Does anyone know what a car's depreciation curve looks like?

[eflat]

I know cars depreciate a lot during the first two years and then start to slowly level off.

I've been looking all over the internet for some actual graphs that I could look at but I can't seem to find any. Does anyone know where I could find this?

 

[FoBoT]

it will vary a lot from model to model

 

[Ryan]

Actually, most cars don't level off until 5+ years of ownership. Of course each year following the initial one will be less.

 

[crumpet19]

Pretty much like this:

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[vi edit]

Largely depends on the brand and model, but you can figure *most* vehicles will loose 40%-50% of their value after 3 years. After that, a lot of factors come into play but it's safe to say that each year it will drop another 15%-25 of it's current value each following year.

Each vehicle though has a certain point where it sort of flatlines in depreciation and just sits fairly even for a long time.

It's really hard to make any absolutes because remodeled styles, limited production runs, and overall desireablility of a particular vehicle can greatly influence the depreciation.

www.edmunds.com Has a *somewhat* accurate depreciation breakdown of vehicles.

 

[McCarthy]

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About like that

 

[Yossarian]

***bows to McCarthy's ASCII graph skillz***

 

[MystikMango]

Originally posted by: crumpet19
Pretty much like this:

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Yeah, just hold a wet noodle between your finger and thumb... there's your curve.

 

[Ornery]

• How's this?

 

[Black88GTA]

Depends on the car. Depreciation on a Taurus for instance is horrible, while you could sell an Accord that's a few years old for damn near what you paid for it.

A few cars depreciate somewhat, and then go back up after a few years, leveling out at relatively high price points. Buick Grand National and '89 Pontiac Turbo Trans Am are examples of these.

There's no hard and fast rule about depreciation, there are too many factors. Make/model of car, maintenance, mileage, overall condition, etc.

 

[MAME]

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L_____>

 

[DT4K]

Originally posted by: McCarthy
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About like that

Edited for when it gets old enought to become a classic.

 

[arcenite]

Originally posted by: MystikMango

Originally posted by: crumpet19
Pretty much like this:

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Yeah, just hold a wet noodle between your finger and thumb... there's your curve.

haha

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: crumpet19
Pretty much like this:

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i was thinking "it looks like florida" going left to right...

 

[Vic]

Varies by make and model. Other important factors are original purchase price, vehicle condition and mileage, length of manufacturers warranty, and whether or not the manufacturer offers large cash incentives to new car buyers.

 

[white]

i would imagine it's in the form of 1/x

 

[flot]

Just agreeing with everyone else. It is going to vary 10-50% based on particular model and maintenance/condition.

Basically there is no forumula that can help you. All you could do is settle on a particular model of car, and start doing milage/age comparisons with autotrader.com, but even that won't get you very much useful information, since the milage depreciation is likely to be independant of the age depreciation, and it'll be almost impossible to factor in condtion.

Ah, wait, another idea. Obviously someone has already done this. For a particular model, go to www.kbb.com and start typing in age / milage numbers. Now there's nothing to say that THEIR calculations are accurate, but at least it will be mathmatically derived.

 

[RU482]

on a similar note....I can't beleive how WELL the Pontiac Aztek is HOLDING it's value (or at least asking prices)