Cars & Transportation Optimizing depreciation on car ownership

[RobbieGray17]

Looking for some advice and general discussion on the best ownership strategies for car ownership that minimize overall costs from maintenance and repairs to depreciation.

Here is a chart of the Ford Ranger depreciation

I understand there are variances between models and generations but finding those drop points is critical in reducing depreciation costs.

Looking at the Ranger, would it be possible to buy a two year old Ranger and consistently buy and sell two and three year old cars? Or would it be more realistic to buy a two year old car, and sell it as a 4 year car.

Am I missing anything, aside from stamp duty. UPDATE: about $2,000 - $2500 for stamp duty so the one year method is disincentivized.

Would this work for other cars such as a Land Rover?

 

[Nuggs Bunny]

Looking for some advice and general discussion on the best ownership strategies for car ownership that minimize overall costs from maintenance and repairs to depreciation.

Here is a chart of the Ford Ranger depreciation

I understand there are variances between models and generations but finding those drop points is critical in reducing depreciation costs.

Looking at the Ranger, would it be possible to buy a two year old Ranger and consistently buy and sell two and three year old cars? Or would it be more realistic to buy a two year old car, and sell it as a 4 year car.

Am I missing anything, aside from stamp duty. UPDATE: about $2,000 - $2500 for stamp duty so the one year method is disincentivized.

Would this work for other cars such as a Land Rover?
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The dips in depreciation probably correlates more with new model releases and facelift updates rather than how many years old the car is. Like assuming that age of vehicle in years is counting back from 2022, the plateau you highlighted roughly correlates to when the PXII model swapped to the PXIII so the older PXIII models are holding their value better than the later PXII models. I don't know enough about Rangers to know exactly what the differences are beyond some cosmetics on the outside but whatever it is it's enough to make people value the facelift a bit more highly. You can see the same sort of thing around 6-7 years in the model cycle when they went through the first facelift also.

It generally is a thing though, particularly with prestige cars. The best value deal you usually get is a 2 year old trade-in on a model that has just been superseded by a light facelift. I got a great deal on a 335i just after the 340i came out.