I am selling my Toyota Matrix, which is a 2003 (purchased in April 2002 - the old gal will be 10 in the spring!). That is the first model year for the Matrix, and when I look up others being sold, they seem to be priced pretty high for cars that are almost 10 years old. So I was wondering if there is some little boost in value if a car is the first model year (everything else being equal, of course). Mine has 52K miles and KBB says $9500 - I saw a couple listed for 10K plus that had 100K miles!
I’d have thought that a first model year would have less value; the manufacturer would have had the chance to work out some bugs and design flaws. The Matrix has good mileage; if it’s a good design that’s held up well, it could be selling for better than Blue Book.
My biggest problem is that mine is a little scruffy. No accidents, but I’ve gotten bumped and dinged in parking lots and a huge percentage of car buyers seem to be extremely concerned with their car’s appearance above all else. Which I guess makes sense if you are buying a groovy car, but not if you’re buying my low-miles Matrix, which is a solid commuter/family car.
Condition, rarity, demand, and coolness factors of a particular model have more to do with resale value than the model year. And the listed price of a car doesn’t tell you much. The online estimators that include actual sales are accurate enough to estimate the return you will get, if you accurately identify the condition. For instance, mint condition is very rare.
As stupid as it seems MOST used car buyers are more concerned with apperance than with mechanical reliability. I don’t do it as much as I used to, but occasionally I will purchase a used car that has a fairly good body, but needs waxing, detailing and a good shampooing of the inside. I will spend a weekend detailing the car and turn around and sell it for $300 to $1000 more than I paid. Same exact car, but shiny now. It is amazing how many have purchased cars from me and ohh and ahhed about how shiny the paint looked and not even look at the oil or general condition of hoses etc… Shiny sells.
Cars that don’t change body styles frequently can cause funny things to happen to the resale value, although more often it’s the opposite issue-- that the last model years of a long-lived body style are worth a lot less because they get lumped in with all the earlier jalopies. A while ago my boss was trying to sell our old Astro van, which was I think a '94 or '95 which was the last year before they got a major redesign. He was trying to sell it for $4k which wasn’t unreasonable for a van that age at the time, but there were identical-looking Astros from the mid-80’s going for less than $1000, so he had a really hard time getting rid of the thing.
More generally, I think the age and mileage of used cars are becoming a lot less important versus general condition (perhaps to obbn’s chagrin). The thing is that cars last so long these days that the paradigm that age and mileage are good indicators of how long a car is going to last is, to a certain extent, no longer true. Or at least the correlation isn’t as clear as it was back in the days when a car with over 100k or more than 10 years old was on borrowed time.
So as for the “boost” a first year car gets, it only exists to the degree that someone who wants a 1st gen Matrix might not really care much whether they get an '03 or an '08 if both cars appear to be in similar shape. Whereas a previous year (and generation) Corolla will take a big hit because they look like a car from the mid-90’s (which they are). Wagons also tend to hold their value a little better because, for whatever reason, they’re a lot more popular among used buyers than they are among new car buyers.
Used car prices can be quite irrational sometimes. Take a look at the price of Pontiac Vibes for example; it is the same exact car as the Toyota Matrix, aside from cosmetic details, and built in the same factory Toyota & GM shared in California, but used one often go for thousands less than a Matrix.
I think the best explanation for that (and why Americans don’t buy many new wagons) is that wagons are compromise vehicles; SUVs/Pickups/Minivans are better at carrying people/cargo, but are more expensive and less fuel efficent, and sedans being worse at hauling stuff, but cheaper, and usually a bit more efficient. People who have the money to buy a new car usually already have 1 or more cars at home, one of which is an SUV/Pickup/Minivan to handle cargo carrying, and thus it would be silly to spend more to get more cargo carrying ability.
People looking at used cars are more likely to only be able to afford one vehicle, and can’t afford the gas the bigger cargo capable vehicles use, and thus a compromise vehicle like a wagon makes more sense to them. Unfortunately for them, the supply of used wagons is of course constrained by the new supply of years gone by.
Edit - To answer the OP directly I would say yes, or at least sometimes.
To add to what has been said - Most car models do a complete redesign (IE generation) every 5-6 years and usually a minor upgrade somewhere in between. If your car is the first of a new redesign it could be very similar to one that is 5-6 years newer. Plus the first model year is typically available several months into the previous calender year, giving you up to an extra 6 months of use that isn’t reflected in the model year. The biggest downsides are the first year tends to have more reliability issues as mentioned and brand new models usually don’t sell at a discount.
If you have the last model of a generation you have the opposite situation with resale value. You car could be competing with cars six years older that are almost the same.
In my experience most people either tend to take good care of every aspect of the car or neglect every aspect. So using the exterior condition to judge how well the car was taken care of seems logical to me. Of course personally I would try to inspect the whole car before I bought it.
KBB and NADA are usually on the high side. You can check edmunds true market value for a better idea of what your car would really sell for. http://www.edmunds.com/used-cars/