When buying a car, the resale value makes a big difference in influencing your decision. Whether it is a Japanese, Korean, French or German brand, every buyer will want to know how much the vehicle will cost after a few years in case they decide to sell it then.
Japanese brands has the highest value
When it comes to cars In Malaysia, 2 Japanese brands will have the highest resale value which are Toyota and Honda. That is the very reason why they have the best selling models in most segments. Toyota Vios and Honda City are selling very well mainly because they are demanded even in the used car market.
Meanwhile, other brands like Suzuki, Mitsubishi and Subaru have been selling very well as new cars but when it comes to the used car market, their resale value are much lower.
Korean brands have lower resale value
On the other hand, Korean models are not as good performing in this. Brands like Kia and Hyundai has been around for many years and their older models, particularly those that were manufactured around the late 90s and early 2000s have very poor resale value.
In fact, old Kia cars would only fetch a few thousand ringgit today and that is if the seller is lucky. One of the main reason for this is because the spare parts are very limited which makes them expensive. Furthermore, the older models were very heavy and as such had high fuel consumption
However, this has changed a lot in recent years with both the manufacturers changing their designs to be more contemporary, offering more value for money in their models to compete in the market. As such, you will find that the newer Korean cars are selling better than others.
European cars are good to own but hard to sell
European car owners meanwhile would struggle to sell them after a few years for a good price. Names like Peugeot, Citroen and Renault are great cars to have as they are very comfortable and nice to drive. However, when it comes to selling them as used cars, owners would expect at least a 40% drop.
This applies to the luxury car segment like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volvo, Audi and Alfa Romeo as well. Because of this, a lot of car sellers tend to bring models in from other markets and recondition them before selling at a higher price.
Local brands suffer bad resale value too
Gone are the days when Proton cars are highly demanded in the used car market. When Proton Saga and Proton Wira were top selling models, they were demanded everywhere. But with the likes of Proton Savvy and Proton Gen2, the demand for them have dropped. Perodua meanwhile has a model which is quite poorly demanded in the used car segment, the Perodua Kembara.
As such, these models have very low resale value. Furthermore, Proton Savvy has been known to have a gearbox problem which after a few years would break down and would cost thousands of ringgit.