Report: 10 Cars That Hold Their Value the Most

By Craig Johnson – Clark Howard

Nov 2, 2021

High prices in the auto market have had the effect of extending the value of certain models, according to a new report.

The report, from vehicle research site iSeeCars.com, is derived from an analysis of more than 800,000 2016 model year vehicles sold during the first eight months of 2021.

What Cars Hold Their Value the Best?

“We’ve seen record high used car prices over the past 15 months as a result of the microchip shortage, and that has slowed down the average depreciation rate across all vehicles,” iSeeCars Executive Analyst Karl Brauer says in a news release.

Here are some key findings from the report:

In 2021, the average five-year-old vehicle depreciated by 40.1% versus 49.1% last year.
Jeep Wrangler is the vehicle with the lowest depreciation, at 9.2% over five years.
Losing 65.1% of its worth, the Nissan Leaf has depreciated the most over five years.

Let’s take a look at the vehicles that have depreciated the least, according to iSeeCars.com.

These Cars Are Holding Their Value the Most Right Now

Model	Average 5-Year Depreciation	Average Dollar Difference from MSRP
Average for all vehicles	40.1%	$15,764
Jeep Wrangler	9.2%	$2,796
Jeep Unlimited Wrangler	10.5%	$3,810
Porsche 911	12.8%	$20,710
Toyota Tacoma	13.8%	$4,899
Toyota Tundra	19.5%	$8,458
Ford Mustang	21.0%	$7,280
Chevrolet Corvette	22.7%	$17,655
Chevrolet Camaro	23.6%	$8,553
Dodge Challenger	24.4%	$10,308
Toyota 4Runner	24.6%	$10,818

#tablepress-559 from cache

Read iSeeCars.com’s full report.

Money expert Clark Howard is a big fan of buying used cars because the first owner will take the brunt of the depreciation in the first few years. But with the vehicle market so inflated of late, he says buying new versus used comes down to the price difference.

“If you can buy that three-year-old vehicle for a third less than what a new one would be, then go ahead and buy the three-year-old used vehicle,” Clark says. “On the other hand, if the gap is less than that, that would push you more toward buying a new one.”