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DETROIT - Ford's U.S. sales fell 8.1 percent in June and DaimlerChrysler slipped 1.8 percent while Nissan's U.S. sales rose 22.7 percent from a year ago, the automakers said Tuesday.

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The decline for Ford Motor Co. came as it continued to wean itself from low-profit sales to rental car companies.

Ford, including its U.S. and European brands, sold 246,415 light vehicles in the U.S. last month, down from 268,179 a year ago.

Overall, Ford car sales dropped 24.6 percent, while truck sales rose 2.9 percent. The company said sales of its F-Series pickup slipped 0.5 percent. But its Focus small car rose 20 percent.

Ford reported daily rental sales were down 39 percent compared with a year ago. In the first half of the year, rental sales dropped 30 percent.

DaimlerChrysler AG sold a total of 202,936 vehicles in the U.S. last month.

Chrysler Group's passenger vehicle sales, which include the Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge brands, fell 1.4 percent compared with June 2006, while Mercedes sales fell 5.8 percent during the same period.

DaimlerChrysler said Chrysler car sales were up 55 percent because of an ad campaign highlighting fuel efficiency of its models. The company did not break out truck sales, which offset the gain.

Jeep brand sales were up 19 percent, led by the new four-door Wrangler, the company said.

Auto sales statistics show the market was shifting toward gas-thrifty compacts in May in record numbers, and some analysts were expecting that to continue in June with $3-a-gallon gas. Because of the continued homebuilding slump, truck sales were expected to be down overall in June.

Nissan Motor Co.'s sales were boosted by the redesigned version of the Sentra small car, which increased 26.9 percent.

Automotive Web site Edmunds.com expected Nissan to have a good month because of the Sentra, introduced to coincide with the spike in gas prices.

The small-car trend was expected to hurt the Detroit Three, which rely more on sport utility vehicles and trucks for sales. Asian and some European automakers have increased incentives on small cars, which also makes them more attractive.

Edmunds.com estimated Tuesday that the average U.S. automaker incentive was $2,483 per vehicle in June, up 3.9 percent from May but down 5.1 percent from last June. Of the big carmakers, Edmunds.com said only Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. had higher incentives than a year ago.

The Associated Press reports unadjusted figures, calculating the percentage change in the total number of vehicles sold in one month compared with the same month a year earlier. Some automakers report percentages adjusted for sales days, which last month was 27 and in June 2006 was 26.