U.S. car and Truck sales slipped again last month as all major automakers reported declines except for General Motors Corp., and companies braced for some tough months ahead.

Overall U.S. sales dropped 4.3 percent in January compared with the same period last year, during a month that generally is the low point for the year. January sales projected for a full year amounted to 15.2 million, a decline of nearly a 900,000 vehicles from last year’s figures, according to Autodata Corp.

Despite optimism that interest rate cuts and a possible economic stimulus package could turn things around later this year, automakers and industry analysts weren’t expecting any near-term comeback.

“All the signs tell me that this economy is going to slow down further before things start to improve,” said Erich Merkle, vice president of auto industry forecasting for the consulting firm IRN Inc. in Grand Rapids.

With the Labor Department releasing figures on Friday showing that employers sliced payrolls by 17,000, Merkle said consumers are likely to become a little nervous about their own jobs.

“A new vehicle purchase is one of those things that you can hold off on,” he said.

But despite the slowing economy, GM, led by strong crossover vehicle sales, reported a January increase of 2.6 percent. The world’s largest automaker by sales grew its share of the U.S. market to 23.9 percent last month, up from 22.2 percent in January of last year.

But Toyota Motor Corp., Ford Motor Co., Chrysler LLC, Nissan Motor Co., and Honda Motor Co. all saw their sales drop.

Toyota, which had seen strong growth last year, said its January sales dropped 2.3 percent, to 171,849. Its performance still was strong enough to beat Ford for the No. 2 U.S. sales spot.

At Ford, sales declined 4 percent even when compared with a weak performance a year ago. The company said it sold 159,355 light vehicles for the month as it continued a strategy to wean itself from low-profit rental car sales. George Pipas, Ford’s top U.S. sales analyst, said sales to daily rental fleets were down 5 percent in January.

Chrysler saw its U.S. sales drop 12 percent as the company also tried to cut fleet sales. Chrysler’s car sales were up more than 25 percent year over year, but truck sales dropped 23.5 percent.

Nissan sales dipped 7.3 percent for January, while Honda’s fell 2.3 percent.

The overall decline means that automakers likely will raise rebates and zero percent financing in the coming months to stimulate demand, said Jesse Toprak, executive director for industry analysis at the auto information site Edmunds.com.

“It’s certainly a buyer’s market,” he said.

With the Federal Reserve ordering two big interest rate reductions in just over a week, the companies’ auto financing arms will be more likely to try to spur sales with low rates, he said.

“Falling interest rates bode well for the market. Today’s buyers are awash in good deals and good products,” said Toyota spokesman Xavier Dominicis.

GM saw nearly flat car sales, but its truck sales were up, fueled by its new crossover vehicles, the Buick Enclave, Saturn Outlook and GMC Acadia. Sales of those three vehicles combined more than doubled for the month.

Mark DiGiovanni, GM’s executive director of global market and industry analysis, said January’s increase was the result of a several-year effort to improve products and gain market share back from competition.

“This isn’t a one-hit wonder,” DiGiovanni said. “It’s not a one-month blip. It’s a two-and-a-half year trend.”

GM raised its average incentive spending in January to $3,402, about $1,000 more than January of last year, Toprak said. But it did so on pickup trucks and other slower selling models rather than across the board, he said.

Toyota saw car sales fall due in large part to an 18.7 percent drop in sales of its Corolla small car. But truck sales rose 2.2 percent, including a 91 percent increase in Tundra pickups. A revamped Corolla is just hitting the showrooms, which hurt sales of the old model, company officials said.

Ford’s car sales dropped 10.3 percent, while its truck sales slipped 0.7 percent. Ford said sales of its crossover vehicles, the Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX, improved with Edge sales up 95 percent and MKX rising 78 percent. A revamped Focus small car saw sales up 44 percent.

But sales of sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks fell. The F-series pickup, the top-selling vehicle in the U.S., saw an 8.4 percent drop, while Explorer SUV sales fell 18.7 percent compared with January 2007.

Automakers vowed not to get drawn into an expensive incentive war this year despite the challenging market. Jim Farley, Ford’s group vice president of marketing, said the company will target incentives to certain regions but won’t spend any more overall than 2007. He pointed out that Ford and GM were the only major automakers to decrease incentive spending in January compared with the year before.

“We’re continuing to run our business as we had, which is the same as our plan: Match our supply to demand and run our business profitably,” Farley said.

Mark LaNeve, GM’s vice president of North American sales, service and marketing, said the company will likely be more aggressive on incentives than it was in 2005 and 2006, especially as it tries to compete with new pickups coming this fall from Ford and Chrysler. But he said incentives will be targeted and sparing.

DiGiovanni applauded the recent interest rate cut and proposed federal economic stimulus package, saying that even though automakers don’t expect consumers to spend their stimulus money on cars, the package will give an immediate psychological boost.

“For our business, consumer confidence is really the key,” he said. “Everybody will feel better about themselves, about the security of their jobs, about their mortgages.”