Weblog Marc – Increase in value of used cars, sky-high used car prices

I recently had the most striking example with an Audi A3 e-Tron that I drove last month for a comparative used car test. That car was from 2015, with approximately 115,000 on the clock and the price tag stated an amount of €19,800. Quite a lot for a car that is almost ten years old, but it is the reality today. Now I’m going back to 2019, when I also had a 2015 A3 e-Tron in a test, against a Golf GTE. The car was four years old at the time and cost €18,900. Indeed, five years later you pay even more for the same car! A trend that we see with more used cars, if we compare the asking prices from, for example, 2019 with those of today. This has everything to do with supply and demand and the ever-increasing prices of new cars. Regardless of the fact that many more used cars are sold every year than new cars. It’s completely crazy with small cars. They always depreciated very little, but the prices are now really sky high. Two examples: at a brand dealer I see a manual Hyundai i10 iMotion Comfort Plus from 2014 with only 38,000 km on the clock. Sounds young, but we are talking about a ten year old car. The little one can come along for €8,000. Yes, you read that right: eight grand. New price, a decade ago? That was €12,000. A new i10 Comfort now costs €20,095. Or what about a VW Up, the fairly bare Take, 5-door, with air conditioning, 2017, 43,000 km for €9,450, with a new price of €12,573.

Many people have been pleasantly surprised during the trade-in conversation in recent years. No depreciation or even a small increase in value, for example if it concerns a used car purchased two years previously. Who would have thought? Well, the car you buy back may also be more expensive, but if you like the overall picture at that moment, you make a world deal. Even used diesels with acceptable mileage are no longer store-bought, not to mention the economical hybrids. It is a completely different story when trading in an electric car, which is not something the trade is looking forward to at the moment. If you bought a young used EV for top price last year, I wouldn’t even think about trading it in. That’s really going to hurt. Just look at the price of a 2019 e-Golf and compare it with a petrol version of the same year. The latter is a lot more expensive. If you want to switch to a second-hand EV and have a current petrol car to trade in, you can do good business. In any case, the prices of non-electric used cars do not appear to be decreasing, especially now that the BPM has already increased this year.