Which Kia Soul trim depreciates the fastest?
The Kia Soul is no longer sold locally as the South Korean manufacturer focuses on other SUV models within the local market, however, there are still a fair few pre-owned examples listed for sale on AutoTrader. With this in mind, we’ll be looking at which Soul trim depreciates the fastest to determine which model currently offers the best value for money.
Which Kia Soul trim depreciates the fastest?
First introduced to the local market in 2009, the first generation of Kia’s Soul was slightly ahead of its time, offering one of the first crossover vehicle packages, considered by many as a bit of an oddball. Fast forward to the introduction of the second-generation version in 2014 and the Soul was now part of a growing number of vehicles with hatchback-like driving qualities, funky styling and a lofty driving position. An updated version of the second generation arrived in 2017 before Kia stopped bringing the vehicle some time in 2018.
For today’s comparison, we are using the second-generation pre-facelift Soul variants registered between 2014 and 2015 with mileage parameters set at 120 000km to determine which model depreciates the fastest. The Soul range in question consisted of six variants. There were 25 examples that qualified for our comparison with all of our parameters in place, however, we insist that there be at least three examples of each variant used for the comparison to create a statistically significant comparison. The result was only three derivatives that qualify for our comparison, the Start 1.5 manual, the Street 1.6 diesel manual and the Smart 2.0 manual. Let us look at the results.
2014/2015 Kia Soul 1.6 Start manual
New Price: R239 995
Average Current Price: R147 420
Value Retained: 61.42%
The entry point into the Soul range was the most popular model found in our search, with twelve examples listed which qualified for our criteria.
2014/2015 Kia Soul Street 1.6TD manual
New Price: R299 995
Average Current Price: R188 599
Value Retained: 62.86%
The manual diesel models in Street guise were the second most popular variants found during our research for this article and like the other variants within the Soul range, appear to retain nearly two thirds of their value.
2014/2015 Kia Soul Smart 2.0 auto
New Price: R315 995
Average Current Price: R199 900
Value Retained: 63.26%
The least numerous but also most expensive when new of the new derivatives applicable to our comparison today is also the only variant here with an automatic gearbox.
Which one depreciates the fastest?
This comparison has yielded some remarkably interesting results, with the entry-level Start 1.6 petrol manual variants coming out with the most depreciation since new. This was incredibly close, though, with the model with the best resale value as a percentage, the Smart 2.0 auto, only retaining 1.8% more of its new value versus the worst performer.
It is also interesting to note that there is a sliding scale of performance as the number of used examples increases, with the most numerous model having the most depreciation and the model with the least examples having the most value retention. This may come down to an increased amount of variables between the models themselves, where things like condition, service history and mileage start to affect the results, particularly in the variants that are most popular.
This leads us to conclude that the variance between the Soul derivatives is negligible, with all the models used for our comparison featuring markedly similar value retention percentages.
