Best bang for your buck
You can buy a car with your head or your heart, but it’s always best to have some solid statistics to back up your decision.
That’s the philosophy behind the Best Value in Canada awards, announced this week for the fourth year by Vincentric, an automotive data compilation and analysis firm based in Michigan.
Toyota is the big winner for overall best value in passenger vehicles, with its premium brand Lexus named overall best value for luxury vehicles. Ram provides best value in trucks.
Vincentric measured the true cost of ownership for every new vehicle sold in Canada as preparation for the awards. It did the same for the United States, where Toyota and Lexus also won, but Chevrolet took home the honour for trucks.
Eight different cost factors were analyzed: depreciation, fees and taxes, financing, fuel consumption, insurance, maintenance, repairs and even the opportunity cost of not investing your money elsewhere. Costs were evaluated for all 10 provinces and the Northwest Territories.
The overall winners were determined by which brands won the most of the 42 vehicle segments.
Toyota won seven segments, while Lexus won four and Scion won one. Honda won four, while Audi and Kia each won three. BMW, Hyundai and Nissan won none.
Six vehicles placed best in their seg- ment for the fourth year in a row, including four Toyotas: Toyota Avalon (large sedan), Toyota Highlander Hybrid (crossover hybrid), Toyota Sequoia (large SUV), Toyota Tacoma (mid-size pickup), Volkswagen Golf Sportswagon (wagon), and Honda CR-V (mid-level compact crossover).
Ram won two of the four truck segments for its three-quarter-ton and one-ton trucks, while Ford won the half-ton award for its F-150.
“It’s always close; it’s a super-competitive marketplace,” said David Wurster, president of Vincentric.
However, while there were many similarities between the Canadian and American marketplaces, about two of every three segment winners were different between the two countries. This is mostly due to models having different forecast depreciation rates, reflecting different national tastes. Canada has a stronger market for four-wheel-drive vehicles and trucks, said Wurster.
The awards serve as cold, hard stats to help back up what is often an emotional buying decision.
“You have to like something (to start with), you have to love it, if you’re going to spend anywhere from $12,000 to $200,000,” said Wurster. “But you should also be a little bit smart about this and take a look at that vehicle you like so much and compare it with some reasonable alternatives. It doesn’t have to be the lowest cost to own to purchase it, but you don’t want to be blowing money when you don’t need to.”