how much value does a new vehicle lose when it is driven off the lot
If you see a vehicle that is in its fourth or fifth year and not doing well selling [new] retail, it would tend to not hold its value as well as its competitors. Behind the Numbers To determine which cars lose their value the fastest, we turned to Kelley Blue Book, an Irvine, Calif.-based valuation company that determines resale prices for used cars. They define resale value as the projected market value of a vehicle at a specific time: For our purposes, we evaluated vehicles from 24 to 60 months after purchase, to get a more complete picture of how--and when--different cars lose their value. New cars typically lose about 20% of their value the moment they're driven off the lot, and about 65% after five years. But some models fare much worse, like the Mercedes-Benz S-Class S65. After five years, this luxury sedan loses 84% of its purchase price.