Maintaining Your Car and the Value of Resale

A car is one of the best investments most people can make. Unlike other assets that just sit in your bank account, a safe, or a hole in your backyard, cars have a functional purpose in getting you where you need to go. Whether it’s for business or personal use, having a vehicle to drive is close to essential in modern life as well as a great way to build wealth.

But simply owning a car isn’t enough to consider it an investment. In order to have any hope of getting some kind of return on your car, you’ll need to consider the resale value and what you can do to keep it high? What’s resale value mean? How do you change it? Let’s explore this now so you know what you can do or avoid in maintaining your vehicle.

What is Resale Value?

Like the name implies, resale value is the value of your vehicle when you resell it to someone else. In the vast majority of situations, a car isn’t going to sell for as much after it’s been bought once as the ownership of vehicles is assumed to make their value go down. This is due to the wear and tear any car goes through as it’s used. If you were a collector when you were younger, think of it like you would baseball cards or comic books in that a card or comic that was neatly put away and secured over the years is likely to be worth a lot more than one that’s been put through the wringer and used a bunch.

How Can Someone Affect Resale Value?

There are many factors that affect a car’s resale value. Age is one of the most prevalent given that, the older a car is, the less it tends to be worth as it is assumed that the age equates to use. Therefore, an older car has many more miles on it compared to a newer one and is more prone to problems or failures, meaning people would be more likely to pay less for it. While it would be difficult to tell exactly how much wear your car has sustained due to age alone, it is generally understood that each year of ownership causes a car to depreciate in value a certain amount.

The model can also greatly affect how much your vehicle resells for. After all, you could probably get more for an older Lamborghini than a nearly new Prius. In general, car models that are in high demand like classic muscle cars are likely to resell for higher even if (or possible because) they are on the older side. Trends come and go, though, so be on the lookout for how demand is moving if you’re planning on selling at some point.

Condition is another major determiner of your resale value. How much wear and tear your car has experienced affects both its aesthetic appearance and its performance, so you probably can’t get much for a clunker that barely runs outside of scraping it for parts. This also takes into account work you’ve had done on your vehicle over the years.

What is My Car Worth?

What your car is worth will depend on a number of factors, most of them being what we’ve outlined here. For a good estimate, however, you can check the Kelley Blue Book for your make and model. As one of the most trusted resources in the automotive industry, you should be able to put together a decently accurate picture of how much you could get for your vehicle based on both this information and your driving record.

Selling a vehicle can seem a bit tricky when it comes to pricing it fairly and knowing when to go for the sale. Use this guide on understanding resale value so that you can get what you’re owed for your old cars.

One good way to ensure your cars stay maintained over the years to resell in the future — especially if you’re using those cars for work purposes — is with insurance. Protect your work vehicles and anything else related to your business by purchasing coverage from InsureYourCompany.com today.