Being new, I've been poking around the site and noticed the Reading List doesn't have very many new (post 2002) articles. Here's one that was on MSN today that may be of interest (note the third highest in residual value):

Auto Depreciation

 

MINI did good. I noticed the auto issue of Consumer Reports has MINI in it's list of used cars to avoid, both the 02 & 03 models. Hope this doesn't eventually hurt the residual value.


R.E.

 

>>MINI did good. I noticed the auto issue of Consumer Reports has MINI in it's list of used cars to avoid, both the 02 & 03 models. Hope this doesn't eventually hurt the residual value.
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>>R.E.

Consider the source R.E.! Consumer Reports loves econoboxes that are utilitarian in nature, but hates anything with a soul... People buying MINIs want a vehicle that's well crafted, yes, but they also want something more; something that CR has no idea how to test, and wouldn't recognize if it bit them on the @ss! I don't think the MINI's resale value will be hurt by CR's 'rating.' We're not their target audience.

 

The MINI's poor reliability will result in plunging values as soon as the warranty period is up.

It's one thing to be annoyed by a problem and have the dealer eventually take care of it under warranty.

It's quite another to have to keep paying for repairs out of pocket after the warranty expires. Word quickly gets around and resale values suffer...

I think that's why cars having the highest reliability figures (eg, Lexus, Toyota, Honda) tend to have the highest resale values.

Of course, great reliability is no guarantee of high resale value -- Porsches are very reliable but have lately had horrible resale values because of extreme over-production.