German Cars Dominate Lex Used Car Survey
Published: 16th March 2005
Don’t buy anything other than a German car if you want to maximise the used value of your car when you come to sell it in three years time according to Lex Vehicle Leasing, which runs a nationwide fleet of 123,000 vehicles.
All 10 places in the annual Lex Vehicle Leasing residual value survey are taken up by German manufacturers with the Boxster topping the list for the fourth successive year.
After three years and 60,000 miles - a typical annual company car age and mileage - the Porsche Boxster is going to be worth 54% or £19,950 of its original cost new.
The BMW Z4 and X3 are joined in joint second place by the MINI, while the X5 comes in at number five.
"This chart has been made up of many different types of cars over the past four years, but it has never been totally dominated by German cars," explained Steve Jones, Lex Vehicle Leasing’s pricing manager.
"Much of the residual value prediction is all about desirability when a car is three years old and we anticipate that all of these cars won’t struggle to find new owners even with 60,000 miles on the clock.
"The MINI is a great example. There are a queue of drivers dreaming of getting out of their old Mini and into the new model, but simply can’t afford it. However, in the future they will be able to get into a MINI for around £6000," he added.
Cars dropping out of the 2004 top 10 and indeed the top 20 include the Beetle Cabriolet, Lexus SC430, Mazda RX8 and Audi Cabriolet.
Other cars outside the top 10 included many 4x4s, including the Range Rover, the VW Touareg, the Volvo XC90 and the Land Rover Discovery.
