Do Discontinued Cars Make Used-Car Bargains? - Yahoo Autos (blog)
If you’re shopping for a used car, discontinued models could offer extra savings. Two years ago, we predicted the casualties correctly in six out of 10 cases, at least eventually, as cars like the Honda Crosstour , Nissan Cube and Volkswagen Eos headed (or will head) to pasture. A cancellation can mean bigger savings on the used market for a car that fell out of vogue, but certain discontinued cars may actually hold their value better. We took the final model year of a discontinued car and compared 24-, 36-, 48- and 60-month residual values from data provider ALG to those of the model’s sibling car from the same model year. So, for example, we looked at the discontinued Mercury Milan sedan for 2011, its final model year, and compared residuals to the Milan’s corporate sibling, the Ford Fusion , across comparable equipment and trim levels for 2011. (Mercury was a Ford... For cars with enough used-car examples, we also observed Cars. com’s average used-car listing prices from one to two years after discontinuation. In the Milan example, we analyzed the change in used-car prices from the beginning of 2013 to the end of 2013 for used 2011 Milans, and we compared those prices in the same time frame to the 2011 Fusion. Source: www.yahoo.com
