OK, I confess it: the weather's rubbish, I have a horrible cold, and I'm bored
Now, we all know that depreciation is the single largest cost of car ownership and one of the "benefits" of Mercedes ownership is that they hold their value better than many, so I whiled away 5 minutes of my time playing with the
What Car? Depreciation Calculator because I thought it would be amusing to find a few makes and models that don't do so well. All the numbers quoted below are calculated from that calculator.
As a benchmark, an E-Class E350CDI Avantgarde Saloon retains 45% of its initial value after 3 years. We all know that first year depreciation is heaviest for any car though, and this one loses 33% of its initial value in that first year - which is why ex-demo cars
should be such good value.
Now, we're all told that small hatchback's retain their value well so what about something mundane like a Toyota Yaris 3dr 1.0 VVT-i T2? That manages to retain 41% of its initial value after 3 years, and it loses 39% of its initial value in it's first year. So, proportionally, the E350CDI Avantgarde Saloon does better at both 1-year and 3-year milestones - although the monetary loss is obviously much larger as it costs more than three times the price of the Yaris to start with.
OK, now for some fun. Here are the worst two cars I found for first year depreciation:
- The Cadillac CTS 3.6 V6 Sports Luxury Saloon manages to shed an eye-watering 71% of its £45,241 purchase price in it's first year. That's a whopping £2.68 in depreciation for every mile that an average driver would cover in those first 12 months
At three years old, it manages to retain just 19% of its initial OTR price 
- Then there's the Citroën C6 3.0 HDi V6 Exclusive Auto Saloon which loses 76% of its £40,160 purchase price in the first year or a mere £2.54 / mile over 12,000 miles (!), and at three years old, it retains a whole 16% of its initial OTR price
So, who can find any other "star" performers?
