Study: Which Car Models Do Owners Keep for 10 Years or More?

A few billion years from now the sun will swell up, engulf the Earth with its plasmatic mass, and the only evidence of our existence will be a handful of fully operational Japanese cars from the late 1990s.

You probably don’t even need model names, as you’re already imagining them cruising down the street or parked in a neighbor’s driveway. They’re bland, extremely common cars in perplexingly good condition because someone continues to love them.

Now, a new study has shown which car models owners tend to hold on to for longer than ten years. Researchers from iSeeCars.com analyzed over 2.5 million vehicles from the 1981-2006 model years sold in 2016. Ten models were over 1.9 times more likely than average to be held onto by the original owner for better than ten years. While I’m positive you could correctly guess the automakers behind those vehicles, I’m unsure whether you could do the same with the model names.

The list includes four brand names you might have expected: Toyota, Lexus, Honda, and Subaru. The percentage of initial owners who kept their new car for more than a decade ranged between 4.0 percent and 32.1 percent.

“The top ten cars that people hold onto are all from Japanese automakers, which isn’t surprising since they have a reputation for reliability. But the makeup of the cars is unexpected,” said Phong Ly, CEO of iSeeCars, in reference to the SUVs and minivans. “These kinds of cars tend to be used as family cars, so they might be expected to be kept for many years if they’re bought just as their owners start their new families.”

Seeing hybrids on the list is also a little surprising, especially considering early concerns about the longevity of batteries. However, the cost benefits of enhanced economy doesn’t begin to take shape until an owner has racked up many miles on the odometer. “For hybrids, the savings from fuel costs accrue only after several years of ownership, so one reason owners may be keeping these vehicles is to offset the higher cost of a hybrid,” Ly said.

Missing from the list were some of North America’s most popular vehicles. Of those, the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord stayed with the most owners the longest. The Honda Civic was, unsurprisingly, also above the national average, while Chevrolet’s Silverado 1500 was the only domestic vehicle to do so.

The percentage of initial owners of the other two popular pickups trucks were closer to — or just below — average. This could potentially be attributed to their common role as working vehicles, subjecting them to more abuse in their lifetime. However, it doesn’t explain the Silverado’s slightly superior staying power.

At the bottom of the list was a sea of commonly leased autos and domestic cars popular with fleets. Obviously, these markets don’t have much use for a decade-old vehicle and would have seen those cars change hands at least once already. The Ford Taurus only saw 5.6 percent if its ownership sticking around for the full ten years, while the frequently leased BMW 7 Series topped out at 4 percent.

Japanese brands take up the largest share of cars that owners hold onto for a decade or longer, with Korea trailing behind. GMC was the only American brand to make the top ten, though the percentage of original buyers keeping them was only slightly above average.

[Image: Manoj Prasad/ Flickr ( CC BY-SA 2.0)]