Toyota wins a grand prize at Canadian Black Book's Best Retained Value Awards

Toyota wins a grand prize at Canadian Black Book's Best Retained Value Awards

As soon as you sign the contract for the sale of a new car, you start losing money. The question is, how many? Some cars - and some segments - retain their value better than others.

The Canadian Black Book (CBB) annually assesses the retained value - the percentage of the original purchase price you will get when you exchange a car - of four-year vehicles.

"The industry average is 52 per cent - so after four years, the vehicle retained 52 per cent of the original purchase price," says Brian Murphy, vice-president of writing and research at CBB. "The best segment of the market is small vans (73%) and the lowest is luxury cars (37%)."

A 2015 pickup truck in good condition will only have lost an average of 27% of its original value if you exchange it today - if you had paid $40,000 for a new pickup truck, you would have received about $29,200 in trade-in value.

High-end sports cars rank second in terms of maintaining their value after four years - with 64% of their original MSRP - and subcompact cars rank second at 44%.

PRICE OF THE BEST VALUE RETAINED

Even in these segments, the brand matters. For the past 12 years, the CBB has been awarding prizes each year for the best value cars in Canada. Last year, they also started awarding prizes to the best brand as a whole.

This year, as last year, Toyota was the best brand for cars and SUVs, with - between Toyota and Lexus - 19 of the top three vehicles. Porsche won the luxury category.

"Toyota Toyota Toyota cars hold a disproportionate share of their value," said Mr. Murphy. "A friend of mine has a 12-year-old Toyota Tacoma. He can probably sell it for $11,000 - if he had bought another truck, it would be worth a third."