The Keep or Sell Plan

Price next year in the car you have against an average year in the next one: your model's own depreciation rate from listings, the first year split off, the dollars each year loses, the cost of a swap, and the repair bill at which changing cars starts to pay

AutosHype's Car Depreciation Calculator applies one flat rate from the first year, though its own FAQ says a new car loses a big chunk of value the moment it leaves the lot. The Car Loan Calculator gives a payment and a total, but never meets the depreciation tool, and neither answers the question a driver with a working car is actually asking: is next year in this car cheaper than an average year in the next one? The pack measures your model's rate from listings at two ages, splits off the first year, and turns the rate into dollars lost each year. It prices a swap (the dealer's spread, the tax, the fees), costs next year in your car, and compares it with an average year of a new or used replacement, interest included. In the worked example, next year in a six-year-old car costs $3,304 against $4,058.17 for a three-year-old replacement and $6,287.16 for a new one, so keeping wins until next year's repairs pass $2,354.17. It also checks the loan payoff against what the car would fetch before you trade. Every figure is computed by the site's own calculators, and every price, rate and bill is an example for your own listings, quotes and loan terms. It promises no car will keep its value, counts safety repairs and open recalls as part of keeping a car, and gives no advice on modifying one. Included: 7 steps, 4 working pages, value-kept and spec-sheet tables, a quickstart, and a personalised sheet worked from your own calculator numbers.

Look inside

Two full pages from the pack, exactly as printed. Click either to read it at full size before you decide.

What is in it

• Step 1: price your own model: the depreciation rate between three listings at two ages, checked on our calculator
• Step 2: split off the first year: why one flat rate reads high, and how to measure a new car's first-year drop
• Step 3: count dollars, not percent: what each year loses, and why the steep dollars come first
• Step 4: price the swap: the dealer's spread, the tax and the fees you pay on the day you change cars
• Step 5: cost next year: next year's value lost plus your quoted repairs, with safety work and open recalls counted
• Step 6: compare it with an average year: new and used replacements on one footing, and the repair bill that tips it
• Step 7: check the payoff before the ad: what you owe against what the car fetches, and what a rolled-over gap costs
• Working pages: a rate finder, a keep-or-sell sheet, a running-cost log and a sale-day sheet
• Reference tables: value kept by rate and age, and a spec-sheet converter for hp, kW and PS with wheel-figure estimates
• A quickstart, the arithmetic on one card, and a personalised sheet worked from your own calculator numbers

The pack picks up where the free Car Depreciation Calculatorleaves off. That tool applies one rate you give it; the pack measures your model's own rate from listings at two ages, splits off the first year, and turns the rate into the dollars each year loses. It adds the Car Loan Calculator's interest, the tax, the fees and your own repair quotes, then compares next year in the car you have with an average year in a replacement, and finds the repair bill at which changing cars starts to pay. It promises no car will keep its value, it counts safety repairs and open recalls as part of keeping a car, and it gives no advice on modifying one. Every figure in it is an example for you to replace with your own listings, quotes and loan terms.