The pandemic caused used car prices to go haywire. Everyone wanted to buy a car, but new ones weren’t available, so they decided to go to the used car markets. High demand resulted in high prices and chaos. While finding a new car at a dealership without a massive markup is still difficult, you’ll want to pay extra close attention to what car you buy because depreciation could be on your side or against you.
iSeeCars analyzed over three million three-year-old and five-year-old used cars sold in 2022 to find which vehicles hold onto their values and which ones depreciate like rocks. Because of the pandemic, used vehicles managed to retain their resale value more than before. But quite a few used vehicles had depreciation figures that crossed over 50%, which is well above the national average of 33%.
If you’re looking to avoid a vehicle with horrible resale value, you’ll want to stay far away from these 10 models:
- BMW 7-Series: 56.9%
- Maserati Ghibli: 56.3%
- Jaguar XF: 54%
- Infiniti QX80: 52.6%
- 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%
Saying that a car fell by over 50% in value over five years is one thing, but for some added context, the 7-Series sedan’s depreciation figure means it lost an average of $61,923 from its starting MSRP. That’s just over five years! The Ford Expedition, which seems like a great option from a resale standpoint when compared to the 7-Series, lost an average of $32,674 from MSRP over five years.
The vehicles aren’t all that surprising. Everyone that’s ever spent some time searching for a used vehicle on Craigslist knows that German luxury cars depreciate like graphics cards after a crypto crash. If you have a few seconds, check out how much a used Mercedes-AMG model costs compared to a new one. It’s almost sad.
With SUVs being such hot commodities these days, we are a little puzzled to see a few SUVs on the cars-to-stay-away-from list. iSeeCars believes that high gas prices played a large role in how severely these large SUVs depreciated.
So, if you want a vehicle that will hold onto its value well, you’ll want to avoid luxury cars and large SUVs. Instead, choosing a vehicle with little depreciation, like the Jeep Wrangler (7.3%), Porsche 911 (14.6%), Toyota Tacoma (14.9%), Honda Civic (16.3%), and Toyota Corolla (19.8%), is a safe bet.
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