March to 45,193 units and year-to-date sales totaled nearly 127,000. The near-twin GMC Sierra posted a monthly sales gain of 3.2% and year-to-date gain of 7% with a 3-month total of more than 45,000 units sold.

Combined the three truck makers have sold more than 450,000 units in the first three months of 2015 compared with just over 420,000 in the same period a year ago. That’s overall growth of 7% and is just good enough to keep all three companies in the black for the quarter.

One mitigating factor contributing to the slower March sales is that there was one less weekend for sales this year compared with 2014. Another might be that new vehicle sales are not expected to grow as rapidly in 2015 as they have in the past couple of years. The sales spike had to taper off some time, and that time appears to be here now.

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