10 Vehicles Most Likely to Enter Used Market After 1 Year

Eight luxury vehicles are 10 vehicles most likely to enter the used market just one year after being purchased as new, according to a new study by iSeeCars.com.

The firm analyzed more than 46 million individual new car sales to determine how many of those new cars were resold as used within a year with at least 1,000 miles on their odometer.

The three vehicles most likely to enter the used market after a year of purchase include the Mercedes-Benz C-Class, BMW 3 Series, and Land Rover Discovery Sport. Each of these vehicles had a more than a 10% return rate after a year of ownership, according to the study.

In recent years, the luxury market has been struggling at wholesale. Entry-level luxury vehicles, such as Mercedes-Benz' C Class and BMW's 3 Series, have garnered some of the highest yearly depreciation of all vehicle segments.

One factor playing a vital role in the hardship that the segment is having at auction is the amenities being included in higher trims of mainstream models. Anil Goyal, executive vice president of operations for Black Book, has stated that many high-level trims of mainstream models are offering many of the same amenities that entry-level luxury vehicles offer but at a lower price point.

With new-vehicle prices reaching record-levels, consumers seeking similar amenities of an entry-level luxury vehicle, while trying to keep their transaction price more manageable are gravitating away from those luxury vehicles.

The Nissan Versa and Nissan Versa Note were the only two vehicles in the top 10 list to not come from a luxury brand. Both of these vehicles hovered around a 9% return rate, according to iSeeCars.

Taking a look away from the top 10 vehicles with the highest return rate to the used market and toward the light-duty pickup segment, a similar trend emerges.

iSeeCars analyzed several vehicle segments, one of which included light-duty pickups, and found that the top three pickups with the highest rate of entering the used market after one year were the Nissan Titan XD, Nissan Titan, and Nissan Frontier. Of the new vehicles sold, 7.9%, 7.6%, and 5.3%, respectively, entered the used market after one year from purchase.

One light-duty pickup segment that has been doing well at wholesale in the past year is the midsize pickup segment. These vehicles have been holding their values well and have seen comparatively low depreciation. And, it turns out that a number of these types of trucks found themselves in the top 10 list of trucks with the highest rate of entering the used market after one year.

As previously listed, the Nissan Frontier saw a 5.3% rate of entering the used market after a year, the GMC Canyon saw a 4.8% rate, the Toyota Tacoma saw a 4.7% rate, and the Chevrolet Colorado saw a 4.1% rate.

The type of vehicles that iSeeCars analyzed for this study were new car sales from model years 2014-2017 in July 2013 through December 2018. Vehicles with fewer than 1,000 miles on the odometer, not in production as of the 2018 model year, heavy-duty trucks and vans, and low-volume models were excluded.