The Jeep Wrangler Unlimited retained the highest percentage of its value after the first year of ownership, according to analysis conducted by ISeeCars.com, a consumer shopping portal for used cars.
The Wrangler emerged from a survey of 6 million new and used cars, by the site. Other high-retention vehicles included the Toyota Tacoma, Toyota 4Runner, Nissan Frontier, Honda Pilot, Chevrolet Colorado, Honda HR-V, Jeep Renegade, and Subaru WRX. All of these vehicles experienced less than 15% depreciation through the one-year period. The difference between the price of a new model and a used model was 8.9% through the year, according to ISeeCars.com.
Trends in recent months have been fairly similar to these findings. Truck segments are by and large continuing to see low levels of depreciation. Different from last year, however, is a boost to small car retention. Small cars at auction have been seeing week-over-week gains to their prices for nearly two months.
The first quarter of the year, when buyers receive their tax returns, has been partly credited to the gains that small cars have seen, given that the price of entry for a small car at auction is relatively low compared to larger vehicles. Anil Goyal, executive vice president, operations, for Black Book, has noted that the value proposition for the amount of features a wholesale buyer can get for the money they spend for a small car has gotten pretty high for late model years.
Gas prices have also been on the rise, which may begin to influence demand for various segments at auction.
Meanwhile, the top eight vehicles with the lowest retention rates mainly belonged to the luxury segment, a segment that has been struggling at auction for a number of years.
The Cadillac XTS, Jeep Compass, Mercedes-Benz E-Class, Lincoln MKZ, Cadillac CTS, Infiniti Q50, Toyota Camry, and Kia Sedona rounded out the top eight list, in order from lowest to highest retention. The Cadillac XTS experienced 38.7% depreciation after its first year, and the Kia Sedona experienced 30% depreciation, the rest of the vehicles fell somewhere between that range.
One reason that luxury vehicles have struggled is the growing amount of amenities that mainstream brands have been able to include in their vehicles. Many features that used to be exclusive to luxury vehicles have begun to appear in higher-trim version of mainstream brands. Buyers are finding that they can get almost the same amount of features for less money by choosing a mainstream brand over a luxury brand.
In recent months, the luxury vehicles have continued to struggle at auction, both in the car segment and the truck segment.
