The iconic Porsche 911 is reportedly now worth more after three years on the road than it was … [+]
Porsche
There’s good and bad news for used-car shoppers. The good news is that used-vehicle prices are finally beginning to soften, dropping by an average $500 per unit in October to around $31,000, according to JD Power Valuation Services. Unfortunately, that’s still $1,000 more than at this point a year ago, and a whopping $8,000 higher than in pre-pandemic 2019.
For the sake of the uninitiated, new-vehicle shortages over the past two years have sent a disproportionate number of shoppers to the pre-owned side of the market out of sheer necessity, with the added demand decimating dealer inventories, and triggering stratospheric price increases .
At that, used-car prices remain sky-high, with supply and demand-related inflation jacking up the transaction prices of some well-used models beyond reason. The most eye-popping of the bunch is the iconic Porsche 911 sports car, which after three years on the road is selling for 5.7 percent more than its original sticker price, which amounts to an increase of $11,373. That’s according to a study of three million used car transactions sold from January to October 2022, conducted by the used-vehicle website iSeeCars.com.
“This is unprecedented in used vehicle pricing, says the website’s Executive Analyst Karl Brauer. “Finding multiple three-year-old used models worth more than their new MSRP is something we’ve not seen before.”
Here are the resale value champs among three-year old pre-owned vehicles that are worth more than when they were factory fresh, according to iSeeCars.com data:
- Porsche 911: +5.7%
- Toyota RAV4 Hybrid: +2.5%
- Jeep Wrangler Unlimited: +2.0%
- Porsche 718 Cayman: +1.8%
- Jeep Wrangler: +0.3%
Among cars that did lose value over a 36-month period, the unabashedly boxy Mercedes-Benz G-Class SUV holds onto its original value the most tenaciously, losing just 0.6 of its initial worth (which was already prohibitively expensive, starting at around $130,000 ). By comparison, in today’s market the average three-year-old vehicle loses 16.9% of its sticker price. Given lingering high fuel costs, the majority of the models on this list are fuel-efficient small cars and SUVs.
These are the models iSeeCars.com says depreciated the least over the last three years:
- Mercedes-Benz G-Class: -0.6%
- Honda Civic: -1.4%
- Subaru Crosstrek: -1.9%
- Toyota C-HR: -2.5%
- Porsche 718 Boxster: -2.5%
- Toyota RAV4: -2.6%
- Toyota Corolla Hatchback: -3.4%
- Kia Rio: -3.5%
- Chevrolet Camaro: -3.5%
- Tesla Model 3: -4.1%
Looking at five-year-old used vehicles, iSeeCars.com says the Jeep Wrangler comes out on top with an average depreciation rate of just 7.3 percent, which is considerably less than the national average of a 33.3% loss in value. At the other side of the ledger, costly luxury cars and SUVs top the list of older used models that suffer the highest rates of depreciation, with the flagship BMW 7 Series sedan dropping a whopping 56.9 percent of its transaction prices after five years.
Here are the models that have depreciated the least over the past five years:
- Jeep Wrangler: -7.3%
- Jeep Wrangler Unlimited: -8.7%
- Porsche 911: -14.6%
- Toyota Tacoma: -14.9%
- Honda Civic: -16.3%
- Subaru BRZ: -18.2%
- Ford Mustang: -19.4%
- Toyota Corolla: -19.8%
- Nissan Versa: -19.9%
- Chevrolet Camaro: -20.2%
Luxury car shoppers looking for a deal should consider any of these pre-owned vehicles that have already lost the most of their original values after five years, even in today’s inflated marketplace:
- BMW 7 Series: -56.9%
- Maserati Ghibli: -65.3%
- Jaguar XF: -54.0%
- Infiniti QX80: 052.6%
- Cadillac Escalade ESV: -52.3%
- Mercedes-Benz S Class: 51.9%
- Lincoln Navigator: -51.9%
- Audi A6: -51.5%
- Volvo S90: 51.4%
- Ford Expedition: -50.7%
You can read iSeeCars.com’s full report, including depreciation rates by vehicular segment, here.