The 2017 Mini Cooper hatch (petrol manual), with an average retail price of £16,112, was the fastest-selling used car in January according to data from Auto Trader, taking an average of just 17 days to leave forecourts.
Second and third place on the national top 10 list were taken by the 2016 Fiat 500X (diesel manual – £11,143) and 2015 Nissan Qashqai (diesel manual – £14,944), both of which took on average an extra 10 days (27) to sell over the MINI.
The Auto Trader data showed that hatchbacks dominated the used car market in the first month of the year; not only did seven make an appearance on the national top 10 list, but out of the 13 regions and countries tracked, nine featured a hatchback as their respective fastest selling.
Despite the disappointing performance recorded in the new car market last month, in terms of regional desirability, used diesels got this year off to a solid start.
As well as four making their way on to the national top 10 list, seven topped the regional tables as the fastest selling used car in January:
- East Midlands: 2014 BMW 5 Series; diesel automatic
- London: 2014 Volkswagen Golf; diesel automatic
- North West: 2017 Volvo XC60; diesel automatic
- Northern Ireland: 2014 Hyundai ix35; diesel manual
- Scotland: 2016 Fiat 500X; diesel manual
- Wales: 2017 Nissan Qashqai; diesel manual
- West Midlands: 2016 Fiat 500X; diesel manual
According to Auto Trader’s pricing research, used diesel cars are holding their value and are, in fact, growing. On average, a second-hand diesel cost £14,405 in January, which was a £777 increase on the same period in 2017. On a like-for-like basis, this represents a respectable 3% year-on-year growth. This ties in with the latest used car sales data published this week, which showed that used diesel sales had increased by 3% during 2017.
Completing the top ten were: the 2016 Vauxhall Corsa (diesel automatic – £7,370), 2016 Ford Ka (petrol manual – £6,530), 2017 Skoda Kodiaq (petrol automatic – £28,694), 2015 Peugeot 3008 (diesel automatic – £11,725), 2010 Volkswagen Scirocco (petrol manual – £8,369), 2016 Nissan Micra (petrol automatic – £8920) and the Toyota Auris (electric hybrid automatic – £12,238).
