Cars that practically do not lose value
Many people choose a car according to the principle: “buy, then sell profitably". I am not a fan of this approach. In my opinion, the car should be bought in the first place, so that you like it and satisfy the maximum needs. But I won’t force my opinion on people. And if so, then keep a list of cars that almost do not depreciate with age. I will rely on data from Autostat, Avto.ru and my own experience.
More precisely, they lose in value, but less than the others, and given the increase in prices for new cars, it often turns out to sell in absolute terms for more conventional units than they bought.
In short, the popular Japanese and Koreans lose the least in price. But there are exceptions.
Typical examples of profitable cars to buy:
- Hyundai Solaris
- Kia Rio
- Hyundai ix35/Tucson
- Kia Sportage
- Mazda CX-5
- Toyota Rav4
- Hyundai Creta
- Toyota Corolla
- Toyota Camry
Everything is clear with Toyota. She has always lost very little in value. The reputation of the most reliable brand, Japanese quality and a developed dealer network is doing its job. Despite all my complaints about Toyotas as cars, I can’t say anything bad about reliability. Even against the background of a general decline in the quality, resource and durability of cars that Toyota has also undergone, in terms of reliability and resource they are still made with a larger margin than the same Koreans.
By the way, about the Koreans. They are leaders in reliability ratings based on the results of 3-5 years. And here they are no more. What can be the conclusion? These machines do not fail during the warranty period. And then, as practice shows, the suspension must be sorted out all over, on the engine, the box is in the trash, it pulls and needs to be replaced, the skin is all peeled off, the paint is rubbed, and so on and so forth. This is my subjective experience of communicating with Koreans, plus the reviews of the owners, but I think many will support me.
But the Japanese are great, taking into account long-term operation. So, the Americans conducted a study – I don’t remember exactly the name to refer to – in which they found out which brands the owners are in no hurry to part with. And the entire top 10 was entirely from Japanese cars (Rav4, Corolla, Camry, CR-V, Highlander, LC200, LC Prado, Pilot, Civic, Accord, Forester, Impreza and others). It is Japanese cars that live in the same family for 7-10 years. And this is the highest praise, because we all know how careless most Americans are about the car: they can go years without changing the oil and not going to MOT.
Kia Soul also got into the Russian ratings. But, in my opinion, this is some kind of statistical fluctuation associated with the release of a new generation. In general, the car is quite niche and relatively rare to be in the lead in terms of value retention. By the way, statistics from Auto.ru says that Soul is getting cheaper on average by 9% per year, which is quite a lot.
Another exception that breaks out of the “Japanese and Koreans” rule, which Russian analysts from Autostat and the “Right Price” project came up with, is the Skoda Rapid. And here I also disagree. Skoda, of course, is good in terms of consumer qualities and, probably, in many ways I would prefer it to Koreans, but it all depends on the version. Mechanical and automatic versions with naturally aspirated engines really hold the price well, but the turbo at work gets cheaper pretty quickly, despite much more enviable performance in terms of dynamics and efficiency. However, if averaged, it turns out, 10% loss of value per year.