Clear, strong definitions are essential to be sure you get the environmental characteristics that you expect. Define the terms you use in bids and contracts and in phone quotes. You also need to know what others mean by the terms they use. If you're not sure, ask them to give you examples of materials or processes that qualify under their definitions.
If you see a vehicle that is in its fourth or fifth year and not doing well selling [new] retail, it would tend to not hold its value as well as its competitors. Behind the Numbers To determine which cars lose their value the fastest, we turned to Kelley Blue Book, an Irvine, Calif.-based valuation company that determines resale prices for used cars. They define resale value as the projected market value of a vehicle at a specific time: For our purposes, we evaluated vehicles from 24 to 60 months after purchase, to get a more complete picture of how--and when--different cars lose their value. New cars typically lose about 20% of their value the moment they're driven off the lot, and about 65% after five years. But some models fare much worse, like the Mercedes-Benz S-Class S65. After five years, this luxury sedan loses 84% of its purchase price.
The very minute that you drive a new car off a dealer's lot, it loses value. That's just a fact of life, and the infographic below gives you a roadmap of depreciation milestones. But depreciation doesn't mean you shouldn't buy a new car. In fact, if your plan is to drive the wheels off your car, then depreciation has no effect on your purchase. But if you do intend to trade it in, you need to be smart about the resale value of cars, and here's the key: Not all cars depreciate at the same rate.