Pontiac Died in 2010. It Still Sells 42% Below a Chevrolet.
A dead badge on a car that shares its engine, gearbox and platform with a living one is the cleanest natural experiment the used market offers. The market charges a lot less for it, and the parts situation is nothing like as bad as the price implies.
Arizona Sells 38% White Cars. Wisconsin Sells 20%.
The colour split between states is almost twice as wide as anything you would guess, and it lines up with latitude. The price gap between colours looks just as dramatic until you control for how old the cars are.
A Used Car Averages $27,361 in Montana and $10,633 in DC
State price averages get quoted as if they measure how expensive a state is. They don't. They measure what happens to be parked on the lots, and we can now show exactly how much of the gap that accounts for.
We Said Four-Wheel Drive Costs 61% More. Compared Properly, It's 6%.
Our earlier figure compared pickups with saloons and called it a drivetrain premium. Here is the same question answered on the same car with one axle different.
The Market Pays 15% for the Fifth Safety Star. Three Quarters of Cars Already Have It.
Used listings with a five-star rating sell for a quarter more than four-star ones. Control for what's actually being compared and the premium halves — but it doesn't disappear.
A Manual Adds 33% to a Mustang and Takes 10% off a Honda Fit
"Manuals are worth more" is repeated as a rule. Compared model by model against the automatic version of the same car, it's true of one category and false of the rest.
Thirsty Saloons Hold Their Value. Economical Ones Don't.
Buying an economical car saves money at the pump and is supposed to be the sensible choice. On the used market that same economy turns out to be a liability.
A Transmission Problem Costs 14% of the Car. An Airbag Problem Costs Nothing.
The used market does react to what owners complain about — but only to some of it. Sorting by which part generates the complaints reveals exactly what buyers are afraid of.
A Car With 11 Open Recall Campaigns Sells for the Same as One With None
You'd expect a documented safety defect to cost a seller money. I normalised prices against class and year to find out how much, and the answer came back as nothing.
Cars Stop Losing Value at About Sixteen Years Old. Then They Start Gaining.
Depreciation is described as a curve that flattens towards zero. Plotted against actual listings it doesn't flatten — it turns around and goes back up.
Silver Was the Colour of the 2000s. It's Now the Oldest Paint on the Market.
Paint colours don't disappear overnight, they age out. Sorting the used market by average vehicle age turns a colour chart into a timeline of what was fashionable when.
In 2015 the GMC Badge Was Worth Nothing. By 2025 It Was Worth 75%.
The Sierra and the Silverado are the same truck with different grilles. What that grille costs has changed completely in a decade, and only in one direction.