They do lose their value. But that’s only important if you’re going to use them as a trade in during that time. What they don;t do is reduce their price that much.
Compare on Edmunds what a used car will get you from a dealer and how much a dealer will charge you for one.
A new Honda Fit is like $13K, and a new bottom of the line Hyundai runs around $10K.
“Yaris is a poor choice. CR doesn’t like it.”
I bought a 2008 Yaris new- it had the highest mileage rating of all the gas burners that year except for hybrids. The driver’s seat gets hard after 4-6 hours and the steering wheel is angled too far away at the top.
Other than that, I’d recommend it- no problems at 40k miles, and it’s consistently gotten better mileage than it was rated for.
Consider a used Kia, as well. After doing a ton of research on Consumer Reports, we almost got one. We ended up with a different car because of what was available locally that week, but the ones we looked at were very nice.