Depreciation

[thill]

Originally Posted by dsgerbc

Cough-rx8-cough.

I think that is due mostly to the horrible fuel economy. When gas hits $4-5 per gallon the RX-8 is like having another kid away at college...

[Moto-P]

The USED CAR market has been BOOMING in the last few years post 2008 in actuality.

This is due to the increased number of folks not being able to finance a NEW car per approval of banks, as well as much smaller number of cars returning from leases as fewer new cars have been sold since 2008, and this is about the peak year 3-4th that usual batch of leases are up.

Therefore, the fluctuation today for very high demand and lack of supply, is really unusual in the marketplace. Most useful, and economical cars as well as some upper tier luxury cars are fetching very high resale as the auction Black Book (a list of dealer's values not available to public, and about 3 months ahead in accuracy over Kelly's Blue Book, which is a guideline for general consumers) prices have been extremely high due to lack of number of cars (all dealers bidding higher to accommodate inventory requirements and customer orders for used cars).

There is a huge demand also, right now from foreign markets on high dollar cars in the used market, due to the favorable USD exchange as well. (USD is CHEAP bought by most foreign currencies today)
Many of the niche cars and cars in the upper $50,000+ range are getting fetched up in export now to compound the high resale value. (this may seem unrelated to lesser cost cars, but in actuality, it does heavily affect it since what should be $35,000 are now fetching $40+ and what should be $20K is fetching $27K...so on and so forth, working against the local demands as other nations accumulate wealth as US loses economic leadership...)

As such, for a few more years, this trend might continue but as soon as banks get a bit looser with approvals on new cars, and the new leases are up, in the years that follow.
The used car prices may come crashing down by as much as 20% or more to reflect the 3-4 year gap in slow NEW car sales, and resulting lack of returns of leases, that is followed by heavy incentives soon to come from all makes. As of now, used cars have not depreciated much at all for the last two years due to this market anomaly.

So for the FRS, and any other new car today, resale is very dependent on what the banks do in the next few years for car loan approval.

Needless to say, because of this, if you have a car you are contemplating to sell. Now is a VERY GOOD time to sell. As all car sales professionals think the current resale value which has not shifted at all since 2010, is expected to come crashing down at any given time, when auto makers infuse the banks with incentives to loosen up for lack of sales on new cars, very shortly in the next several months.
And simply put, most dealers have such difficulty meeting customer demands at this time, that they are all eager to BUY your car for smaller margins than any previous decades of recent, at higher prices.
Also, because the dealers are working with such thin margins on all cars, the better you prepare your car in detailing, and fixing whatever is faulty, the more dealers will give you for it.
Taking your car to a $200 detail job, is well worth the cost, before sale... So that dealers can turn that car around faster, and less worry they have in losing on the deal. This is true in any era, but today, it is especially important.

In the micro-economy of individual buying/selling on trades, there may be fluctuation and one may seem to see lots of variances, but I am saying overall, that will drop. Even at very low end of trade-in values, it is still extremely high right now, and very spontaneous and almost above any normal trends.

[tripjammer]

I thought Scions had good resale value?

[Moto-P]

Originally Posted by tripjammer

I thought Scions had good resale value?

Yes, almost all Toyota cars have excellent resale value.

[joshuabowman]

Scion has good to above avg resale value. I currently have two 2007 scion TC's Release Series that I bought new and Private party price is around $13500 Manual with 59xxx miles-$15000 Auto with 45xxx miles. Private party price is 67.5% for the manual and 71.4% for the Auto. I know Trade in they are about $3000 less but that is because the dealer wants to bank on your trade. When I asked to get my Manual Tc valued by the dealer I purchased it from as a trade they offered me $10000 which is 50.1% of the price I paid. I don't plan on trading it because it will be paid for in Nov but I wanted to see what they would offer. These prices have increased over the last few years. As Moto-P said the used car market has been booming and the dealers are paying a little more for trades because they know they can jack the prices up.

[SUB-FT86]

Originally Posted by ruskymx

Toyota is expecting the FRS manual trans to be worth $16,698 in 3 years with 36,000 miles. That is the residual for a 12k per year, 36mo lease. It works out to be around 67% and that is a very strong number.

Is it going to depreciate? Absolutely! Is it going to depreciate like older Kia's and Hyundai's? Very doubtful...(newer Kia's and Hyundai's aren't too bad for depreciation, at least not like they used to be anyway).

Ruskymx

Wouldn't the automatic depreciate faster? Like be a 1k less than the figure you posted?

[YinYang1980]

if they are able to keep the demand high and the availability of the car at low, the car will be able to keep hes value. more than if there is 10 fr-s sitting on the lot for 3-6 month.

[ruskymx]

Originally Posted by SUB-FT86

Wouldn't the automatic depreciate faster? Like be a 1k less than the figure you posted?

Not according to Toyota and their residual value. The AT residual is $17,457 for 36 mos & 12k per year. 15k is $16,951.

Ruskymx

[thill]

Originally Posted by ruskymx

Not according to Toyota and their residual value. The AT residual is $17,457 for 36 mos & 12k per year. 15k is $16,951.

Ruskymx

I would think there is a much larger pool of buyers for a used automatic vs a used manual. That has to help residual value.

[ruskymx]

Originally Posted by thill

I would think there is a much larger pool of buyers for a used automatic vs a used manual. That has to help residual value.

I agree. It seems that more and more people are not even learning how to drive a manual. New technology has greatly decreased the gap in fuel economy as well. It's actually getting harder and harder to get a manual transmission. You can only get a manual trans in a Yaris, Corolla, Matrix, Tacoma, FJ, and all Scions except the iQ. My dealership hasn't received a manual Matrix in years. FJ sticks are special orders in my area as well.

Ruskymx

[Moto-P]

Originally Posted by joshuabowman

...As Moto-P said the used car market has been booming and the dealers are paying a little more for trades because they know they can jack the prices up.

Well its more that the dealers today are getting jacked on wholesale/auction market due to high number of bidders, but are not able to sell it for huge mark-up due to banks not approving things much higher over normal value, which is based incidentally on the outdated KBB values...for the customers who want to finance it

[WingsofWar]

veryy veerrryyy outdated KBB values

[Moto-P]

Originally Posted by SUB-FT86

Wouldn't the automatic depreciate faster? Like be a 1k less than the figure you posted?

It really depends. If the used car buyers opt for AT's when its 5 years old, no, then MT will suffer from higher depreciation. THis is the case with almost every car today, since 94% of Americans prefer AT's... However, with the FRS, if the trend is overly so, the MT will actually be rare enough to command exceedingly higher value... So it all depends, and for the FRS it is hard to tell since AT's are so nice too.

But yeah, initial trend indicate a high MT ratio on the First 86 as well as initial demand. Which is for Scion dealers, claim is extremely unusual even for a sports car. I want a manual for my #2 car so hoping more MT's also get sold later in the model years.