KBB Unveils 2012 Best Resale Value Awards

Along with explaining its analysis in proper context of the current wholesale landscape, Kelley Blue Book has revealed its annual Best Resale Value Awards.

In an exclusive with Auto Remarketing, KBB director of residual consulting Eric Ibara declared that this year’s best resale brand award went to Toyota for the second time, giving the Japanese OEM the same honor it claimed back in 2010.

The top luxury brand honor was awarded to Lexus, marking the second time that nameplate has taken the top spot in KBB’s residual analysis.

Kelley Blue Book’s Best Resale Value Awards are based on projections from the Kelley Blue Book Official Residual Value Guide determined by a staff of analysts. These awards honor vehicles expected to maintain the greatest proportion of their original list price after five years of ownership.

Ibara pointed out low-volume vehicles and models with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of more than $60,000 are excluded from award consideration, except in the luxury and high-performance categories.

“I think you’ll find the brands that win are always at the top. We really don’t see much movement amongst the brands very much,” Ibara told Auto Remarketing. “Certainly for Toyota and Lexus, they have been among the top brands very consistently over the past three years, if not longer.

“This year, Toyota had a number of products that stood out,” he continued. “Certainly, their trucks continue to do very well. The Tacoma has been a perennial winner in its segment. Another development for Toyota is they redesigned the Camry and redesigns typically help models to improve on their residual values. It doesn’t happen all the time, but many times redesigns result in improvement and certainly did so for the Camry.”

Auto Remarketing asked Ibara if the top resale honors should be considered the climax to the triumphant return for the Japanese nameplates that have overcome the turmoil of recalls and this year’s natural disasters.

“I’m sure they would like to see it that way,” Ibara began. “Two years ago when they had their problems with the recalls, we knew that their used-car values were going to drop and we did see that. My responsibility is to forecast residual values, so we’re typically looking at a time horizon that’s two, three and five years into the future.

"At that time, we were not forecasting that Toyota was going to have a permanent hit. We never dropped our residual values based on their recall worries. We said at the time that the long-term danger to Toyota would be not from the recall but (could occur) if they sustained their aggressive incentives that they implemented right after the recalls. If that was kept on for a long-term basis then that would be the reason we would drop residual values," he continued.

“The tsunami that hit them this year in a way helped used-car values, because it created a shortage,” Ibara went on to say. “From that standpoint, it was bad for Toyota and their stock price, but we didn’t think it was going to be bad from a residual value perspective.”

A year ago, the top brand winners were Subaru and BMW.

Complete List of 2012 Winners

Beyond Toyota and Lexus, KBB tapped winners in 19 different vehicle categories. The honorees included: