Which Toyota Yaris trim holds its value better?
Following its original local introduction in 2005, the Toyota’s Yaris initially sold strongly, before gradually losing momentum when the next generation arrived in the early 2010s. Now, with the latest Yaris, Toyota moved this model slightly upmarket, but even that couldn’t stem its sales decline. But which one of the current Yaris’s trim levels holds its value better in the second-hand market?
Did moving upmarket hurt Yaris sales figures?
When the XP90-generation Yaris first arrived on local shores it was a sales sensation. Buyers were initially drawn to its cute appearance, and then charmed by the little car’s happy-go-lucky nature once on the move. In fact, the early Yaris was so popular that Toyota decided to finally kill off the ancient Tazz in 2006, slotting a 1.0-litre 3-cylinder Yaris into that now-vacant entry-level position.
But time is nobody’s friend, and not even the Yaris could escape the ravages of increased competition. When the next-generation (XP130) Yaris arrived here in 2012, it started out with a few immediate disadvantages: the other superminis against which it had to compete kept on growing steadily larger and more powerful, and it also faced strong internal competition from the smash hit Etios.
Related: Our launch report has all the information you could want about the 2018 Toyota Yaris.
No matter how much Toyota tried to spruce up the little Yaris, it kept on losing market share as time went by. So, by the time Toyota SA had to replace it in 2018, they looked away from the European-market Yarises we’ve had up till then, and instead opted for the Asian-market (XP150) model. It is bigger than its predecessor, bringing its size in line with other superminis, and adds some more modern technology into the package as well.
But, even after all that effort, the Toyota Yaris is still a fringe player in its local market segment. The cheaper (but now very old) Etios still out-sells it, and the best-selling Volkswagen Polo and Vivo are barely rattled up there on their sales throne. Does this apparent unpopularity of the latest Yaris affect its resale values? We investigated and did the math, to determine which Yaris trim holds its value better.
Related: The top seven accessories for your Toyota Yaris.
To compile this report, we scoured AutoTrader’s listings to calculate average resale values for various 2018-vintage (current-generation) Yaris trims, and compared these values to the list prices of these variants at launch. We looked for cars that have covered between 15 000 and 20 000 km per year, as that is an industry average yearly mileage.
This means that the Yarises we considered in this evaluation have at most 40 000 km on their odometers. Value retention is expressed as a percentage of the list price when new, and gives a fair idea of each trim level’s value retention.
2018 Toyota Yaris 1.5 Xi manual
New Price: R 230 800
Average Used Price: R 187 827
Percentage of value retained: 81.4%
This is the entry-level trim in the current Yaris range, and its depreciation is actually fairly shocking for a two-year old car. Even the most expensive, low-mileage Yaris Xi is listed at R 210 000, but the vast majority are clustered in the R 180 000 – R 190 000 range. As always, poor value retention is a good thing for used-car buyers, but it’s not good news for current owners looking to sell.
2018 Toyota Yaris 1.5 Xs manual
New Price: R 253 400
Average Used Price: R 198 565
Percentage of value retained: 78.4%
Going one step upmarket, the 2018 Yaris 1.5 Xs shows even lower value retention than the entry-level Xi variant, retaining on average only 78.4% of its original value. Out of the 30 Yaris Xs manuals listed on AutoTrader, most fall in the R 190 000 – R 200 000 bracket, with only a few very low-mileage examples reaching past the R 210 000 mark. Once again, this steep depreciation makes for great used-car buying, but doesn’t bode well for current owners in the future.
2018 Toyota Yaris 1.5 Xs CVT
New Price: R 268 500
Average Used Price: R 205 949
Percentage of value retained: 76.7%
As the only automatic (CVT) derivative in the current range, one would imagine that the Yaris Xs CVT might retain more of its value than its manual counterparts can manage. This is however not the case, as automatic Yarises lose value even quicker than the manual variants. Most Yaris Xs CVTs in our listings are priced around the R 200 000 mark, which itself represents a significant drop from their new-car value (which almost touched the R 270 00 barrier).
Retaining roughly 76.7% of its new-car value after only two years is a pretty poor showing for a product from the very popular Toyota brand, and may point towards a distrust in CVTs on the part of the buying public. This is a good way to get a comparatively cheap automatic Yaris, however, so the used-car buyer scores again.
2018 Toyota Yaris 1.5 Cross
New Price: R 268 500
Average Used Price: R 219 900
Percentage of value retained: 81.9%
At the time of writing, there was only a single example of the 2018 Yaris Cross listed on AutoTrader, so the sample size is really too small to draw too many conclusions. However, if its value retention of 81.9% were to be representative of other Yaris Crosses, it might just have the slowest depreciation in this range. It might be that buyers prefer their cars to look a bit more butch than the rather dowdy Xi and Xs trim levels, but even so, dropping 18.1% of its value in 2 years isn’t really a great showing for the Yaris Cross.
2018 Toyota Yaris 1.5 Sport
New Price: R 268 500
Average Used Price: R 194 000
Percentage of value retained: 72.3%
As was the case with the Yaris Cross discussed above, there’s also only one Yaris Sport currently listed on AutoTrader. This might mean that the statistics could be skewed here too, but then again: if a dealership lists a 2018 Yaris Sport with less than 30 000 km on the clock for only R 194 000, it could only mean that the demand for this car is so low that it has to be priced to clear.
72.3% value retention after only two years is another dismal showing, but would be a bargain for a buyer who wants the highest-trim Yaris with the most airbags and toys in the cabin, and a pretty nice body kit thrown into the bargain as well. In fact, you can get this Yaris Sport for less than many of the Yaris Xs variants in our listings…
Summary
The fact that the Yaris (XP150) retains the most of its value at the entry-level, points towards a public perception of the Yaris still considered to be a budget car. None of them are great investments, however, which is bad news for new-car buyers. But in the used market, these Yarises make a lot of sense, with high-trim variants available at very low prices. This is what good second-hand shopping should look like: a car with all the durability of a Toyota, but without the elevated pricetags usually associated with this brand.