Best Year to Buy a Used Vehicle

While I have previouslly bought a number of new vehicles, recently I have been investigating the relationship between the following items because I am considering trading in my present Holden Caprice.

• Number of years old.
• Depreciation by years old.
• Maintenance, etc. by years old.

The following plot is for a vehicle type that is good quality, but is known to have a relatively high depreciation rate. The data is taken from the CarSales website


My thoughts are that a 3 year old car with relatively low km, say < 30,000 km, which has depreciated by approximatley 45% from new, is perhaps the best combination. What are your thoughts and your experience?

Not wanting to purchase anything too ostentatious, on Friday I went to the Holden caryard and had a look at the following Camaro. However, while I like the outside appeearance, sitting inside is a different story. The front windscreen and side windows are very small, which made me feel quite 'closed in' and I expect that the visibility while driving would be restricted. Hence, I crossed the Camaro off my maybe list.