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ForCar Blog — real data on buying used cars

Which years to avoid, what holds its value, how to read a VIN, the cheapest cars to insure — no fluff, backed by our own reliability, value and NHTSA data.

Modern four-cylinder turbocharged engine under a bonnet
Comparisons

The V8 Is Now Outnumbered Four to One

There was a time when a family saloon came with six cylinders and a truck came with eight. I counted what's actually in our catalogue by engine layout, and the middle of the market has quietly collapsed into one configuration.

Aug 8, 2026 · 3 min
Private seller handing car keys to a buyer
Buying Guides

Private Sellers List Cars Five Years Older Than Dealers Do

"Buy private, skip the markup" assumes both sides sell the same cars. They don't. Across 232,000 listings the private side is five model years older and 27,000 miles further along, which explains most of the price gap people think is markup.

Aug 8, 2026 · 2 min
Used electric car with charging port open on a dealer lot
Ownership Costs

Electric Cars Are 6% of the Used Market. In 2016 They Were 0.7%.

New-car EV sales get reported monthly. The used market is where those cars end up three years later, and that wave has only just started breaking — I can see it arriving year by year in our listings.

Aug 8, 2026 · 2 min
Older discontinued sedan parked in an empty lot
Best Cars

597 Car Models Have Been Discontinued. Two Years Killed the Most.

I counted every model in our catalogue whose last year is in the past. Five hundred and ninety-seven of them, and they didn't leave evenly — the deaths cluster into specific years, and those years tell the story of the American car industry.

Aug 7, 2026 · 2 min
Exhaust pipes of a high-performance sports car
Ownership Costs

A Lamborghini Emits More Than Two Volvos

Everyone knows a supercar drinks fuel. Fewer people have seen the actual spread: across every model rated since 2020, the dirtiest brand puts out 2.2 times the CO₂ of the cleanest, and scores a 1.5 out of 10 on smog while Volvo scores 6.2.

Aug 7, 2026 · 2 min
Highway stretching into the distance through rural landscape
Depreciation & Value

Tennessee Drivers Cover 62% More Miles Than Hawaiians

The same odometer reading means different things in different states. I divided mileage by age across tens of thousands of listings and found a 62% spread between the hardest-working cars in the country and the easiest life.

Aug 7, 2026 · 3 min
Dashboard showing automatic engine stop-start indicator
Comparisons

The Feature Everyone Switches Off Is Now on 63% of New Cars

Start-stop is the most disliked feature in modern motoring — the first thing owners turn off every morning. It went from 4% of new models to 63% in twelve years, and there's a specific reason it spread despite everyone hating it.

Aug 7, 2026 · 3 min
Used cars on a dealer forecourt with sale signs
Buying Guides

A Used Car Listing Lasts Under Seven Days

The advice you always hear is to be patient — watch the listing, wait for the price to come down, don't look eager. I measured how long listings actually survive. The answer changes the advice completely.

Aug 7, 2026 · 2 min
Row of white cars parked in a lot
Depreciation & Value

White Cars Went From 23% of the Road to 40% in Twelve Years

Park anywhere and count. Roughly two in five newish cars are white, and it wasn't always like that — in 2008 it was fewer than one in four. I sorted our listings by model year to watch the takeover happen.

Aug 6, 2026 · 2 min
Ford sedan parked on a residential street
Reliability

The Five Most Complained-About Cars in America Are All Fords

I sorted 41,337 model-years by how many complaints owners filed with NHTSA. The top of the list is a clean sweep — five Fords, led by the 2010 Fusion with 5,124. Before you read that as a verdict, look at what sits underneath it.

Aug 6, 2026 · 3 min
Damaged car being loaded onto a recovery truck
VIN & History

Subaru Has the Most Wrecked Cars on the Used Market

I sorted every listing by brand and counted branded titles. Subaru came out on top at 12.4%, ahead of Tesla and Honda. For a marque built on safety adverts that looks like a contradiction — until you look at who buys them and where they live.

Aug 6, 2026 · 2 min
SUV cornering, illustrating rollover stability testing
Reliability

Crash Scores Improved Everywhere Except Rollovers

Cars have got measurably safer over the last decade — in two of the three tests NHTSA runs. The third has been flat since 2011, and the reason isn't that engineers stopped trying.

Aug 6, 2026 · 3 min