I made the mistake of going on the web to see how sub 10K mile TSX's are holding their residual value as that was one of the reasons I bought the Acura. Don't depress yourself by looking! Perhaps chaulking it up to the economy, but you can get a manual w tech, with 6K miles for $26.5K - certified!

 

The problem is too find right color and availibility is usually very less. Only serious buyers who intend to keep the car for long term are now in the market. As it is far harder to flip around cars in this market.

http://www.kbb.com/kbb/NewCars/Revie...ctedTabIndex=3
It's one of a handful of premium-branded cars that start at less than $30,000, it's loaded with the most modern of conveniences and its projected resale values best those of competitors like the Audi A4, BMW 3 Series and Volvo S40, and even slightly top those of its corporate stablemate and industry resale benchmark, the Honda Accord.

 

I only paid $27,350 for a base auto with 4 miles. The only CPO I found was more than the new one I bought. I expect the car to lose value quickly over the first few years. The ALG has the 5 year residual at 40% of MSRP!!, far better than the BMW and the Audi.

 

Looking up the risidual value of a car with less than 10K is retarded. The car loses quite a bit of value initially just from being titled to an owner and driven off the dealer lot.

It's much more accurate to compare the risidual value of a vehicle with approximately 2 years or so worth of driving (since average leases are approx. 24 months), so around 24-30K miles. Then comparing that retained value to other cars. I bet it's still fairly high in regards to the competition.

 

It can pretty much be assumed that any car loses at LEAST 20% as soon as it leaves a dealer's lot. No biggie.

 

I bought an 06 Altima SE-R in October 06. MSRP 31,8xx? Six months later it was worth 21k in trade. Private buyer offers were barely 1k better. As stated above, you can't use >1yr values for a true picture of what's to come over a 5 year period, even though most people trade every 3.5 yrs.

IIRC, Volkswagen was #1 in resale values as of, like, 8-9 months ago. I read it in a trade publication like...Autoweek or something?

 

Yeah I ran into a used '09 TSX Base a few days ago that hardly had any miles on it that was sticker-ed at $24K and some change!!! But like others have said, you can't look @ the first year because that is when depreciation hits the hardest...an easy 20-30%.

 

While I agree the first year is the hardest, a 25% drop for an Acura, especially for 1st year model run within 9 months of launch is higher than normal. As said, this may be more economy infuenced, I just hope it is not for other reasons. There are 170 on sale on Autotrader alone. I am not sure, but I believe 2G TSX has sold around 15K units so far? A 1% saturation of used cars in the first 9 months seems high. The good news is the TSX November year to date in 08 sold 29.7K compared to 30.1K same period in 07. Not bad when total US sales is down 16.5% (a 1% drop) from Nov YTD 08 compared to 07. 08 November sales for the TSX was 1712 compared to 1894 in 07 (a 10% drop), compare this to a 37% drop in total vehicle sales in the US from Nov to Nov.

With all of that said, my 07 Mini CoopS convertible droped only 10% the first year, and during the summer panic for high gas milage cars, I actually had the chance to sell it for more than I paid, even after 9K miles on it.

Regarding the "retarded" comment, I did not ride the short school bus to school :-)

 

The interest rates on used cars is usually higher than new ones. So payment is pretty similar. there is still not that many 2 G TSX on used lots and i dont think there will be like 1G TSX. only serious buyers in the market.

I have run search for entire CA for used 2009. The lowest priced asking is $26K with 5K miles. and there are only 26 2009. most are grigo metalli. (the carbon color)
http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/search..._type=priceASC

 

Those types of numbers aren't very uncommon for 1st year designs. I'm willing to be many of those were dealer demo cars.

 

Trying to look at the numbers at this particular point in time is all but useless. The economy is all off kilter and people are going to be much more tight fisted about dropping car sized piles of cash around. The numbers you're seeing right now have huge error bars between them. Given the pool of used vehicles is so small, the sample population does not likely accurately reflect the general trends anyway.

In short, keep your pants on for a minute.