Features / 12 September 2022 / Albert du Toit

Tracking pre-owned prices of South Africa’s favourite cars since Covid began

Used car prices have been on the rise since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic but they are now finally starting to stabilize, according to used-car platform getWorth.

This is due to new car supply being on the way back up, while high fuel prices and increasing interest rates have impacted consumer confidence in buying cars.

We reached out to getWorth to find out how much it would have cost to buy the same type of car before, during, and towards the end of the pandemic.

Average prices since 2019

For this comparison we selected four popular vehicles in four popular body styles all built in 2018, comprising:

BMW 3 Series
Ford Ranger Double Cab
Toyota Fortuner
VW Polo/Polo Vivo

Generally, new cars lose the largest portion of their worth within the first year of ownership, seeing less drop-off in value for each subsequent period as they pick up mileage.

Interestingly, this trend seems to have reversed over the past three-odd years despite the 2018 vehicles suffering more wear and tear as time passed.

It’s not uncommon for cars to gain value again after reaching the bottom of their depreciation curve, but historically this only happens quite a while after their release and only to rare and unique models, generally not everyday SUVs and bakkies.

However, as getWorth’s data shows, used prices for these popular cars did drop in value at first, then the losses gradually slowed, and two years into the pandemic each one of them started gaining value again, despite still being 2018 model-year vehicles which now had considerably more mileage than the years prior.

The Toyota Fortuner was even listed in August 2022, on average, for more than its new price in 2018.

This is not an accurate representation of market trends, though, as getWorth CFO Colin Morgan said the underlying price fluctuations are only revealed once the mileage factor is taken out of the equation and the cars are compared “like-for-like.”

Nevertheless, it shows the results of a market that has been thrown out of equilibrium due to extreme and unforeseen events.

For this rampant rise in prices to end, it’s going to need a full recovery in new-vehicle supply which is hamstrung by the current chip shortage.

VW believes that the vehicle industry’s demand for microchips will only be met in 2024, at which point the new-vehicle supply crunch is expected to subside and market conditions to return to pre-pandemic levels.

There’s no guarantee that prices will keep on climbing until then, but they are also not expected to come down too much until brand-new units are back in full supply.

Detailed below are the average prices on getWorth for the four 2018 model-year vehicles from August 2019 until 2022.