Its not surprising at all to me, cars are never investments. Furthermore, the V6's have never held their value all that well. They have always been "only a V6" in most consumer's eyes. The fancy new '11s have taken their toll on the resale of the 05-10s, and this happens with any car. If Chevy releasing an all new kickass Camaro, the current Camaro's resale will plummet. It is the way of things...

IMHO, Audis are overpriced VWs with the ring badges. The engines and drivetrains are the damn same. At least buy the VW and don't be anybody's "fool" over at Audi.

 

Listen, I know that cars lose value the minute you drive them off the lot but I have just never experienced THIS level of loss in such a short time before on ANY car I have owned including ALL of my other mustangs. My desire for no rants meant that I would appreciate it if the comments that relate to 'just drive it' or 'you should have known' or 'why are you always buying new cars' etc were deleted. It gets on my nerves when the righteous types come in here and harass the young kids looking for guidance whose parents bought them that new 2011 etc too and I am 40 years old. Frankly those concerns are NONE of your business and are not relevant to the topic at hand.

The CC is nice but there is no sport package, no quattro and much less torque than the audi considering it is basically the same engine. The CC is gimped. The VR6 is really nice and has all of those options I mentioned but it is crazy expensive. The used price on that bimmer I am looking at is really not all that much lower than when it was new, maybe $5k or so, so it doesn't appear to me that they lose nearly as much value as current Fords. Fords seem to be bottom of the barrel right now along with Chrysler for resale value. Much lower than GM and the Asian and German cars from the numbers that I ran.

 

I don't think you're reading what people are telling you.

The new 2011's make the 2010's much less attractive. If the 2010 and 2011 V6 Mustang were mechanically the same, the drop in price would not be as bad. But they're not - it's a day and night difference.

That said, the poor resale value of Mustangs is definitely one thing that made me hesitate to buy my first American car. I think that might change now that Ford is making decent cars.

 

Yes, the Audi's are a higher end VW. My wife owns a 2000 VW Passat and every year there is an issue with her car. (Heater core leak, passenger side window doesn't work, lights on the dash decide to not work at times, AC/heater controller stopped working, left blinker housing fell out while on a road trip, emmissions workshop engine light was on for 8+ months due to mass air flow issues.)The list goes on and on.
The VW and Audi's are rated pretty crappy on the consumer reports, plus parts and service are a lot more expensive! I would not recommend purchasing one!

 

After having BMWs, and a VW in the past, I won't buy another one either. You pay a premium for the BMWs which they aren't even close to being worth. They recently included standard service for the warranty period, and jacked the price right up too. You can't even touch a "poor man's" BMW 128 for much less than 40 typically. Sure, they start at 30, but good luck ever finding one thats less than 38 sitting on a lot. And that car is tiny and completely not worth the cash. The VW I had was a 2006 GTI with the DSG transmission. I used it for a commuter while I had the old 07 GT in the garage. The car was fun to drive, and I'll admit that DSG tranny was awesome, but the thing was a rattle trap on day 2. It wasn't a bad car, but it was something like 28k, and way overpriced.

The majority of the reason why the resale is so bad on the Fords (and Nissans, and Hyundais, and Dodges, etc) is because they offer big incentives when you buy. This trickles down to the resale market. For many years Toyota trumpeted "best resale" BS, and that was because they wouldn't sell you a car for much less than a grand off MSRP, and NEVER offered incentives. Its easy to say you have the best resale, when 99% of your cars on the road were bought at or near MSRP.

The new 2010 Mustangs were very recently being practically given away. Mine had an MSRP of something like $29,8xx if I recall, and I got the damn thing for 23. They didn't have any V6's left, but I'd imagine they were being sold just as obscenely cheap...

IMO, buying a car because it has "good resale" is a myth in the first place. Take a hard look at the cars that claim to have this trait, then take a look at how much you have to pay to get into them in the first place, and you'll see a ratio that is not that dissimilar to anything else on the road. The end result at the end of the day is going to be the difference of 2-3k at the most, and the car with "good resale" likely cost more in the first place and would in turn, have higher payments. In the end, buying a new car is never an investment is how I see it. So buy what you like, trade off or sell what you don't.

That 2010 vert is in a perfect storm for resale with the improved 2011 drivetrains, the fact that they JUST gave away the 2010s with huge rebates, and also that its a V6 which has always held its value worse than the V8. I'm near your age OP, and I've bought at least 25 new cars in my life. I know you've had quite a few as well from other posts. My advice is take your lumps and move on. I've done it many times, and I know you have as well.

 

What an odd thread. Just yesterday I read that Mustangs are in the top 10 vehicles as far as holding re-sale value. That in addition to the JD powers top reliablilty rating makes this thread seem to defy reason......

Even the lady at the DMV warned me it would be a long time before I saw any real depreciation in this car.

 

Really? Any chance you could post a link to that article? I'd like to read it.

 

I was just searching for mustang resale value and found these comparisons from kelly blue book with projected resale values for the mustang v6 base coupes:

For the 2010 V6:
http://www.kbb.com/new-cars/ford/mus...0/resale-value

For the 2011 V6:
http://www.kbb.com/new-cars/ford/mus...1/resale-value

It shows the 2010 V6 just slightly ahead of average and the 2011 well ahead of the average. I know when I bought mine a few months back, dealerships kept trying to sell me 2010's with HUGE discounts. Usually 6-7k off MSRP. That mostly accounts for the lower resale value of the 2010's I'm sure.

 

You can't accurately look at 2011 resale value when they are still being produced. Wait 3 years then compare the two. I think they will be quite similar, maybe 1-2k difference.

 

Thanks mudflap. That was an excellent post and matches what the bimmer dealer sent me in an email today about the incentives dragging down the resale. I am used to taking one on the chin come resale but have just never seen it this bad out there for mustangs on trade in value before. Hell I paid 24k out the door for my bullitt when I bought it in 2001 and when I traded it over 2 years later in summer 2003 I got 19k for it. Same for my 2007. I bought the 2007 south of Richmond Va. used in 2009 for $14700 (which was $2k below what other dealers were asking for in my area) and sold it to carmax for $14300 less than a year later for this car! The 2010 has lost over 45% of what I paid for it in exactly a year's time. It took my 2006 honda accord 3.5 years to reach 50% of what I paid for it. 50% off in 1 year = Yikes no matter how you cut it. A car should not lose that much value in such a short amount of time.