Most of us don’t buy new cars just to replace them every year. In fact, only 1.5% of new car buyers replace them within the first year of ownership. That’s according to a new study from iSeeCars.com, who also found that for some vehicles, that percentage is significantly higher.




The study looked at over 24 million new car sales for model years 2015-2017. Using the car’s VIN, they tracked whether it was relisted within a year of its original sale date. They excluded new cars with more than 500 miles and models with less than 50,000 new car sales. From there, they ranked the 11 cars that are most frequently resold after just one year.

You can see how their percentages stack up in the chart above, but iSeeCars sent us some highlights worth noting. First, it’s somewhat surprising that 6 of the 11 models are from BMW or Mercedes. However, they attribute that to dealers reselling loaner vehicles. They did note, however, that the remaining 5 models were ranked 3 stars or worse in the J.D. Power 2016 Initial Quality study. That said, here’s what their CEO, Phong Ly, had to say about the findings:

It’s important to note that a car with an average or even lower quality ranking doesn’t mean it is a “lemon,” but instead is a reflection that it is not meeting consumer expectations.Frequently, these aren’t really “problems” at all, but are consumers who are having trouble with technology, such as Bluetooth pairing, voice recognition or the navigation or audio systems. In reality, these systems are often just not operating as expected or as intuitively as they could be.


It might be useful information if you’re in the market for a gently used car. They also calculated the average discount bargain shoppers can expect to see in each of these 11 cars. Check it out in the table below.

